Spotted in the herb garden of the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena: tall flax stalks tied into attractive bundles. (Or are those sheafs?)
We’ve grown flax before–its easy to grow and has a pretty blue flower. The seed pods contain tasty flax seeds, of course, and if you grow enough of it, you could theoretically make your own linen!
We have here an international art festival about flax : it’s the Biennale internationale du lin de Portneuf. (It happens every two years. There will be an edition this very year, starting on June 20th 2015 until September 2015.
The web site is in French, but some parts of it have been translated (and our friend Google can do the rest).
http://biennaledulin.com/
A look at the 2013 edition : http://biennaledulin.com/editions-anterieures/edition-2013/trait-de-famille-family-trait/
I always thought the plural was “sheaves”, like in that song they are always singing in Little House on the Prairie: “we will come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”
Wiktionary says both are correct though: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sheafs#English