Magazine

Courtesy of Lauren Edith Andersen
Celeste Randolph's kitchen island features a potted hydrangea inside a pewter champagne bucket her mother gave her.

With spring in full bloom, it is fun to brighten any home with fresh flowers. From the farmers’ market to the grocery store, flowers are easily accessible. There are really no rules that apply. Arranging flowers is up to the eye of the beholder.

Michelle Isaac/Special to the Town Crier
Local gardener Michelle Isaac created a Pierre de Ronsard bouquet with apricot-colored roses and sweet peas from her garden.

It’s possible to have romantic, beautiful roses growing in your own garden. And it’s possible to create unique bouquets out of your homegrown beauties. While a rose is a rose is a rose, deciding which kind of rose is right for you is easier said than done.

Photos by Tanya Kucak/ Special to the Town Crier
Antonio Flores, above, plays traditional Native American tunes on his elderberry flute. The “blanks” for elderberry flutes are approximately 8 inches long, cut from a dead dry branch.

In the 1944 movie "Arsenic and Old Lace," the elderberry wine served to old gents was spiked with several poisons. If the murderous aunts had simply fed them unripe blue elderberries, or red elderberries, their victims may have felt sick after a while, but they would have lived.

Town Crier File Photo
The Winchester-Merriman House on Edgewood Lane is considered the oldest standing home in Los Altos.

Los Altos History Museum supporters have scheduled a fundraiser, "A Los Altos Garden Party Evening of Memories and Mysteries," 5:30-8:30 p.m. June 14 at the historical Winchester-Merriman House on Edgewood Lane in Los Altos, an 1880s-era property considered the oldest standing home in the city.

Town Crier Staff Report

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier 
Residents who attended the Jan. 22 Los Altos Hills Planning Commission study session about a potential town hall remodel advocated for preservation of Heritage House, above, a 1909 home moved to town from Los Altos in 1985.

Newcomers could be forgiven for assuming they’d stumbled across a historical home that survived in situ as they stroll past Heritage House in Los Altos Hills or the Neutra House and Los Altos Community Foundation buildings, side by side in Los Altos on Hillview Avenue.

The homes, all tucked beside more modern developments, are original, but they’ve been lifted from their foundations and trucked across town as development deals and community interests evolved.