If you came here for our FLORAL FRIDAY via Shirley, Pam or Mary, WELCOME! I am so happy to have you join us on this 1st Floral Friday in August.
We are all sharing floral arrangements with the queens of summer flowers, SUNFLOWERS today. Please be sure to visit all my friends for beautiful inspiration - I'll share the links at the bottom of this post.
In this post, I'm sharing a very easy arrangement of two types of sunflowers mixed with greens and presented in an antique French confit pot.
Sunflowers, or Helianthus come in at least 70 different species! Their name comes from their likeness to the sun, with the large flower head surrounded by their enchanting array of petals. Sunflowers instantly lift the spirits of any room in your home, don't they?
Standing in a fleld of sunflowers in Provence is magical, the sight is intoxicating. When those sunflowers are planted in fields alongside fragrant lavender such as in the fields of Valensole, it's spellbinding!
Sunflowers are always happy, with their bright cheerful golden or chocolate faces framed by yellow petals.
I'll be honest with you, I am not a huge fan of yellow. {Don't hate me!} Usually the flowers I choose for our FrenchGardenHouse are much more subtle in color. But in the hot summer month of August, sunflowers just seem right somehow.
The cheery form and color of sunflowers make your rooms feel like they are flooded with bright, beautiful sunshine.
And their rich, golden hues combine beautifully with the French Country antiques we love.
For this arrangement, I chose two different kinds of sunflowers, one with golden yellow centers, the other with deep, dark rich chocolate centers. The sprigs of green are cuttings from the back garden, when I can, I use what I can "glean" from the gardens.
The confit pots are new arrivals from France, I always adore the wear and missing glaze on the old, old pots used so long ago. For me, the more wear the better, this really shows their history, doesn't it?
I echoed the sunflowers by placing a few of them in the antique French body pitcher on the small side table next to our "new" leopard" chairs. Mr. FrenchGardenHouse is still not a fan of those, but me? I fell head-over-heels in love with them on sight. I just need to have some time to work them into the whole scheme of things here at home.
If you follow me on Instagram, you may know that our daughter married her prince this past weekend. I'm hoping to share a few photos of the wedding soon, for once, I didn't take my own photos, just put away the camera to soak in every wonderful minute of the day and evening.
It's a busy, busy time here, at your house too? Our little people are due to arrive for a few days of fun tomorrow, I'm working on fall and holiday collections, shipments are arriving from market as well as France...all very exciting!
I don't have much time to fuss with flowers, so I'm very happy with my easy to make floral arrangement right now.
When the sunflowers start to droop a little, I'll move them {water and all} to the sideboard in the kitchen to let them dry. Once the water is all gone, they should be dried to perfection, ready to use in the fall in displays and potpourris.
Be sure to visit my friends by clicking on their name links:
SHIRLEY at Housepitality Designs
MARY at Home Is Where The Boat Is
Do you adore yellow? Sunflowers? Love the way they look in summer?
à bientôt
27 comments
Your arrangement brought back memories of when were stationed in Germany (the Schwabisch Hall area) and summer there. Fields of sunflowers were lovely to see. And although not cultivated (I think), there was an open area next to us that was a mass of buttercups. I used to pick masses of them and put them in a crystal vase and they looked wonderful!
Thank you for such a nice posting.
Lidy: I am catching up with reading this morning and do forgive my tardiness. Your post is lovely and the sunflowers in the Confit pot is wonderful. I agree that sunflowers are such happy flowers. They add much in the garden or to any room they may be placed.
Love the leopard chairs!
Thank you so much, Janice, the bride was radiant. Your kitchen sounds so beautiful, and so French Country! I’m sure I would love it.
Hi Lidy,
I love Sunflowes, and have been to Provence and seen both Sunflower and Lavender fields. What amazing
color. I decided to do my kitchen in a Provence theme, and wallpapered the walls in a sunflower yellow, with a border of sunflowers and lavender bouquets displayed in Provence Pottery. I also had some Provence pottery and linens, sent back to the States from my trip, but I didn’t see the Confit pots while I was there. My pottery is a beautiful gold color, and I do display some sunflowers, tall cinnamon sticks, and olive branches in the pottery. I also have some colorful roosters, and a French Gardening boot filled with sheaves of wheat. I love my Provence kitchen. It is bright and cheerful.
Hope your daughters wedding was a wonderful event, and that everyone had a fabulous time, especially the bride.
I planted sunflowers for the first time this year. I love love them. Easy to grow and the amount of bees and variety of birds it attacks give hours of peering out the window. Them truly do bring a smile to your face when you look at them.
Lidy,
Yellow is not my favorite color either, along with any of the citrus colors (orange, lime green…), but I am spellbound when I see a cultivated field of sunflowers growing with their faces in unison tilted toward the sun. After seeing large fields of them in Provence, I spotted a large field in Texas. We stopped and photographed the ones in Provence and in Texas. The past couple of weeks I saw clumps of wild sunflowers growing in disturbed areas around large construction sites near my house in Texas. I think I will go foraging and gather some of the wild sunflowers for my weathered pine dining table.
Thanks for the inspiration,
Judith
Rita, whether gardening or arranging flowers, I agree with you that en masse makes a bigger impact! I love fields filled with sunflowers, they look so happy, and so right, somehow, don’t they? I’m letting Mr. FGH know you personally said that yellow looks good with leopard. {I think pretty much everything looks great with leopard!!} Happy weekend wishes for you friend. xo
Lidy, I always say the same thing in landscape gardening… planting en masse makes such a better visual impact, and you’ve done that beautifully with the sunflowers in the confit pot. I think of pairing yellow and purple in the springtime, mostly with pansies and then daffodils with hyacinths, then irises. But this look is a more sundrenched coloring of yellow and purple with the sunflowers and lavender, and I quite like it!
When we traveled across the US a couple years ago, we passed fields and fields of sunflowers throughout South Dakota, grown commercially. They were gorgeous! Yellow is a color I do like (no hate from me), so this week’s arrangement was appealing for me personally. And hey, it looks really BN good with leopard. ?
I, also am not a fan of yellow, but I would give my eye teeth to find a mustard hued confit pot! Loved everything in your Post! Will now follow your talented self~.
Mary, they are a mood lifter, aren’t they? Their happy big faces framed by those yellow “rays” are so sunny. It’s always a treat to join you Mary, on our special Floral Fridays. xoxo