All has not been sunshine and happiness at Five Row recently. 100 of our cosmos plants developed root rot and have pretty much all died. They were such a sight in their glory; 6 ft tall, with so many blooms it was almost a bore! Root rot is irreversible but I tried to contain it, …
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flower farm news flash
We had our first harvest this week! We cut all white cosmos including this one above that thinks it’s a dress designed by Issey Miyake. We’ve had stellar luck with regular rain, which has been key because it turns out you are supposed to put landscape fabric down after the irrigation tubing. More on that later….
Slow Flowers
We are living the dream of starting our own flower farm this year. We’ve been growing flowers for ourselves at the Chicago Honey Co-op for a while but this is a whole new scale. Successful farming necessitates super-human amounts of savvy, physical endurance and years of dedication, but our primary aim is just to make …
Robin Hood Inspired
New kids in town, MatchMade Events chose us to purvey the flowers for their clever Robin Hood concept shoot at the stunning Bishop’s Hall bed and breakfast in Oak Park last fall. I went for a druidic vibe for the bouquet with cascading ferns and cyclamen. Photo by the brilliant Chad Husar. Cafe au lait …
Now forager
Had the great good luck to spend Thanksgiving in the U.P. at a family friend’s 500 acre farm near the wilds of Escanaba. The landscape was so staggeringly gorgeous I was afraid I’d drive the car off the road. An orchard of frozen apples, a field of dried sunflowers, wild clematis puffs…all miraculous to my …
Anemone Holiday at The Shedd Aquarium
This holiday party was held in a special boardroom at the Shedd Aquarium, which juts out on to the lake and affords the most amazing views. It is replete with an aquarium featuring a dizzying array of sea anemone. These “marine ornamentals” are named for the terrestrial flower just now coming into season. My favorite was …
Venue Six Ten/ Spertus Museum
‘Mitzvahs are totally the most fun parties, both to design and to attend. I’m not afraid to say my social life peaked in 7th grade- those we THE BEST PARTIES EVER! It’s such an honor and a stellar mission to impress pre-teens today- and what with the helium cliff and all we almost had to …
Chrysanthemum redux
Carnations made a such a big comeback in the early 2000s New York flower scene that Vogue ran almost monthly editorials heralding the news, with gorgeous bowls of them priced at $300 and stars in the field bitterly feuding over who was responsible for their redux Now the show stopping chrysanthemum is officially back. ( Joy! …
Saturday at Peggy Notabeart Nature Museum
Bringing honey to the Green City market with our dear friends from the Chicago Honey Co-op last weekend, my hustle went something like this: “Have you tried the summer honey from the Chicago Honey Co-op? We are the most local vendor at the green city market, with hives in Humboldt Park, Back of the Yards and …
breakfast in the city
We did an early morning breakfast at the New Modern Wing yesterday. Getting to the loading dock through labyrinthine lower, lower, lower Wacker is always harrowing. However we found an abundance of metered parking there a mile below the city, courtesy of Laz, in case an army of apocalyptic zombies or C.H.U.D. need parking. Love …