VOGUE: Houses, Gardens, People

This book - which weighs in on the portly side, as far as books go, is another source for ideas I would regularly visit at my old office.

It is 100% lifestyle porn, with great photos of interior decor and garden design ideas for residential or small scale gardens.  I finally ordered a copy this week, using an Amazon gift card that had been burning a hole in my wallet.  The book is edited by Hamish Bowles, Vogues go-to man for character driven profiles of designers and celebrities.  He's also the writer that profiled my former boss a few years back.

Evidently, though, the book wasn't a best seller, as new editions are heavily discounted on Amazon.  My copy arrives soon and hopefully it will still be a great place to visit when I have designer's block.

Longwood Gardens Holiday Lights

Okay, so if you haven't been to Longwood Gardens during the holidays before and you live within a few hours' drive, just go.  Now.  Enough already.

The best time to get there is around 3:30, so you have an hour and a half or so go explore the grounds.  Then as it gets dusky, check out the beautiful conservatory.  After you've warmed up, your walk out of the conservatory is through the beautiful collection of trees lit with twinkle lights.

Longwood's been lighting their trees like this for years - long before it became a bit more trendy to outline the branches so clearly.  And the work here is done masterfully.

My camera work, what with no tripod and cold fingers...not so much.

Still, hopefully you get the idea and visit this beautiful display!

Okay, that wraps up Planted Cloud for 2011.  Thanks for reading!  Have a wonderful holiday season and see you in 2012!

Living Wreaths

Longwood's conservatory had two beautiful living wreaths I had to share.  They are a bit of a challenge to make at home, but certainly not impossible. 

Above, a wreath with asparagus and maidenhair ferns and orchids.  This is pretty amazing.  Since these orchids are epiphytic, growing on a wreath structure makes perfect sense.  However, the wreath is HUGE - at least 5' diameter.  Scaling this down would be difficult, though possible if you could use smaller Oncidiums.

This here is a favorite of mine, and I don't know why it's not more popular with high-end florists.  It's a wreath made of herbs.  Specifically, parsley, thyme, oregano, rosemary and sage.  Kalanchoe plants provide the red "ribbons."

Though beautiful, I can't see this lasting more than a few weeks in the best conditions (i.e., high, high amounts of sunlight).  But still, what a great Thanksgiving gift to give to someone - a living herb garden/holiday wreath.  And of course, if you live in California or other Mediterranean climates, this would thrive outside!

Longwood Garden's Wildlife Tree

It's awful how little I've been blogging lately.  To be sure, a New Year's Resolution will be to keep on top of the blog!  Luckily for these last days leading up to Christmas, I have a few photos I snapped last January at Longwood Gardens.  Thankfully, I decided to hold on to them to post this year before Christmas, rather than last year after.

First up is this wonderful wildlife tree.  I think this is about the best craft activity school kids could do in the winter, and not just during the holidays.

The ornaments are made out of seed and dried fruit and cinnamon sticks.  They are tethered to the tree with biodegradable string.  Almost all of it is bird food.

They are also quite pretty.

Holiday Wreaths '11

Last year, I posted a how-to on wreathmaking. I know for a fact that at least two people read that post, because this year my mom and my sister asked me for help making their own wreaths.  So the Tuesday before Thanksgiving we got together for a little craft party.

I bought all the goods from Michael's crafts, with these requests: My sister wanted to do something unconventional, with non traditional holiday colors. My mom wanted a boxwood wreath (using boxwood cuttings from her garden).  I wasn't sure what I was going to make.

I saw the above for sale at Michael's and liked the idea of it; I decided to use that as a guide, only I'd scale back the....bling.  I bought fake lemons for my mom and pink and blue Christmas balls for my sister. And I bought wine.  Beaujolais Nouveau in fact. (For the record, the food was tasty too - whole wheat pasta in a butternut squash sauce with toasted walnuts and a salad of shaved Brussel sprouts with pecorino and toasted walnuts).

Above, mom gets started with wire, boxwood and wreath frame.

While Tina starts plotting out placement of ornaments on her foam wreath, using toothpicks to do preliminary placement.

Meanwhile, I took a grapevine wreath and painted it with silver shimmer spraypaint.

Tina's progressed beautifully, though I underestimated how many ornaments we'd need.

Mom's placing an "H" ornament of silver bells on the wreath.

Tina's finished wreath is above - it's Katy Perry's dream wreath, candy colored and fun.

Mom's is above -- very traditional, though I like the off center placement of the bow wrapped around cinnamon sticks.

And mine, above.  It really doesn't photograph well, but not counting drying time for paint, it took about ten minutes to make.

It's simply a grapevine wreath, with silver and red "berries" wired into it.  I would have added more gilt perhaps, but in person it's quite nice.

The Bride's Bouquet

As I mentioned on Monday we wanted to make my sister's bouquet out of blue hydrangeas and white roses.  This is how the hydrangeas arrived.  Though we liked the leaves on the bouquet (we did a test run a week earlier), they wilted quite quickly.  So the first task was removing leaves and clipping the stems.  Next we separated the best flowers from the wilted or damaged one.

After that, you arrange the bouquet loosely, until you like how it looks.  Then you secure with rubber bands.

Add the floral glue (not my best look here).

Place ribbon over the glue.

We did a solid blue ribbon, then topped with a gauzy blue ribbon.  Secure them with corsage pins.

The pins are on the "back" of the bouquet, so the bride know what the best face of the bouquet is for the procession and pics.

 The finished product:

 

The bride's and bridesmaids' bouquets.

Me and my sis on the big day!

Ladew Topiary Gardens

A couple weeks ago, I took my students on a tour of Kurt Bluemel's perennial nursery.  After that tour (photos to come, no doubt) we stopped by the Ladew Topiary Gardens nearby.  More on the gardens later this week and next, but in the meantime, I am sharing photos of these lovely window boxes, planted almost entirely with succulents and Euphorbias.

Spring Window Display

This was too cute not to share.  I saw it at the Gracious Home near Lincoln Center when I was in New York last week. 

Get it?  Bulbs, and bulbs?  I appreciated the wink that someone at Gracious Home was sharing with those of use who know what tulips grow from.