Posted on: Saturday, August 31, 2002

SATURDAY SCOOPS
Turn phony flowers into a real display

The Washington Post

All right, you've forsaken live flowers for fakes, and traded fresh for dried.

Now what? Are you just going to plunk those manufactured or desiccated stems, leaves and ersatz blossoms in a vase and call it a day? Or will you spend another $19.95 for floral designer Richard Kollath's "Faux Flowers," a bouquet of helpful hints about making the unreal look as real as possible, maybe even as good as the lush color photos by Roy Gumpel (Chronicle Books, 132 pages)?

Armed with wire cutters, floral foam, a knife and probably 75 vases, glasses, tins, baskets, plates and pots, Kollath creates arrangements as simple as one (fake) red Gerbera daisy in a tumbler of water and as elaborate as a Thanksgiving centerpiece of (phony) purple anemones and (dried) gold sunflowers, hops, kangaroo paws, bittersweets and pyracantha berries, their stems hidden by ears of (possibly plastic) Indian corn in a fat glass cylinder.

New Yorker Kollath advises extending the artifice by putting water in the vessels, pruning leaves and massaging petals so they look more, uh, natural.

Our fave? A fan-shaped spray of yellow glads and olive branches (with olives, of course) in a splendid amethyst vase shown atop a white Eero Saarinen table ringed by matching chairs. Heck, maybe it's just the furniture we covet.