Leslie Anne Jones
McClatchy Newspapers

Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News A tropical flower arrangement from Uptown Blossoms flower arranger Brian Dorow. Includes: eremurus, lilies, pincushion protea and oncidium orchid.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Last Valentine's Day, my roommate bought roses for his fiancee. We had three hours before she'd be home and no vase. So we began ransacking the cupboards for a substitute.

We're college students, so the closest we came to a vase was a pint glass _ it was that or the stew pot. When he plopped the flowers into the glass they scattered. The leaves and blossoms drooped over the rim _ unkempt and unimpressive.

My roommate, an accounting major whose compulsion for perfection is matched by his lack of artistic finesse, decided ripping the leaves off would make it less messy. I had my doubts but didn't protest.

The leaves went in the trash, the flowers went back in the pint glass. The weird, naked-stemmed result looked even less inspired, and my exasperated roommate worried he'd have to take a second trip to the florist.

We spent more than an hour chasing roses around the pint glass. But every way we leaned or spread them, they looked ghastly. He'd ruined a perfectly good bouquet, and I'd done nothing to stop him.

The final solution was a silver thermos that hid the barren stems _ not perfect, but it disguised the blunder and lent a sense of modernity, we told ourselves.

We gained an appreciation for floral design that day and came to terms with our own arranging ineptitude. And I decided to get help to save myself from future floral disasters.

THE PROFESSIONAL METHOD

My quest to unearth the secrets of floral design began with the pros. Walking into Uptown Blossoms in Anchorage is a bit like walking into a parallel world populated by petals and pistils both exotic and enticing.

There aren't any pre-made bouquets in the cooler, and I didn't spot a single daisy or carnation. I see bamboo and aspidistra, dancing lady orchids and pincushion proteas _ this is an art house.

"We feel flowers are very personal," said owner Carol Trout, whose aesthetic sensibility presides over Uptown style. "This is our canvas."

Trout had her hands full of orange roses and rosemary for an upcoming wedding. So she passed me to design manager and 35-year industry veteran Brian Dorow. He walked me through a tropical antherium arrangement and imparted floral wisdom along the way.

First off, bouquets are not created equal. It's like the steak house versus McDonald's, Dorow explained as he looped a spindly piece of bear grass over a shiny red blossom: As you must choose between rack of lamb and chicken McNuggets, so must you choose between grocery-store, ultra-packed daisy bunch and trio of anthurium, china berry and tea leaf _ both pleasing in their own right, but the latter is art.

And as one wouldn't dress in polyester bell-bottoms and floral tunic _ save for a costume party _ nor would a designer arrange in the rigid, architectural fashion of decades past. Ten years ago, much of the floral influence was European; today Asian minimalism and looser arrangements are in vogue.

The trend toward using fewer flowers means each blossom must be placed precisely. Height differentiation among flowers is key; it keeps a bowl or basket from resembling grandma's wallpaper.

Dorow used a bit of wire to hold a tea leaf curled in place. He added a couple sprigs of bright green China berries and a handful of moss to cover the flower foam. The result was masterful _ a plate-size piece of jungle wonderland. It made me glad Dorow would never see the thermos full of roses.

THE IKEBANA METHOD

After so much talk about Asian influence, I met with Nina Stehr, who has been studying ikebana, the Japanese floral art, for 15 years.

"Sorry I'm late!" I blurted when Stehr opened the door.

"That's all right," she said softly, making me realize I'd been shouting.

Stehr led me into her sunny kitchen nook and offered mint tea in a stoneware cup.

A row of porcelain figurines in kimono watched from Stehr's shelf as she gently placed purple chrysanthemums into the kenzan, a spiky platform in the vase that secures flowers upright.

"It's a matter of connecting one's own heart with the heart of the flower," Stehr said. "It's a spiritual path. ... It's really quite a commitment."

Ikebana traces its origins to floral offerings in Buddhist temples in the 15th century. The lines created by foliage and open space between stems is as important to Ikebana as the blossoms themselves.

Dynamic but subtle, ikebana is the pursuit of understated elegance. Excess foliage is removed, and some arrangement styles have specifications down to the degree a stem should lean. The trick is to avoid making it stiff and unnatural. Basically, it's harder than it looks.

She stood the chrysanthemum stems in a single line, as is the rule for a shoka arrangement. In shoka there are three components: shin, the tallest piece, which represents heaven; soe, which is Earth and about two-thirds the size of shin; and tai, which is man and about one-third the size of shin. Stehr snipped the stems to the proper heights and removed unnecessary leaves.

Stehr was explaining the ideal curvature of shoka when my cell phone began blaring its digital ditty _ breaking the cloud of serenity drawn up by Stehr's fingers amid the chrysanthemum stems. Suddenly I felt like a chicken McNugget at the steak house.

THE BACKYARD METHOD

The final leg of my journey took me to Verna Pratt. I don't have money to buy exotic flowers. And I don't have time for an ikebana class. If anyone knows what's possible with backyard blossoms, it's Pratt _ the author of three wildflower books, she started arranging at age 10.

Her garden begins in front, hugs the sides of her house and engulfs her backyard.

"I just said to heck with mowing," she said.

In a flower-arranging crisis, Pratt would be the optimal wingman. There are rules and conventions, yes, but Pratt understands the beauty of simplicity.

The first arrangement she showed me was a handful of wild roses and dogwood nested in a Turkish tea cup. For dinner parties, they go great with place settings, she said.

She also suggested spice jars, tin cans and cream pitchers. Turns out, pint glasses are the very wrong shape for flowers, especially without a flower frog (kenzan) or flower foam, to keep pieces in place. Without any aids, a container with a narrow neck is best.

Pratt had a handful of tips for getting the most out of backyard blooms: Flowers should be picked in the morning or at night; less heat means less wilting. Lupine and fireweed wither quickly, but singeing stems with a match or candle helps lock in water. Everything keeps better if the stems soak overnight in warm water.

She hasn't studied ikebana, but Pratt put slender iris and snap dragon on a kenzan in an oriental plate. There wasn't anything exotic in her vase arrangements _ but pointy columbine blossoms and Eskimo potato juxtaposed with soft purple geraniums provided plenty of nuance.

Pratt's kitchen table was laden with fireweed, lupine, purple chives, pink pussy toes _ a chromatic choir that sings the splendor of Alaska summer.

"It doesn't take much," she said.

I think about Stehr's 15 years of study and the shelf full of flower books Dorow told me he owns. The garden Pratt has spent the last three decades building, weeding and nourishing is visible from where we stand.

Maybe it doesn't take much for Pratt, but next time I walk by a bouquet, I'll give it more than a passing glance.

DESIGN TIPS FOR BEGINNERS

1. Put the tallest flower in first.

2. If you have a focal piece, put that in second. Usually, it should be lower and in front of the tallest piece.

3. Then fill in with the rest of your material.

4. For depth and dimension, make sure pieces have varying heights.

5. A standard rule for height: The arrangement above the rim should be one and a half times as tall as the container (an eight-inch vase would have a 20-inch arrangement and 12 inches showing).

6. Without a flower frog or flower foam, a vase with a narrow neck works best.

7. An arrangement should never look like it's about to fall over.

8. If working with multiple types of material, look for balance and contrast among textures and colors.

© 2007, Anchorage Daily News (Anchorage, Alaska).