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

In my study I avoided my irritating desk with its neat binders containing bar charts and statistical tables and sat motionless in the leather chair, looking out the window at the leaves of hydrangea bushes.

NEWYORKER: History of a Disturbance