Featuring the Red Anemone Coronaria

I just got my fix of the sun for the upcoming week - think I've been sitting in the sun for the past 3 hrs. I attempted reading 'A Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich ' a thin mint little book I bought at a second hand shop a number of years due to the encouragement of G. I swear I have read the first 20 pages multiple times and have never moved beyond that point.   Today was no exception.  Sadly, I was distracted by current day articles such as a piece about Lily Allen in this week's New Yorker.

I built my bouquet - (sigh, tadaa) all for something around $10. This is a mix of 3 kinds of flowers: two varieties of flowers bought yesterday and one from the backyard.

The featured red flowers are Red Anemones purchased at the Oakland market.  These flowers have some fun characteristics such as has wild flower appearance necklaced by a ring of small leaves below the head of the flower, and have an indigo-navy center.  The most interesting quality I have observed is - in the evening the flowers close up and then open up in the day.  I should have payed more attention to Science class in elementary school.  Tonight, I'm almost expecting them to either sing or hiss at me.

The 2 subtle clusters of purple flowers are Trachelium bought at 'The Meadow' in N. Oakland . My reasoning for buying these were 1) the guy who helped me out was nice enough to entertain my general flower questions for a good 10 min and 2) I was thinking the purple would bring out the indigo center of the red anemone.  I only bought 2 because it was $2 a stem. Final word about the Trachelium, note the stem is kind of a cool dark pewter color.

Fil kind of told me the 2 flowers were lackluster so - today I filled it out with a plant from the backyard that has a rough rosemary texture with little pink flowers.  We've got 4 bushes of these in our backyard.

I've got mixed feelings about this arrangement.  Those who truly know me - know me as one who embraces minimalism.  The bouquet is so not minimal!  It's got red, pink, purple! It's kind of a nightmare.