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"On Pressing Flowers"

by Chloe Dee Noble

On Pressing Flowers:

As a child I collected flowers and pressed them in old telephone books lined with paper towels and waxed papers.

When they dried, I moved them to shoe boxes with layers of makeshift shelves cut from cardboard.
Some days I would take out the dry petals and - with white glue that dried transparent - glue them in layers onto the clear glass panes of the windows in my bedroom. Not only did the windows look like stained glass – especially when the sun shone thru, but they were very nice to touch. I used to give my grandfather fits doing stuff like that around the house but he loved me anyway. Sometimes I would add so many layers of colored petals that the windows began to look like the rich brocade fabric one might find hanging in the Palace of Versailles near Paris, the city of lights and the city of my dreams – even as a little girl growing up in middle Georgia.

When I became friends with Mrs. Margaret Kelly, mother of Grace, the Philadelphia girl who became the princess, I learned more about pressing flowers. One summer when Grace brought her children over from Monaco to visit their grandmother, she showed me how she was able to make beautiful pictures by arranging the dried petals she collected from the garden. She would meticulously and patiently place them on sheets of paper, put them into her flower press – which I have now – and turn the screws to flatten the petals and relieve them from moisture. When completely dry, we would literally spend hours creating beautiful arrangements that could later be framed and preserved for many years. Faded flowers came alive and lasted for another year or two, or three.

Flower gardens are wonderful things. They go hand in hand with creativity and imagination. The same windows that I lined with colorful petals when closed were just as charming when opened. Each year, just after the last frost, I would plant rows of sweet peas directly underneath my bedroom windows. White cotton string from a base board behind the row of flowers would be strung to reach high above the windows. As summer arrived, little vines began to grow. Patiently, I would twist them around the supporting strings and by the time it was my birthday, the windows would be covered with a thick curtain of sweet peas.

At night, when I slid open the windows that were heavily embossed with dried flower petals, the open air would reveal to me the array of pastel colors, soft yellows, blush pinks, mauves and pale lavenders set against the rich yellow greens. Sweet smelling blooms offered a magical place to dream. Some nights as I lay on the down mattress while drifting off to sleep I would catch the warm glow of a firefly through the canopy of blooms and hear a sweet owl calling deep into the woods.

Pressed flowers and flower gardens go hand in hand with afternoon tea.

So, today, July 3, 2009 I am pressing all the flowers left over from several birthday bouquets.

There are two tiny white butterflies dancing underneath the twisted pomegranate tree, flirting with each other in some happy ritual. Here I sit at the picnic table in the back garden placing the petals into the Grace Kelly flower press. Delicious, this hot Ceylon tea from India sent to me by a friend. I’m munching freshly baked scones that are dripping with fresh butter and the delicious peach preserves sent to me all the way from Charleston, South Carolina.

Does it get any sweeter than that?

Happy summer to everyone,
X O Chloe