Gardening and Gardens

Last week I was lucky enough to go to the Philadelphia Flower Show. I had never been and so when I saw a local florist was organizing a bus trip to the show, I jumped at the opportunity. This year's theme was "Springtime in Paris." Floral and landscape displays, award winning plants, miniature scenes using miniature plants, "paintings" that used only pressed flowers and plants and jewelry made from plant parts - the show had it all. I came away from the show with my wish list of gardens and garden accents for this year: 1. An outdoor kitchen and dining area: 2. A majestic bed to sleep on under the stars: 3. New lawn ornaments to greet friends when they visit:     4. A fern tree: 5. A carousel for my kids to play on: 6. Some new artwork: "Painting" made of pressed plants and flowers 7. A new use for my old car: 8. A gorgeous, handmade necklace: Made only from: Oleander seed pod, Maple pod...

As an update from my last post on Thanksgiving Centerpieces, I thought I'd show a photo of what I ended up doing this year. At first, I thought of carving a pumpkin and using that as the vase/container. I was going to fill it with flowers, berries and foliage. But my time seemed to disappear like ice on hot day. And so in the end, I decided to go the simple, seasonal route: I cut some branches filled with colorful leaves from a Bradford Pear tree. The leaves were so pretty and glossy, they almost looked fake. In fact, a few of my guests didn't believe me when I told them they were real! So even though it wasn't an elaborate centerpiece, I was still happy with my creation. The colors of the leaves alone were stunning. Sometimes, simple can be elegant.  I think for Christmas this year, I'm going to ask Santa for more hours in my day... :)

Aside from gardening, I also really enjoy floral design. Unfortunately, I don't always find the time to create even simple ones at home. So holidays and birthdays are some of the few times a year I can actually focus on creating a unique floral design or centerpiece. This Thanksgiving I've started gathering ideas on what to do - I'll post again when I am finished. But in the meantime, here are a few of the creations I've done in the past for Thanksgiving: This one is my favorite and I'm tempted to do something similar this year since I still have a few pumpkins left over from Halloween. This arrangement is sitting on a cake stand and I love how the pumpkin sits in the middle of the ring of flowers and foliage.  The colors and the painted design on the container, along with it's elevated cup, provided the inspiration for this design.    This was my first design a few years ago. Again, the container gave me the inspiration. I remember having purchased ...