The Tower Chapel was crowded with tulip aficionados for the 11th Annual Tulip Exhibition at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. Agnes Kang’s “Tulips Galore” with its sprawling, acid green horizontal branch was a popular favorite. Photo by Barbara Newhall
By Barbara Falconer Newhall
It was chill winter in the Midwest, but thoroughly spring in the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this month when local floral designers, professional and amateur, demonstrated what a tulip can do — if you ask it nicely.
The event was the11th Annual Tulip Exhibition at the Tower Chapel of Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.
Howard J. Arendtson of H Julien Designs in nearby Berkeley, put his blossoms inside glass
“Bubblin’ Tulips” — tulip acrobatics by Howard J. Arendtson of H Julien Designs. Photo by Barbara Newhall
fish bowls. There, the succulent tulip stems curved obligingly, rounding themselves against the inside surfaces of the glass.
For her “Eruption,” Ellen Kim put extra long-stemmed flowers into a vase and let the stems stretch and explode into space. For her design, Susan Cohn clipped her stems short and tucked them into a flat container, which gave visitors an intimate view of the blossoms from above. And during a demonstration on Sunday, Agnes Kang showed how a flower arrangement can be held in place by poking stems through holes drilled through miniature logs.
For “Eruption,” Ellen Kim of Gingerleaf Floral in Oakland took advantage of tulip stems’ tendency to droop, curve and reach toward the light. Photo by Barbara NewhallSusan Cohn of Of Course I Can clipped stems short for her compact “Tulip Illumination” design, allowing viewers to see the blossoms from above. Photo by Barbara NewhallAgnes Kang of Piedmont Garden Club demonstrated how small, reusable logs with holes drilled through them can support stems in a flower arrangement. (And, no, those are not tulips.) Photo by Barbara NewhallStafford Buckley of Stafford Buckley Garden Restoration highlighted the iridescence of these pink petals by clustering them so that light could reflect back and forth between them. Photo by Barbara NewhallOf course, there’s nothing quite like a tulip that’s been allowed to sprawl open and show off its innards. These are from Orchard Nursery and Florist in Lafayette. Photo by Barbara Newhall
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