Hosting season here is not one occasion but a run of them: the first proper dinner in months, a Sunday that turns into six people instead of three, Halloween, a Christening, the birthday that gets marked indoors because the weather has decided. Flowers do a specific job across all of it, and it is not decoration. A table with something living on it tells people the evening was planned for.
This year's autumn collection comes in three ranges. They are not variations on a theme so much as three different moods, and the useful question is which occasion each one is for.
Orange roses, purple carnations and chrysanthemums, with nutan, blue thistle, statice and oak leaves running through. It is the richest of the three and the most obviously autumnal. The oak leaves and thistle do that work rather than the flowers.
This is the one for an evening that is meant to last. It reads well under lamplight and candlelight, which is most of the Irish autumn, and it holds its shape as the table gets untidy around it.
Yellow and orange roses, cerise carnations, sunflowers and seasonal leaves. Brighter and sunnier, and the sunflowers make it generous rather than considered.
Choose it for lunch rather than dinner, for a Christening, for the Sunday table with children at it. It photographs well in daylight, which matters more than people expect. Most of the pictures anyone takes of a family gathering are taken before three o'clock.
Deep purple roses, purple carnations, blue statice, thistles and pistacia leaves. The unexpected one, because purple is not where most people go in autumn.
It suits a more formal table, and it suits a host who has thought about the room. Set against white linen it is striking; against wood it is warmer than the colour suggests.
The format matters as much as the flowers, because a table has rules a mantelpiece does not.
The vase is the centrepiece choice. Nothing to arrange, nothing to find a jug for. It goes down and it is done, which on the day of a dinner is worth more than it sounds.
The hatbox sits lower than a vase, which is the reason to choose it. People can see each other across it. For a long table, two hatboxes work better than one tall arrangement.
The basket is the generous option, and the right one when the table is big or the gathering is the kind where the flowers are part of the welcome rather than part of the setting.
The hand-tied is arranged and tied by our florists, so it arrives finished. It needs a vase and water, nothing more. It is the natural choice when you are the one arriving, or for the guest who has brought wine and should leave with something.
If you are the guest, the hand-tied is the safe choice and the vase is the kind one. A host mid-dinner does not want to be hunting for something to put stems in. Sending them the day before solves it entirely, and it is the more thoughtful version of the same gesture.
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