It was a pagan desire, she thought, and it was a pagan place: a dark garden of yews and straggling roses and, at its center, the stone church, with its altar and its font and, above it all, the bells, suspended in the chill air of the belfry, heavy and still, waiting to be brought to life.

NEWYORKER: The Bell Ringer

Large jugs, filled with garden roses, are good on tables, as is a big dish holding a generous pile of Santa Maria Novella potpourri (which I feel no room is complete without).

WSJ: Mastering the Layered Look | Living Well

Table settings included Colonial-style silverware and, for a contrasting sense of playfulness, loose bouquets of American flowers, reminiscent of the prairie white garden roses, blue hydrangea, star-shaped tweedia, thistle.

WSJ: Remco van Vliet, the Master Builder of Towers of Flowers | Creating