New Year's Eve in Eden
Enjoying the final calendar day at Longwood Gardens
in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania whetted my appetite for March when the
Philadelphia Flower Show is due to arrive. Meandering the Garden’s conservatory
and its connecting buildings of flora, oxidized my eyes as I visually breathed in
beauty, digesting it to energize my novel in progress.
A florist’s business is key to my book, and may wind
up taking on a character role in itself. Those botanical displays I ogled at
Longwood tripped ideas to realistically depict the fictitious shop’s setting.
A living wreath made of succulents might advertise a
southwestern holiday take for the florist shop’s non-traditional customer who
is nostalgic for warmer weather. That unorthodox item could also attract the
upscale clientele who walk into Black-Eyed Sioux’s Florist Shop in my fictional
city neighborhood that is making a turn for the better.
My main character, Aubrie, might notice powder puff
trees on a poster that Sioux has hung in the back of the shop. Those trees will
probably ignite Aubrie’s childhood love of stories by bringing to mind “The
Lorax” by Dr. Seuss with its fuzzy Truffula Trees. Maybe the real blooming tufts
are what inspired Theodore Geisel’s creativity.
Of course, to educate Aubrie in botany, I must
educate myself. Longwood and PFS are fun ways to do this. I’m sure the many
visitors to these gardening extravaganzas, like myself, bring their individual
imaginations to these heavenly visions, and go home inspired too.
