A beautiful friend of mine told me that she was planning a birthday party. This birthday party was to be held in honor of one of her favorite people, and one of mine as well, Jane Austen.

Jane Austen was born December 16, 1775 in Hampshire, England. Most of us know her as the author of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and all her other excellent novels. Her books have caused much swooning over nearly-perfect gentlemen such as Mr. Darcy and Mr. Knightly, as well as many aspirations to be a ‘truly accomplished’ young lady, or at least to marry rich. The best part of dear Miss Austen’s writing (in my own, unqualified opinion) is her sense of humor. She pokes fun at nearly every type of person one could know. I usually find myself laughing out loud at her tongue-in-cheek descriptions of her more minor characters, both their flaws and virtues. Her protagonists, of course,  have much more serious vices, and all the greater virtues upon overcoming them. In fact, if you have the pleasure of reading her juvenilia writing, you will see that this seriousness was much needed in order for her to be taken seriously at all! While those writings are absolutely hilarious, they do lack the depth of her later works….

Oh! Listen to me prattling on! You don’t care about my AP English essay on the writings of Jane Austen! So what does all this have to do with flowers?

Well, this lovely friend commissioned me to do a flower arrangement in honor of Miss Austen on the occasion of her birthday. I first had to think of England and the feeling of the plants and flowers there. It is a very distinct and almost tangible feeling.

English Garden Roses, Hydrangea, Heather, Ivy and Primroses were the first to come to mind. But when I got to my flower supplier’s warehouse, the Hydrangeas were the ones that seemed to be doing a dance and calling at me to choose them. They were so full and gorgeous! I couldn’t resist. A little bit of unopened Waxflower provided the same feeling of looking across hills of Heather on the Yorkshire Moors. Ivy called to mind a small English countryside cottage, covered with the stuff, and of course those darling pink spray roses just felt downright Austenian to me. (Think flowers in Lizzie Bennet’s hair in the A&E P&P.) This is what came of all this pining for England:

After completing the arrangement and before the party started, I met photographer Andy Page for a little photo shoot. He took some great pictures of the flowers and even sacrificed bodily comfort by laying down in the snow to get some good shots!

This post is entirely too long, but I do hope you enjoy the pictures! (They are definitely worth more than the almost-thousand words here!)