She did a few weddings, arranging the bride’s bouquet

She did a few weddings, arranging the bride’s bouquet and church flowers to compliment the groom’s and attendents’ outfits.

As her interest in design grew, Mrs. Brune began to toss the idea of a greenhouse around and returned to school at Lord Fairfax Community College for training.

“I now know I do not want a greenhouse,” she said with laughter, adding after careful examination, she feels costs outweigh benefits in this area.

But the college courses weren’t wasted.

At school she formed a working partnership with instructor Cindy Johnson. With her help, Mrs. Brune’s ability to arrange flowers for larger occasions developed.

Their debut was the Hunt Country Ball in 1991.

“Now we’re partners in design and have been busy ever since,” Mrs. Brune said.

As work demands have progressed, she said, she has subcontracted with other designers and workmen for such needs as technical construction and arrangement.

“I’m so busy with floral design, I don’t have time for greenhouse,” she said, adding her preference is “field growing, besides.”

Using many of her summer and fall perennials, Mrs. Brune adds green-foliage plants, wildflowers from her property and bits and pieces of other natural accents to create arrangements which look as if they grew in their container. Even the snips of early spring buds which decorate her worktable seem perfectly arranged.

Her artistic eye arranges the color and symmetry of the piece; her talent with flowers dictates which are used.

But when it comes to perfection, Mrs. Brune said she is “skeptical. Anything too perfect is downright boring.”

She admits to a preference for informal arrangements with nice vari ety, thus the use of many different sorts of floral media.

While many of her summer and fall arrangements are created totally from her own gardens, her spring arrangements are purchased from flower distributors.

She does produce many spring