Turn on the Light.
I have seen many gorgeous gardens fall off the radar at night. Beautiful and breathtaking by day once the sun sets they become black holes. Which is why, when I design gardens, I always recommend landscape lighting – it allows your garden to be a source of enjoyment even after the sun has gone down.
Imagine sitting in your living room looking out at a beautiful specimen tree which is uplit so the branches seem to shimmer. Now imagine looking out that same window and seeing only darkness. Picture a romantic dinner on the patio with soft mood lighting versus having to turn on the outdoor floodlights.
Read More»The Secret Ingredient.
I was at a Speaker’s Bureau recently and was meeting with various garden clubs. I had created a container to have on the table that would showcase my work. A woman stopped and admired it, “Dear, that is just beautiful. But it doesn’t go outside?” I assured her that all my containers were meant to go outside. “But, that’s a houseplant” she gasped, pointing at the sansevaria. I thought for a bit and said, “It’s time for summer camp!”
Which leads me to an often overlooked component in great container gardens. Houseplants.
Read More»Inside Out Design.
There is one very important thing you should do before starting any garden design project.
Stare out the windows. I mean it.
Really stare, or at least look very closely.
Too many designers start outside the home with no thought given to how the garden will look from inside. For many of us in colder climates a good deal of time is spent enjoying the gardens from inside so designing from the inside out just makes sense.
Read More»Grand Finale
My winter pots remind me of Friday nights. Why Friday nights you may ask? One word…leftovers. Also known as GYO, as in Get-Your-Own. I tell my kids to open the fridge and see what’s left and make something good out of it. And that’s what ends up happening for me when I am designing my winter pots sometime towards the middle of December.
My clients’ homes are all decked out for the holidays so I take stock of what greens, twigs and ornaments I have left and try to determine a cohesive way of tying all the remaining material together. Anyone who has heard me lecture knows that I often come up with some kind of a theme before starting the winter pots. This helps me make sure all my clients’ pots (and sometimes there are upwards of 20) reflect a cohesive look regardless of whether they are by the garage, pool or front door.
This year after looking through the leftovers of Winter 2016 I realized two things:
Read More»Sayonara, Summer
As Fall approaches, we take a final look at some of our favorite summer projects.
Houseplant (sansevieria), perennial (heuchera) and million bells. Who says only annuals can go in containers? This mixed container is looking good 7 stories up!
This riot of colors on a South End balcony gets tied together with coleus ‘The Flume’.
Read More»Petunias Stopped Blooming? It’s Not You, It’s Them.
I recently received this email from a client with a roof garden in Boston:
“Just got home . Garden is beautiful!! Thank you.
In contrast, our Cape containers look terrible. They (mostly petunias ) were pretty good all summer. Then all of a sudden they stopped blooming. I had been using a fertilizer in solution weekly. The product is supposed to stimulate blooms. I did it weekly for about a month—the last time I doubled the dosage.
Do you think that I over-fertilized? Any thoughts? Can you do magic on Cape Cod?”
While I am more than happy to do magic on Cape Cod I, unfortunately, cannot do magic with petunias. I have never succeeded with them long-term. Perhaps I am doing something wrong but it’s one reason petunias made my lecture “The 10 Most-Popular Container Plants – And Why You Shouldn’t Use Them.”
Petunias peter out, let’s be honest. They look gang-busters when you buy them in May and I think that’s why so many of us are seduced by their vibrant, brightly-colored little faces. We don’t look down the summer months and see that those same faces will resemble Grandma Moses. You can whack petunias back in July and hope that your hard-pruning will put the fear of God into them so they will bloom for your anticipated graduation/christening/bridal shower/first communion get-together. But that doesn’t always work. As I get older I get less sentimental. I am not interested in a plant that requires constant deadheading to look its best.
As my friend Kerry Mendez says “plants are not children or pets” we can get rid of them without guilt.
Which is what I do with petunias.
Out they go and are easily replaced with another colorful annual that will look even BETTER in August than it does in June. Are you wondering what that annual is?
Read More»Putting Life on the Patio
I just came back from work and I had a big smile on my face!
It looks absolutely gorgeous!
Thank you so much for putting some life on my patio!
You are a true professional and I can see how passionate and how much you care about your work.
Hard to find people like you nowadays.
It feels so good to look outside and see some green.
I love the character that these plants have!
~~ RH, South End Boston
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