Gardening Aspirations in 2017

 

 

So pleased to have survived 2016, in proper order, family traumas, national political upheaval, and various household appliance and maintenance issues. As the New Year has arrived, I had planned on instituting and avowing to customary resolutions, but after listening to Frank McKinney, best-selling international author, modern realtor extraordinaire, multi-millionaire, and world wide- philanthropist’s philosophy,  I want to outline my gardening aspirations in 2017 for you.  

1.       Make better use of quality #gardening products.  There certainly are quality products in gardening.  Whether it’s DeWit gardening tools, legacy tools which make gardening easier and allow the gardener to achieve their goals in the landscape, to using quality fertilizers like Sunniland TurfGro, RiteGreen, and Bloom Special, to planting quality annuals, perennials, ornamentals, shrubs, and trees, from Proven Winners, Monrovia, Plant Delights Nursery, Annie’s Annuals, and David Austin Roses, and many more![1] You will have healthier landscape and gardens, and a healthier you.

 

2.      Use national organizations, like the National Garden Bureau, to keep up with #gardening trends.  I subscribe to multiple gardening organizations that keep me excited and let me know when the newest plant innovations and best-testing varieties are available.

 

3.      Read and use more catalogs in my design work.  Catalogs can showcase design choices, companion plants, become creative muses, and educate on how to grow plants. 
 

 

4.      Visit more botanical gardens.  In nearly every major city in the world, there are gardens that showcase seasonal and regional flora, imaginative displays and container planters, and implement walkways and hardscape in ways that I may not have thought about. Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but it’s also a design tool where you can add your own personality, to become a garden that is one of a kind garden suited to your tastes.  

 

5.      Use more art in the garden. One of my greatest memories as a child in the 60’s is of visiting Weeki Wachee, an entertainment venue that featured live mermaids. They had gardens where child-sized vignettes of fairy tales and storybook characters.  I can still see them vividly in my mind.  Fifty years later, as I wander through gardens, I love to see the gardener’s own unique knick-knacks, statues, and artwork on display.  It encourages anticipation, providing memories of your visit for a lifetime.  Adding floating metal flowers, candles, bird baths, bird houses, furniture, or rain chains, in any artistic media will add serendipity to your gardens and create ambiance for your guests to enjoy. 

2017 will be a year of recuperation, soul-searching, and respite from last year’s chaos.  Choose to aspire to a higher form of gardening that reenergizes and rejuvenates by adding beauty, whimsy, a more harmonious design, with quality flowers, shrubs, and trees.  Aspirations in the garden is good for your soul.

All photographs are owned by Teresa Watkins copyright 2017.

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[1]  All-America Selections

    American Meadows

Bailey Nurseries

Brazelberries

Brent and Becky’s Bulbs

Encore Azaleas

High Country Gardens

Irish Eyes Garden Seeds

Messinas

Southern Living Plants Collection

Tessalaar

Vintage Valentine's Day

 

I had a lovely romantic weekend this Valentine’s Day.  For me, romance is having your husband surprise you with a day at the 32^nd Annual Antiques Vintage & Garden Show at Orlando’s Museum of Art, presented by the Council of 101.   What a delightful day we had strolling through Orlando’s Museum of Art, looking  at the sculpture, floral displays, vignettes of horticultural accoutrements, garden room furniture, botanical prints, antique jewelry,  Flemish and modern artwork.  The three-day event included guest speaker and author of The Art of the Monogram, antique appraisals and evaluations, opportunity to talk with antique experts, a Mystery Home Tour.
 

Sunflowers 2009, by  Babette Bloch

The beautiful sunshine and cool breezes wrapped the museum in a glow as you entered encouraging visitors to stop and smell the orchids and enjoy the bromeliads that were showcased throughout the main hallway and in the various art exhibits.

While I would have enjoyed to have seen more live foliage, garden accoutrements, and floral arrangements throughout the show, the quality of plants displayed were wonderful and for sale.

Come stroll with me as I show you what touched my heart on Valentine’s Day.

Courtesy of Joe Knight, Landscape Architect
Steve Foster, Landscape Contractors

 

Courtesy of Apenberry's

 

Olive tree, Oleo europeana 'Arbequina'

Early 20th c. Gossip seat, Apropos

Gossip seat

 

Orchids display
 

Phalenopsis orchid display

 

Notice the fashion trend of staking orchids
with spaghnum moss and raffia ribbons.

 

Cattelya Orchid Sculpture, Lee Forrest Design

 

Art Sculpture created by Brian Bailey

Epidendrums, terrestrial orchids

 

Firecracker, Russelia equisetiformis, Plumbago

Bromeliad called Earth Stars, Cryptanthus bivittatus, and Lobelia  

 

       Earth Stars, Lobelia, Ivy, Heuchera, Royal Velvet plants, Gynura aurantiaca, and Silver-spotted philodendron, Scindapsus picta 'Argyraeus'

Podacarpus, Epidendrums, Kangaroo Paws, Anigozanthos spp., Roses, Schefflera

Podacarpus, Plectranthus 'Mona Lavender,'  Firecracker, Phlox, Ivy

Pink Polka Dot plant, Hypoestes phyllostachya, Ivy, Kalanchoes, Silver-spotted philodendron, Epidendrums, Lobelia,

Silver-spotted philodendrons

  

Kalanchoes, white Polka Dot plants.

 

Unknown rose species.

 

Floral Sculpture, Jesus Rodrieguez

Inspired by the Morris Louis painting, Delta Sigma, 1960

Close up of floral sculpture, Jesus Rodriguez, designer

 

Designed by Brian Joyce and Richard Streitler, Flourish Floral Productions
 

Floral arrangement

  

Floral arrangement by Gayla Greenwald

Antique garden signage

Antique garden signage

Outdoor garden patio set

Oriental garden statue

 

Swan planter with bromeliads

Pink Polka Dot plant, Hypoestes phyllostachya in wrought iron rack

 

Lantern-style terrarium

Antique watering cans

Dutch frog planter

Late 19th c.-early 20th c. Pharmaceutical Herb Glassware
 

Brasselaeliocattelya orchids
 

Ferns

Dendrobium planter
 

Garden antiques
 

Garden planters, bird houses, log cabin furniture
 

Purple calibrachoas in antique planters

  

Planters

Annie Roo Collections, The Potting Shed

Succulent terrarium planters, Annie Roo Collections

We thoroughly enjoyed Council of 101's Antique and Garden Show at the Orlando Museum of Art, especially the floral sculptures and historical botanical prints.  I would have loved to have seen more live plants among the antique collections although I understand that the items were for sale and that plants can be messy and wet. Maybe next year to entice more plant lovers, they will intersperse more plant displays throughout the various museum rooms. I didn't photograph them, but if the magnificent red poppies, 19th century conservatory ferns and palms displayed with the antiques were real instead of plastic, it would be a true garden show.