Tag: Custom Design
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Making a Bird and Fish Pond
Pictures tell the story of making this bird and fish pond and waterfall garden. It took a team of contractors, machines, a pond expert, and myself as the designer directing the placement of every stone and every plant. The concept was to build a natural looking pond. It was important…
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Masses of Yellow: Antidote to a Gloomy Day
Winter seems to be dragging along. It’s late April, but feels and looks like March. The antidote to the gloom appears to be the bright yellow of the massed planting of the Forsythia shrubs. It adds a glow to these driveway gardens that I designed when one psychologically needs it most–in the drab days of…
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Eary Spring Flowering Bulbs Add Much Needed Color
It happened this morning. I noticed it. Blue tones of black, white, and a range of grey. Textured shapes of sky, clouds and evergreen trees softly back-lit by the sun rising below the trees. Fleeting beauty framed by my bedroom window. Engrossed, I just watched. And then, the thinking crept in. I realized that I…
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Arranging Foliage for Colorful Winter Containers
Here in New England, our gardens and entries can get pretty bleary as December slides into the Winter Solstice. We know that the March Equinox is a long psychological distance until we might see some color in the landscape. In my garden it’s the early blooming Witch Hazel (Hamamelis) often in February. For weeks now, intent…
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Transformation: A Parking Lot becomes a Paradise
Let me tell you the story of a plot of land in Carlisle, MA. Mostly a parking lot, there was some open grass, miscellaneous woodland, a fence to prevent you from driving in, and trash barrel. It wasn’t a place you were likely to hang out. Nothing to draw you in-it was basically a…
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A Leaf Lover’s Fall Foliage Combinations
I’m loving our New England Autumn. The leaves have been turning one by one– here and there– for weeks. Now it’s clumps of yellow, orange, and scarlet, and green gearing up to an amazing crescendo sometime soon. Here’s a few photos taken from my back garden. The garden’s fall foliage design shows off. Enjoy. And…
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September Time of Year
It’s mid September in New England–almost the Fall Equinox– the gardens are very dry and we’ve had several nights in the 40’s. We missed the frosts of the southern coast. Ornamental grasses, shrub roses, hydrangeas, summer annuals, and sedum are the stars of the late summer landscape. Highlights in my garden include the ‘Sweet Autumn’…
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Happy Solstice, One and All
Inside: Orchids in blush, white, and deep mauve, white Paper-white narcissus, red amaryllis, cream hellebore, ribbons, bows, bright reflective baubles, fragrant white and pink lilies adorn different rooms. And outside: pictured below a container filled with needled conifer with Daphne, rhododendron & winter-berries I see everytime I enter the sun room. All these things color my…
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“Still Lifes”, Reflections in a North American November
Late November in North America, New England, this Sunday before Thanksgiving forms today’s perspective of this time of transition. My days and scheduling go from the active creative process of landscape design installations and studio work to only studio work and “office chores”. That’s the category of business chores that are put off when I’m…
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Fall in New England
Songwriter Cheryl Wheeler sings “when fall comes to New England, the sun slants in so fine”. Indeed, and misty mornings greet the superb range of coloring in this part- shade garden. Rusts, yellows, greens, and blues all add to the texture of the different plant forms and masses. I always find it amazing that dying…