In our first garden on 3rd and M street in NW we grew zinnias, cosmos and nastursium. This was the garden of chefs and not yet florists. That is to say that the Nasturtiums, although delicious, were always destroyed by aphids, the Cosmos were gorgeous in the wildness but hard to use or keep alive in large arrangements and Zinnias a flower a Rupperts' guest once described as earnest always seem to burn up so early in the hot DC summers. When we closed Rupperts I ventured out into the Flower business–doing flowers for the Georgetown boutique Relish as well as many other public and private clients. Needless to say our garden adapted to new needs and when we moved to 6th street the description of an earnest flower stuck with us. And in our most recent iteration of 'earnest' we have been experimenting with DAISIES. We have grown different types of Shasta daisies but have had the most success the varieties Becky and Snowcap. We find it difficult to cut these Flowers when they begin to bloom in June and turn our backyard into a wild meadow–but alas the more we cut the more grow and more importantly fresh cut, they contribute generously to my work as a florist. Also because of a recent daisy blight it is pretty much impossible to get these daisies unless you grow them yourself.
I recently did a Wedding for gardeners where I used blooming pea shoots, herbs and of course big bunches of Daisies– I found creating for gardeners incredibly intimidating, much more than creating for other florists or cooking for chefs... I later received an e-mail saying how wonderful everything was and how they appreciated the time put into the project... Gardening or growing anything is just about as earnest as it gets... To have an abundance of Daisies is a very fortunate thing...
