Flower Scout

That feeling when there are so many things to do that you can’t see which one to start with, and you’re spinning in circles, but everywhere you look there’s a little more beauty? You know? photo by @missfelic

Hello from Crocland where the weather is fine and the tulips shout hooray

Spring shelf / Winter shelf. HOT TIP: freshly cut daffodils secrete a sticky sap that will kill all other flowers in the vase, so always let them sit in water of their own for an hour or so before arranging them with other flowers, and dump that old water out. Or just appreciate the daffodils on their own, which is what I like to do. (It took many days of appreciating them outside before I finally decided to bring some in.)

Yesterday my van got hit pretty hard while parked outside the studio. I’m fine! But my mobile seedling house, mover-of-soil and of arrangements, carrier of my kid and a million other objects is out for some amount of time, really screwing everything up. That’s all, I’m just up in the middle of the night making to do lists and trying not to lose it.

I do not know how to take a pic of flowers anymore / I cannot be bothered BUT THESE ARE GOOD. They’re good! And you’ve gotta order your Easter delivery by 8 am tomorrow.

There are many ways to say I Love You. And anybody who says so by ordering something from Flower Scout will be entered to win a bandana and set of taper candles as additions to their VDay order. The little webshop will close at noon on Feb 10th, so you’ve got a bit of time left.

Help me reach my modest secret personal sales goal for Valentine’s Day, and if I surpass it I’ll be donating all the excess profit to @newsanctuarycoalition, because if anything says Love it’s keeping families together and extending asylum as a human right and never thinking of human beings as illegal ever again.

Thank you all, really really.

A memory against today’s anxieties: One time I went to place a gomphrena on a wedding cake and found a monarch’s gilded chrysalis hanging from the stem.

Deliveries feel great lately. Order yourself a bouquet for this Sunday - it’s better than bad take out! (Nothing is better than good take out.)

This pretty pic is here to inspire you to order yourself an arrangement for Xmas Eve; I’ll be delivering them for free within 5 miles, and each will be a bundle of candlelit joy. They’ll last a long time, they’ll smell good, and you don’t have to leave your house to get them. merry merry

I cut this snapdragon on thanksgiving, and she’s slowly swelling up to bloom. I also cut this spirea, and she’s making tiny new leaves. The holly is just holding steady - man do I love plants, and miss them all winter long.

Sorting seeds and making spreadsheets and counting seed trays and buying potting mix and counting the days to harvest already

These bandanas are shipping tomorrow - thank you to everyone who’s purchased so far! You know what’s a good big gift: A summer 2021 CSA Share, which comes with a bandana and guarantees 13 weeks of extraordinary Troy-grown blooms, greens, and herbs, plus extras like seeds, treats, and delightful newsletters if I do say so myself. It’s on the website for purchase now

Tried to get a model for the bandanas that arrived today, but we had creative differences. Watch for some much better pics in your inbox this weekend, if you get the Flower Scout newsletter (you can get it by scrolling to the bottom of the website and entering your address; it’s nice!)

My main human @p.s.hudson made these prints this summer, and I think they may make a nice gift for the poet pixie sweetheart dirty handed petal collector in your life! Lots of gifts rolling out on the website these days, link in bio

Just over here making wreaths and listening to Neil - it’s really a dream but I guess I have to sell these or be swallowed by a pile of greens SO here you go: link in bio! I’ll take special requests if you have them, just get @ me

Reaffirmed daily: The new studio was a really good decision - HEY order your thanksgiving bouquets by Sunday, ok?

Winter segue: starting small

Thanksgiving bouquets are for sale on my website, with free contactless delivery within 5 miles of the studio. Usually it’s a big holiday for my McCarthy family (hi guys miss you!) but we’ll be doing a tiny dinner at home this year, feeding the baby her first pie and calling it a night. I hope you’ll stay safe too, but send some flowers! Heck, send them to yourself, you deserve it.

Taught a class this morning, talking to a Brady Bunch configuration of sweet gardeners on my iPad and honoring all the dead and drying and still alive but coloring up autumnally pieces of my garden, which is to say pieces of me

Spoooooooky Halloween!

I’ve yet to figure out how my pruning, planting, raking, shrub-hauling life is as photogenic as my flower arranging life. Both are happening, until tomorrow night when all the flowers meet their maker

Garden Number One, October 23rd : all cleaned up, tulips planted, falling-down fence taken intentionally down, trash collected, compost piles filled to the brim and lots of ideas for 2021

Garden is slow but sure - if you want to order flowers before frost, better do it soon. DM me or check out the website to place an order.

Snuck away for a couple of days to let @p.s.hudson enter his fifth decade in the most autumny way. I bought an heirloom apple tree, Lila ate a donut and couldn’t sleep without her own crib, we stocked up on Vermont cider and soaked in a really good bathtub, screamed about the colors of trees, feasted at @moonwinkvt, returned home so satisfied.

