Martha Stewart Shares Her Top Tips for Artful Floral Arrangements

Martha’s Flowers book cover. Photo: José Picayo

In keeping with everything she does, Martha Stewart has picked the perfect season, spring—most gardeners’ favorite time of year—to publish Martha’s Flowers: A Practical Guide to Growing, Gathering, and Enjoying (Clarkson Potter, $45). Written with Kevin Sharkey, this volume offers the practical and thorough expertise expected from the domestic style guru, while brimming with energy, bright ideas, and useful tips. These qualities are especially obvious in Stewart’s artful flower arrangements. Seemingly inspired by the lush, moody beauty of a Dutch still life, a grouping that contrasts single-petaled peonies’ robust allure with painterly parrot tulips is just one example. Such loveliness may seem all too fleeting, but Stewart, always at the ready with helpful advice, explains how to make your blooms last longer. Naturally. marthastewart.com

The long pergola stands along the carriage road leading up to Martha’s home in Katonah. Varieties of clematis plants include pale ‘Blue Angel’, star-shaped and striated ‘Parisienne’, and deep blue ‘Rhapsody’. Photo: Jose Picayo

A painterly arrangement by Martha Stewart from her new book, Martha’s Flowers. Photo: Frédéric Lagrange

Back cover image from Martha’s Flowers features varieties of freshly cut lilac boughs positioned in the back of a fully loaded Kawasaki Mule. Photo: Gabriela Herman

Naturalized daffodils at Martha’s Catitoe Farm her property in Katonah, NY. At the farm they are massed fairly close together in clusters of the same variety–about twenty varieties among three thousand daffodils. Photo: John Dolan

Inside the oak-paneled flower room at Martha’s Skylands property in Maine, several just-picked dahlia varieties along with snapdragons and scabies’s are stored in galvanized metal containers of water. Photo: Ngoc Min Ngo