Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes. With a flexible spatula, remove strata to
Exclusively for Our State, Anna Passarelli used the tools of her trade — both stemmed and sharpened — to create interpretations of landscapes across North Carolina. [caption id="attachment_89060" align="alignleft" width="1500"]
Exclusively for Our State, Anna Passarelli used the tools of her trade — both stemmed and sharpened — to create interpretations of landscapes across North Carolina. [caption id="attachment_89060" align="alignleft" width="1500"]
Beautiful Botanicals: North Carolina Flower Arrangements
Raleigh floral designer Anna Passarelli translated winter scenes into the language of flowers. The result: breathtaking bouquets that celebrate the state’s beauty.
Exclusively for Our State, Anna Passarelli used the tools of her trade — both stemmed and sharpened — to create interpretations of landscapes across North Carolina.
Landscape photo by Scott Hotaling • Floral photo by Charles Brown photograph by Charles Brown
Max Patch Mountain // Hot Springs
In the frigid months of winter, the hues of blue give way to lavenders, grays, taupes, and golds, as freshly fallen snow stealthily claims the ridges, valleys, peaks, and forests of the Pisgah National Forest.
Mountain Mirror
Tinted peaks find a perfect pairing in purple gomphrena and lavender veronica, and what better than snow-on-the-mountain foliage to echo the frozen mounts? In a cherished piece of North Carolina pottery, white roses lend a soft, pillowy aspect of winter’s hush, but the diminutive spikes of grape hyacinths, which spring from bulbs the size of a pinky fingertip, speak of the spring to come.
Landscape photo by Ned Leary • Floral photo by Charles Brown photograph by Charles Brown
Edenton Bay // Edenton
A spectrum of sunrise casts the graceful landing
of Canada geese in silhouettes as dark as the bald cypress trees behind them. Calmed at dawn, the bay water temporarily ruffles and laps at ancient roots.
Bay Blooms
A bouquet of blues, silvers, and oranges is garlanded with ribbony silk strands custom dyed in Charlotte to match the flowers’ hues. A forager with a master’s degree in horticulture, Passarelli gathered the deep purple privet berries from the NC State University campus and the rusty-colored sedum from a friend’s garden. The state’s higher altitudes encourage the heavy, nodding heads of peachy dahlias, a fluffy contrast to the upright sternness of a cattail. Fitting, too, for the watery image opposite, is the eucalyptus species “moon lagoon.”
Landscape photo by Jimmy Wiilliams • Floral photo by Charles Brown photograph by Charles Brown
MacNair’s Country Acres // Raleigh
On 280 acres just minutes from downtown Raleigh, a pair of mares greet each other and the day, their coats unwitting mirrors of the moody gray fog and earthen brown fence.
Stablemates
What better to mirror horses than a boxy container made from weathered barn boards? Passarelli finds many plant species in backyards — her own and others’. Evidenced here by bursting bittersweet berries, cotton bolls, rose hips, and nandina leaves crowning roses named — what else, to match our equine theme? — Polo. The narrow-leaved Kay Parris magnolia leaves come from Weston Farms, breeder of specialty magnolias, and is a variety beloved for the rich, velvety brown on the leaves’ undersides.
Landscape photo by Tommy White • Floral photo by Charles Brown photograph by Charles Brown
Blue Ridge Parkway // Blowing Rock
Stark sentries, winter-bare trees on the Blue Ridge Parkway seem to encircle one another as protection against the season of snow. Their symmetrical beauty in a monochrome landscape speaks of endurance, and winter’s stillness.
Twinned Motifs
Coolly colored — but hardly cold — multi-petaled beauties of bursting peonies and roses are massed in a silver vessel. Here, too, find spiky, stalky, fall-blooming clematis and astilbe amid the silvery elegance of dusty miller and eucalyptus.
Landscape photo by Emily Chaplin • Floral photo by Charles Brown photograph by Charles Brown
Currituck Beach Lighthouse // Corolla
Creating a contrast in soft curves and defined perpendiculars, dawn gilds a dune in the far northeastern corner of the state. Like the sun, a landscape of sand and sea oats is both seasonless and timeless —unchanging, yet forever shifting.
Shoreside Echo
Creating a contrast in soft curves and defined perpendiculars, dawn gilds a dune in the far northeastern corner of the state. Like the sun, a landscape of sand and sea oats is both seasonless and timeless —unchanging, yet forever shifting.
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