Sometimes satisfaction

The Bulb Service is on sale until October 1, and when you purchase you’ll be entered to win a free CSA share next year! What you’ll get: 1. A site visit to determine where you want flowers, what specific kinds of bulbs will best suit, and what colors you’re attracted to. 2. Fifty beautiful handpicked bulbs planted into your landscape by yours truly and her trusty new spade. 3. The excitement and wonder of an early spring filled with blooms! Purchase on the website and message me with questions

A real mood in a real funfetti sweater

Flowers cut this morning for a wedding later today, plus a pumpkin I’d like to keep forever

It’s the last week of Summer CSA (and so it’s Garden Party Day, adapted of course for 2020). But I’m opening up a limited number of Fall CSA Shares, and so if you’re someone who wishes they’d signed up for summer, here’s your chance! Link in bio

Portrait of the aging gardener who, upon gazing into the lens, sees her own baby looking back at her

Reading about totipotency this morning; how some plant cells are prepared, in the event they’re needed, to start growing as any of the myriad parts of the plant roots, shoots, stem, etc. How I’d like to work on being totipotent, myself.

late summer special orders are RICH with color and variety. we’ve got zinnias, we’ve got snapdragons, sunflowers, strawflowers, celosia, coreopsis, calendula, cerinthe, gomphrena, dahlias, hydrangea, and on and on and on how wonderful! You can order right on the website, or message me for info. xo

Had to rearrange the studio to get this good light and I think I screwed up the vibe a little but this light though

Going on vacation was great, but lemme tell you about coming home to garden flannel weather (Taurus dreamstuff)

On brand for Week Seven of the CSA (PS dahlia psych - this is the only one and it’s for me, but GET READY bc here they come)

I don’t know, man

When you buy a hundred seed varieties it’s hard to know what July’s palette will look like, but here we are in musty sherbertland and I’m a fan

Every order gets filled from the garden this year. And the opportunity (the hundred opportunities!) to reorient toward goodness is a GIFT. Plus the flowers last a really long time. and they’re pretty.

With inspiration from my friend @d0nz0b0nzo, I commissioned a portrait of Lila for her first birthday; my poppy season baby is wilder than this would have you believe but isn’t it lovely? Thank you thank you @hannahringkamp

Today I listened to Krista Tippet talk a lot about ambiguous loss and yeah.

New haircut, new studio, new bouquet for new marriage using only new flowers from the newly water-able Flower Scout garden, little old me @ Flower Scout

Today I made bedside bouquets for my CSA, in addition to the usual handtied bundles, because I want everybody to sleep soundly + have sweet dreams. If you’re looking at this picture in your bed, hang up the phone right now sweetie and go look at something three dimensional or close your pretty eyes.

So much growing it’s giving me pains

I wish I could go back and tell myself that this rain would come, back when I was ripping at my hair and screaming in my car because all my plants were dying

old photo of a cool idea / pic by @michael_valiquette

First CSA of the year, last CSA ever at this studio. Yes, that’s right we’re moving, and it’s very bittersweet. I love this neighborhood, I love its various dogs, and I love waving at familiar strangers through these enormous windows. But the new studio is going to be so great, plus I already signed the lease so it’s happening and time marches onward etcetera. See you on Jefferson Street!

I’m really grateful to be stumbling into parenting with @p.s.hudson. On his and our babe’s behalf I’m contributing today to the Gofundme for the family of Edson Thevenin, an unarmed black man shot and killed by cops in Troy in 2016. He left behind two sons, aged 4 and 8 when he was killed. Click the link in my bio to send your financial support to them and their mom.

Driest summer of my northeastern memory

Just put together some garden flowers for someone whose absolute joy made me remember why I love doing itbecause it’s a gesture of love, of appreciation beyond ownership, of a thing that won’t last, that can’t last, that resists usefulness and is rich with no importance whatsoever. Man I love it. I’m teaching a workshop about it on Friday, via Zoom over at @berkshirebotanicalgarden please check out their website to sign up!

When the lens is covered in dirt but so are you

I don’t feel like selling things lately, or like bustling around organizing orders. I feel like being out in this rain, watching plants drink it up, swimming my mind in some rose petals. All of that is just to say it’s so good to have a break this season and to appreciate one flower at a time, one conversation at a time, one breath at a time. And to peel some money from my savings to give to the movement for black lives. If you don’t know where to give your money, I can help with some ideas. And I do have flowers, more than ever perhaps, so let me know if you need a bouquet and I’ll make you a good one, with all of this quiet appreciative energy behind it.

Thank you to everybody who continues to support Justice for Dahmeek including yesterday’s historic, powerful and healing Rally for Black Lives in Troy, NY. ... We have so much more coming for you in the days ahead and right now are welcoming donations to support our work. The #TroyRallyforBlackLives was organized by a small team on a shoestring budget, requiring thousands of hours of work to vision, mobilize, and organize. Please share and help us affirm Black Life in this city! #justiceforDahmeek #troyforBlacklives #Blacklivesmatter #troyrallyforBlacklives

Hey Troy - see you Sunday at 2 pm downtown

The link is in my profile

in love and rage

1. White iris // 2. Photocopied Philip Whalen poem ft. a white iris that fell out of an old notebook the other day // 3. Photo of Whalen (& Kali?) that I was gifted by a long-lost friend who lived with him at @sanfranciscozencenter

Still selling Saturday & Sunday bouquets, with ever-increasing ingredients from the garden. Your purchase of a bouquet or container garden or garden consultation keeps this business solvent, and gives me someplace to put all this mint and hyssop I’m growing. It’s outta control

How is it already the moment when I hide in the garden shed to get out of the sun, and I hunt for sunny corners to plant dahlias because the beds are all filled, and the weeds spring up just faster than I can grab them, how

A Memorial Day color story

This is my kitchen compost. Order flowers today for a Saturday pickup or Sunday delivery! How’s that for a non sequitur.

I go all maximalist when the garden starts giving it up. THANK YOU GARDEN, you little beast you

Back atcha this weekend with Sunday deliveries and SATURDAY PICKUPS too! For preorder and possssibly drop-in sales out in front of the studio, and with at least a few small guys also available at @superior_merch. Visit the link to preorder yours before Wednesday night.