Lighting Our Way
March roars in like a lion and leaves like a lamb. Prickly pear hail storms batter us. While the next day, gentle sun caresses our skin. One moment black clouds, while another cerulean skies give way to contented sighs. Meteorological spring has sprung. Daffodil stems from grocery stores now cheer up our counters and tables. We look forward to bright cheer and light of bright yellow flowered Forsythia and in ground daffodils. First to bloom, while gardens are still bare. Beautiful lighting fixtures also cheer and brighten a gloomy night....
read moreCome Learn with Me! Designing the Winter Landscape
Sign-up Now! Designing the Winter Landscape, a two session workshop, at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in Wellesley, MA Wednesdays, January 22 & 29, 10 am to 2 pm Come learn how to design a Winter Garden as part of a four-season Landscape. I’ll introduce you to the techniques of plant lay-out of drifts, masses, and individuals. You’ll see slides of examples and the plant lists for the lay-out examples. You’ll learn how to create an outdoor space that uses texture, color, and mass planting to create visual...
read moreWhat’s Beauty Anyway?
To some, it’s a well organized sock drawer, or the roll of a perfect putt, or the gurgle of a remote canyon stream. Or a garden. To me, its not “either–or, but “and”. Our home landscape and gardens have to potential to offer a place of retreat, play, welcome, and beauty. A designed landscape and its gardens could be a pollinator meadow, a comfortable place to eat outdoors with family and friends, a way to get from one part to another, or a place to merge with flowers and reawaken our senses. Our home landscape...
read moreCharming Patio Makeover Seats 10!
Back yard makeover transforms this back patio from ugly to Charming, Beautiful, and Functional. Before: Nasty steep slope with miscellaneous plants to old ugly back patio. After: the newly installed landscape design transforms the back patio area. The back patio makeover includes wide easy to use granite steps and landings that lead to the new enlarged patio that seats 10. The new Bluestone patio features a stone “carpet” that reuses “old but still good” bluestone pieces with new pieces that frame and create a stone...
read moreLate Fall Farm House Borders & Meadow
It’s late October. Ornamental native grasses mixed with seedpods, late flowering white Boltonia, and varied foliage colors rule the meadow. In the house borders, Sedum “Autumn Joy” provides color combined with the lingering silver grey foliage of Russian Sage, Achillea, and the silvery fronds of the dwarf Fountain Grass. “October Glory” Maples color the landscape with brilliant orange. Lots to ...
read moreFarm House Meadow & Borders
Year two: The pollinator wildflower meadow is taking off while the house gardens fill in.The two gardens share some of the same plants so they connect visually and create a sense of abundance.These are happy gardens. The meadow is wilder and seemly more randomly planted. The really tall prairie species to add drama in scale and color and life and they sway in the breeze while the shorter rustle. ...
read moreDecluttering Your Garden
Marie Kondo’s method for decluttering your house works for your garden too. While Reading her book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up I realized I’ve been using my own version for decades for designing landscapes, coaching gardeners, and teaching classes. Turns out that the word “clutter” easily replaces the word “chaos” . Chaos created from “one’s and twos” of a particular plant, miscellaneous forms in random associations, and a myriad of colors that fail to flatter each other or...
read moreModern Farmhouse Gardens
The style, Modern Farmhouse, could be described as a mix of old and new. Textures, comfort, natural materials from antique to industrial, yet spare on accessories describes both the interior design and landscape design style. Wooden arbors, regional stone used for fieldstone steps and walls, and contemporary planters create the elements. Plant color palette honed to a set of complimentary hues paired with one more enhances the chosen focal color. Contemporary planting interweaves drifts of color and texture and form. Plant material inspired...
read moreQuick Fall Harvest/Halloween Containers
Welcoming Fall Harvest Entry Container Arrangements That frosty morning “did in” the flowering annuals in my front containers. I had procrastinated and now dead leaves greeted me. Time to make fall themed containers! The Containers You See are Quickly Made. You can fill your fall and winter containers with branches found in your yard (or the friendly neighbor’s!). Gather the material and shape the shrubs at the same time. This time of year I shape a large rhododendron to gather material for my fall pots. I pick branches that...
read moreFlower Portraits
Flowers draw us in. Closer, so we can see the details and enjoy our senses awakening. These flower portraits share what I see. The textural variation of color, form, light, and shadow pleases our tactile and visual senses. Fragrance, birdsong and leaf rustle, activate smell and hearing. If you eat the daylilies, taste. The following flower portraits engaged my attention in my home gardens and ones I designed. Experiencing these plants took me into the realm of awesome....
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