The Inspiration & The Marketman “Home” Version…

Lila Acheson Wallace and Dewitt Wallace were the amazing couple that created and grew the Reader’s Digest publishing empire. In the 1960’s and beyond, she and her husband became generous philanthropists with a soft spot for the arts and education. The Metropolitan Museum of New York was one of her favorite beneficiaries and one of her most unusual and stunning gifts was a permanent endowment that provided for fresh floral arrangements in the main lobby of the Metropolitan, presumably for as long as the funds lasted. If for eternity, I would guess that such a fund would have to be valued at say $3-4 million dollars or more today, in order to fund say an annual floral budget in the neighborhood of $150-200,000! Gosh, a PHP150 million fund for flowers? The cynic in me would say I could start several top quality schools with that kind of money, but the other side of my brain would be seriously in awe of this woman (and husband who made it on their own efforts), and gave away much of their wealth for the enjoyment and edification of millions of total strangers… At any rate, over the recent Thanksgiving holiday week in New York, the massive arrangement in the center of the lobby was the one pictured above, and the four alcoves nearby had matching and equally massive arrangements, below next two photos…

I am sure it is relatively rare, but not unheard of, that some palatial homes today still have weekly fresh floral arrangements in their entrance halls, main rooms, etc. It seems wasteful in a way, but I suppose that’s a matter of opinion. It all boils down to what you enjoy and what you can afford…

These arrangements above were of a massive scale, with branches, eucaplyptus, greens, hydrangeas, etc. From what I understand from a previous museum insider who was touring us that evening, the flowers are changed once a week (on Mondays when the museum is shuttered?) and so the flowers essentially have to be hardy and look good throughout the next 6 days…

Back at home, a combination of serendipity and curiosity led to this Marketman effort to create something similar, but on a smaller home scale… I happened to be at Waling-Waling looking for lilies when I ended up bringing home 6-7 foot long freshly delivered pussywillows and curly willow branches. I also had several bunches of fragrant eucaplyptus…

…which I combined with Dimasalang finds a couple of days later, giant deep purple milflores or hydrangeas, grown in the Mt. Province, purple and white lisianthus blooms and another flower whose name escapes me. They were all placed in an old ceramic garden plant holder.

The arrangement was placed on our Christmas candy or sweets bar…Most of this arrangement will keep for weeks, and you would have to replace only a few of the perishable flowers in order to keep this massive arrangement going through the Christmas holidays…