Experiments in flower arranging

My mother and father in-law are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in October.  Quite a milestone.  In preparation for the party that will be held in their honor I had a milestone of my own yesterday, I went to the flower mart for the first time.   That is one of the things that I love about Los Angeles, I have lived here off and on for most of my life but there are still so many new things to discover here.  There are entire worlds going on that I know nothing about.

 

In the downtown area of Los Angeles alone we have the flower district, fashion district, toy district, jewelry district, Chinatown and Koreatown.  Each of these is it's own world, with its own culture and way of operating.  Discovering all of the cultures and worlds that coexist within this one place could be anyone's life work.  I am continually amazed at how much of this city I still have not seen and known after all of these years of being here.  

It is easy to get comfortable in our little part of the world and not venture beyond its borders.  We can surround ourselves with people who think and act and eat like we do, and begin to think that is what the world is supposed to look like.  As much as I like to have the comfort of the familiar I also love the challenge of the unfamiliar, of stretching my comfort zones.  This I think is the strength of having stability, it allows us the freedom to explore new worlds knowing we have our safe nest to come back to.

My new world this weekend was the LA flower mart, I took a couple of friends with me who spoke the language and we made an adventure of it.  I wanted to do an exploratory mission to familiarize myself with the area before the big event.  It was an amazing place, filled with every kind of flower and plant you can imagine.  The mart itself is surrounded by small florist shops who are all trying to get your business.  An arrangement that would cost well over a hundred near my home was half the price there.  I was able to go and pick out flowers and then have them make a sample of what I wanted.  I used that sample to come home and work out an arrangement and then  figure out what flowers we will need to buy.   The photos above are two of my attempts at making arrangements out of the flowers I bought.  We finally settled on a third version as the one we will do for the party.  I will be going back to the flower mart to purchase all of the flowers and then  have a centerpiece party to make all the arrangements the day of the party.  

All of this comes from asking some  friends  to introduce me to a world I knew nothing about.  Thanks Cindy and Angie, I had a blast!

Who knows what the next world is that I will discover right here in Los Angeles.