What a Tulip Can Do — If You Ask It — Barbara Falconer Newhall

11th Annual Tower Chapel Tulip Exhibition, Mouintain View Cemetery, Oakland, CA PIEDMONT GARDEN CLUB, AGNES KANG's design, "TULIPS GALORE" photo by barbara newhall — The Tower Chapel was crowded with tulip aficionados for the 11th Annual Tulip Exhibition at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. Agnes Kang’s “Tulips Galore” with its sprawling, acid green horizontal branch was a popular favorite. Photo by Barbara Newhall

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

It was chill winter in the Midwest, but thoroughly spring in the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this month when local floral designers, professional and amateur, demonstrated what a tulip can do — if you ask it nicely.

The event was the11th Annual Tulip Exhibition at the Tower Chapel of Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.

Howard J. Arendtson of H Julien Designs in nearby Berkeley, put his blossoms inside glass

11th Annual Tower Chapel Tulip Exhibition, Mouintain View Cemetery, Oakland, CA "BUBBLIN TULIPS," HOWARD J. ARENDTSON, H JULIEN DESIGNS, BERKELEY. Photo by Barbara Newhall — “Bubblin’ Tulips” — tulip acrobatics by Howard J. Arendtson of H Julien Designs. Photo by Barbara Newhall

fish bowls. There, the succulent tulip stems curved obligingly, rounding themselves against the inside surfaces of the glass.

For her “Eruption,” Ellen Kim put extra long-stemmed flowers into a vase and let the stems stretch and explode into space. For her design, Susan Cohn clipped her stems short and tucked them into a flat container, which gave visitors an intimate view of the blossoms from above. And during a demonstration on Sunday, Agnes Kang showed how a flower arrangement can be held in place by poking stems through holes drilled through miniature logs.