Sweet Scents
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Rooms should not only look good but should also smell good. Aside from burning aromatic oils or floral incense and using potpourri one can have fragrant cut flowers. Not only are fresh flowers decorative in themselves, they add a special touch to a room. Some fragrant flowers are so evocative of special memories, of places or of a season.

Since living in the Manila, I have had the opportunity to use local flowers to perfume my place. Some flowers I buy in the market while others are gathered in the field when I travel in the country or in our own courtyard.

Right: The Sampaguita, the national flower of the Philippines, is just one variety of Jasminum Sambac. Here, in a small hand-made ceramic container, I arranged small twigs of Sampaguita with opened flowers and buds. The flowers when fully opened like this have lost some of their fragrance. They could last for a day before falling off from the twig while the buds remain and continue to mature.

Below: During the dry and hot summer months, the Sampaguita plant blooms profusely. I gather the flower buds in the morning and float them in water on a shallow dish. It is important to pluck only the mature buds and to detach their peduncle and receptacle so they will open easily.

Above: By sundown, the buds begin to open and float like small lotuses. With just the right amount of water, the half-opened flowers stay afloat. This is when the scent of the flowers are most intense. After a day, they turn brown and I collect them to dry as material for potpourri.

Above: The Azucena is a night-blooming plant thought to be native to Mexico. Here, in an altar-like setting, the bronze Thai meditating Buddha is flanked by a pair of small glass vases with double-petal Azucenas. The “double pearl” variety holds up better as cut flowers and the fragrance is less heady than the single variety. Behind the icon is a composition of Buddhist amulets that I arranged on a white canvass.

Above: The problem with single-petal Azucena is that flowers and buds don't stay long on the stems. However, when they fall off from the stem, I collect them as they are still usable. Azucenas is one flower that continue to produce and exhale perfume long after they are detached from the stem. Here, they are arranged in a glass jigger still emitting their unique fragrance.

A casual arrangement of single-petal Azucenas, together with Roses and Snap Dragons in a clear cylindrical glass vase. The colors of the flowers stand out against the brown color of the Chinese painting. Azucenas in the Philippines have ghostly or funeral association but I don't think that way. I think the fragrance of Tuberose is very special.

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[Fore Front] [Challenges: Changes] [An Assignment] [Malate, Manila] [Fleur Feast] [Color Coordinates] [Lively Lines] [Refreshing Reprise]
[Table Tops] [Sweet Scents] [Prosperity Pillar]
Diversions [Flowering Frisco] [Buddhist Banahaw] [My Mahayhay] [Sign Guest Book] [Read Guest Book]

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