Guests view the floral arrangement titled “Cherry Blossom Celebration,” designed by Oregon florists Jeri Barr and Carolyn Catron, at the Painted Boat in Misty Rain pavilion at Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland, Oregon, on Nov. 3, 2023. Lawn is the Chrysanthemum Festival from November 3 to 19, 2023, adding evening viewing sessions from November 3 to 5.
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Portland florist Kim Foren’s “Into the Crimson Moonlight” floral arrangement sits on the lake and in a pavilion at Lan Su Chinese Garden.
Winston Szeto / OPB
“Chrysanthemum Alchemy,” a floral installation designed by Oregon florist Alana MacWhorter, is located in a window of the researcher’s home in the Lan Su Chinese Garden.
Winston Szeto / OPB
“Farmer’s Baskets,” a floral installation designed by Oregon florist Thang Ngo, is on display in the Brocade Cloud Room at Lan Su Chinese Garden.
Winston Szeto / OPB
Award-winning Canadian floral designer Donald Yim doesn’t just see chrysanthemums as a hardy flower that he’s used during his three-decade career. They hold a special position at its center because of their upbringing in Hong Kong.
Canadian florist Donald Yim poses with his floral arrangement titled “Chrysanthemum Elegance: Reflecting the Autumn Moon in Floral Splendor. “
Courtesy of Kendra Farber/Lan Su Chinese Garden
The garden has hosted a floral design display on the ninth moon as part of its Mumvember event every November for many years. These events have led floral designers from Oregon and beyond to create artistic pieces using chrysanthemums and other flowers and foliage. These works were then judged and displayed on the lawn for 3 days a day.
Venus Sun, vice president of culture and network at Lan Su Garden, said the occasions pay homage to the Double Ninth Festival, an East Asian classic celebrated on the ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar.
Sun said chrysanthemums are one of the “four knights” plants, which embody the attributes of Chinese culture. Plum blossoms symbolize humility in winter, orchids symbolize purity in spring, bamboo symbolizes righteousness in summer, and chrysanthemums symbolize perseverance in autumn. .
“It’s a very important component of the culture of the Double Ninth Festival (in China) to enjoy the good looks of the chrysanthemum,” he said.
This year’s event, renamed the “Chrysanthemum Festival,” combines the Ninth Moon Exhibition and Mumvember. This is the first floral exhibition organized through Lan Su Garden since 2019, following a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is also the first time that the lawn has featured nightly tours of the judged floral arrangements. These took place from 3 to 5 November.
A guest admires Portland florist Kim Foren’s “Into the Crimson Moonlight” floral arrangement in the Brocade Cloud Room at Lan Su Chinese Garden.
Winston Szeto / OPB
Originally from Vancouver, Canada, Yim travels across North America each year exhibiting floral paintings and training as a florist. Since starting as a delivery boy for his sister’s florist in Hong Kong at the age of 16, Yim’s popularity as a floral designer has skyrocketed throughout his career. Two decades in the industry. Her paintings have won several awards, including the prestigious Sylvia Cup from the Society of American Florists in 2019.
The Yim flower display at Lan Su Garden, the only one that will not be judged at the Chrysanthemum Festival due to its importance in floristry, features chrysanthemums and other flowers grown in Oregon, as well as flowers from tropical regions such as Hawaii and Ecuador. Their purpose of creating an autumnal atmosphere with those varied flowers, taking inspiration from the lakeside pavilion where their creation is located.
“I know I’m going to settle at the water’s edge, so I need to reflect the moon in the water. . . I put (circular) boxes to make it look like a moon,” Yim said. He added that the dead leaves placed near the base of his floral installation were collected by Lan Su’s gardeners from the surrounding area, editing the autumnal character of his work.
Josie Losh, curator of horticulture at Lan Su Chinese Garden, remembers seeing chrysanthemum presentations in public spaces when she arrived in Hangzhou, a city about 120 kilometers south of Suzhou, in the fall of 2015. I was there to get a master’s degree in botany.
Losh recalls that in China chrysanthemums are only admired; It is not uncommon to drink herbal teas with white chrysanthemum buds in Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Shanghai.
“I drank it in September of my first year in China,” he said. “Now I love it: every time autumn comes, I wait for my husband to take out the can of chrysanthemum tea. “
Losh, one of three judges who judged the floral arrangements at the Portland Chrysanthemum Festival, praised the winning piece designed by Portland florist Kirsten Garber. Titled “From the Vein of Gold,” it is located in the gardening specialist’s office.
“It’s an exciting sculpture: it has wood at the base and masses of floral tubes with thread, and then it has a kinetic piece. If you turn the handle, you turn it clockwise, all the tubes go up and down and it looks like the scales of a drapassn,” he said, noting that visitors can interact with the artwork.
Josie Losh, curator of horticulture at Lan Su Chinese Garden, spins Portland florist Kirsten Garber’s care of flower arrangement titled “From the Vein of Gold,” in the study of Chinese Garden researcher Lan Su.
Winston Szeto / OPB
In addition to showcasing the creations of floral designers, Lan Su Garden hosts florist workshops and Chinese cultural seminars at the Chrysanthemum Festival.
The turf has signed a memorandum with the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Suzhou Net Master’s Garden to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Portland-Suzhou relationship. This partnership aims to attract more Chinese experts to promote Chinese culture in the United States.
Yim believes that such cultural exchanges help the connection between Chinese people in North America and their ancestral homeland.
“Respecting other cultures or remembering where we came from, that’s important. “