Philadelphia Flower Show 2017
The PHS Philadelphia Flower Show is the nation’s largest and longest-running horticultural event, and features stunning displays by the world’s premier floral and landscape designers.
Started in 1829 by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Show introduces the newest plant varieties, garden and design concepts, and organic and sustainable practices. In addition to the major garden displays, the Flower Show hosts world-renowned competitions in horticulture and artistic floral arranging, gardening presentations and demonstrations, special events, a mammoth indoor Marketplace, and the Bloom Philly Festival in the weeks leading up to the Show.
The Philadelphia Flower Show has been honored as the best event in the world by the International Festivals & Events Association, competing with events such as the Kentucky Derby Festival, Tournament of Roses Parade, Indianapolis 500 Festival, and other international celebrations.
Enjoy some of my own photos from my incredible experience at this year’s event, which carried a Holland theme, celebrating the flowers and culture of The Netherlands.
Want to know more? I’d love to tell you all about it.
The Garden. A Love Story.
It’s Valentine’s Day and love stories abound.
The one between me and my garden is one of my favorites.
And like love, it has its seasons.
The spring garden is ripe with promise.
Yet, like new love, it is fragile. A time of emptiness surrenders as an opportunity for hope springs up, like the snowdrop bravely pushing itself through the snow. Or the crocus straining towards the sun. Still, the spring garden can be full of worry and concern.
Will that late cold snap kill ripening flower buds? Will the deer munch the tulips? Will the snow load prove too much for the small snowdrops? Anything too weighty, at this point in the development, could prove disastrous. So much promise, yet so much risk.
Read More»The Browning
This has been, according to the meteorologists here in Boston, a pretty warm winter.
Despite a few cold days and a bit of snow, it hasn’t been horrible. And while this may be good news for us, it’s not necessarily good for our winter containers. Driving around town I notice that many greens have “browned” with the warm temps and sun.
Many beautiful containers, once the pride of the neighborhood, have given up the ghost.
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»Fall – One of the Best Reasons to Live in New England.
It happens slowly enough. You wake early and it’s not quite light yet. You have dinner on the patio and find you need to turn the lights on or light the candles. Or wear a miner’s cap. The hummingbirds have stopped coming to the feeder. You use the fan, rather than the air conditioner. You find that long pants actually feel comfortable. These are all signs that summer is drawing to an end.
(Read our Sayonara, Summer blog to see some of our favorite summer projects)
While it may seem sad to say goodbye to summer (unless you are one of the mothers at the bus stop I see high-fiving each other) we do have fall to look forward to and it’s one of the best reasons to live in New England. No one is exactly sure how the drought will affect our foliage; the consensus is the foliage may still be good but will not last as long. I’ll take what I can get because I know after the beautiful colors of fall comes the white of winter. Despite summer’s finale, there’s still plenty you can do in the garden.
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
Al Fresco Dining in the Patio Garden
Even when it’s humid out, dinner tastes better on the patio!
~ Deborah Trickett
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