Boston Flower & Garden Show: Part II

Posted on | March 22, 2011 | 7 Comments

The theme of this year’s Boston Flower & Garden show was Celebrating the Container Garden. I stopped in my tracks when I spotted Snug Harbor Farm’s gorgeous hydrangea in a large footed pot. Can I order a dozen? Included in the display was a boxwood in a low terracotta pot. I write about Snug Harbor Farm a lot. I’m a bit bias but you’ll be too, once you visit their amazing nursery in Kennebunk, Maine. The beautiful succulent basket below; also from them!

I spotted different variations on wood planters around the show. Tall containers filled with flowers and ornamental trees, longer versions arranged with tight rows of boxwoods and a more rustic version from the Garden Design School.

After the show I tried to convince Greg to build me a hundred different sized containers to cover my someday driveway/patio. I like that containers can be moved and displayed differently throughout the season. I can use the containers to create displays that give us privacy along our sidewalk. Or I can create displays in the yard’s trouble spots. The possibilities are endless…

Category: boston and metro, garden

Boston Flower & Garden Show: Part I

Posted on | March 22, 2011 | 9 Comments

Greg and I went to the Boston Flower & Garden show on Saturday afternoon which probably wasn’t the best time of day to attend. I have a low tolerance for crowded spaces; we checked out the main landscape displays but skipped the retail booths.

Peter R. Sadeck’s display won Best In Show. A beautiful wood slice path wound through a landscape of mossy tree stumps, rocks and ferns. The indoor landscape was completely convincing and had me wondering if we had been suddenly transported the woods of New Hampshire. Beautiful owls, a turkey vulture and a falcon sat peacefully perched on tree stumps; surprising the crowd when they suddenly moved. The owl above was my favorite, so freakin cute!

In 2008, I spotted a similar walkway at Portland’s Flower Show designed by Landmarcs. Am I sensing a wood slice trend? Sadeck’s slices were much larger, thicker, and looked like they were laid using dirt and moss. Both examples are stunning and would be amazing paths for a garden in the woods.

Category: boston and metro, garden

Beacon Hill Exteriors and a Rock Path

Posted on | March 21, 2011 | 2 Comments

After the Boston Flower & Garden show (post to follow) on Saturday we took a walk over to Beacon Hill. Beacon Hill is a beautiful 19th century neighborhood in downtown Boston. It’s super fancy and I always find great inspiration. Above a house I spotted on Pickney Street. The exterior colors are a stunning collection of green/blue/cream with a gray undertone. I love the combination but I be going green overboard? The den molding will be basically the same color. My favorite exterior in Marblehead has a greenish/gray/putty clapboard and the shutters are a dark hunter green.

Below snapshots of Pickney Street and few front doors we spotted. On the left a red door with beautiful hardware and a bell jar lamp. The snapshot on the right doesn’t do the entry justice. The angle of the stairs plays with your eyes as you pass by. At the very bottom a rock pathway Greg spotted—he tried to convince we should do our driveway in rocks because we’ve found so many on our property and in the dirt basements.

Rock paths are common in New England check out these paths spotted in Marblehead and Salem. I played around with the rock driveway idea last summer too but I don’t think they’re practical for a driveway. I want to turn our driveway into a large patio in the summertime (we have a parking ban in the winter) and the bumpy rocks make me nervous that every table, chair, flower pot will be tippy. We’re a long way off from putting in the driveway, first we have to work on the rotten clapboards and painting the house this summer.

Category: architecture, boston and metro, historic homes, inspiration

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