Spring Blooms Inspire Hope and Color After Winter’s Chill
After the long winter, spring’s earliest florals inspire hopeful anticipation for the bright, warmer months ahead.
A Schumacher wallcovering sheathes the wall behind an antique Biedermeier chest. Ebony candle holders and the vintage silver planter are from Elizabeth Home. The floral arrangement includes parrot tulips, poppies, clematis, David Austin roses, sweet peas, and hellebore. / Floral design by Jennifer Figge / Photo by Sarah Winchester
Nothing Gold Can Stay
By Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
For this shoot, floral designer Jennifer Figge and photographer Sarah Winchester sought inspiration from the above poem by Robert Frost, who moved to Massachusetts as a child and lived as an adult in Beacon Hill for many years. How fortunate are we to live in New England, where only because of our cold winters can we enjoy the benefits of bulbs in spring! After sleeping all winter, spring’s first blooms are often bulbs, peeking up through the frozen ground—a bright and colorful reminder of warmer days ahead.
Each arrangement—set against patterned backdrops crafted by local fabric houses— showcases a variety of beautiful bulb flowers, from the happy daffodil and classic tulip to the fragrant muscari hyacinth. Most of the blooms arrived directly flown from Holland on the morning of the shoot, as the photos were taken in the middle of January when our native bulbs were still covered in snow.
A Mally Skok wallcovering is paired with an embroidered Christopher Farr Cloth fabric to set the tone for this combination of tulips and daffodils. / Floral design by Jennifer Figge / Photo by Sarah Winchester
A Kit Kemp fabric is set against a Benjamin Moore “Brittany Blue”–painted background. Flowers include butterfly ranunculus daffodils, tulips, and muscari. / Floral design by Jennifer Figge / Photo by Sarah Winchester
This Christopher Farr Cloth fabric was designed in collaboration with Véronique de Soultrait. The floral arrangement includes tulips, muscari, ranunculus, and Queen Anne’s lace. / Floral design by Jennifer Figge / Photo by Sarah Winchester
A vibrant display of daffodils, tulips, hellebore, and ranunculus is set atop Sister Parish fabric. Objects in the background include an antique captain’s-chest lid, brass harpoon-shaped oyster forks, and a Victorian shell box, all found at the Antiques Depot in Nantucket, and an antique French oyster plate from Weston Table. / Floral design by Jennifer Figge / Photo by Sarah Winchester
First published in the print edition of Boston Home’s Spring 2025 issue, with the headline, “First Blooms.”
