Longwood Gardens

If you are looking for an excellent botanical garden to tour and you are in the Philadelphia area, you need to spend a day at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA.  It is amazing!  A couple of weeks ago we went down to see the current exhibit, Light: Installations by Bruce Munro, and spent several hours walking the grounds.  Botanical gardens, like Longwood, are perfect for getting ideas for your own garden. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the shear size and number of plantings, but remember the numbers can easily be scaled back for your backyard and flowerbeds.  So here's are my tip for visiting a botanical garden: take tons of pictures!  Here are few of my pictures from Longwood Gardens that will give you some planting ideas to inspire your personal gardens.

Chances are you are going to take pictures anyway, but take a few pictures of the tags.  I know that sounds odd, but you'll be thankful you did.  Most professional gardens label the plants they use.  It will be easier to reference a picture then a note written on a napkin ("purple leaves, some sort of vegetable?") You will now know exactly what you are looking for at your local nursery.

Color blocking is not just for fashion, it works well in your garden; plant groups of the same plant close together.  There are not as many different plants surrounding this fountain as you might think.  There are impatiens, coleus, grass, and clematis. The large numbers of the same plant creates a big impact.  The color also helps create the wow factor -- chartreuse, burgundy, and pink.  Coleus are great for mixing with your flowing annuals.  There are so many varieties in all types of colors.  I think there were about 4 varieties of coleus in this fountain garden.  

 Add some contrast.  Besides color contrasting, the mix of hard and soft always makes for a pleasing garden.  Here the fountain urn and stone wall add the hard element.  These elements help make a backdrop to the soft leaves and colors of the impatiens and coleus.  If you can't add a fountain like this to your garden, add a large urn or sculpture or boulder.  Make sure it's large enough so that the low plants have a background and do not hide it. Like this urn, sometimes it looks great empty. But filled with complimentary plants, this would look just as beautiful.










Repetition.  One way the formal nature of this path is achieved is by the repetition and spacing of the urns.  You've seen this before done with trees along a driveway or street.  It creates a sense of importance to the end of the path and you instictively want to walk down the path.  These urns are about 4 or 5 feet high and the agave make a dramatic "top" to the bottle shape of the urn.  Use a smaller urn, or tall shrub and this could be your driveway.

I've mentioned this before, but containers do wonders for landscapes.  This island of containers is the focal point of the paved area.  Here they used silvers and purples to tie all the containers together.  Not every pot has the same number of plants or even types of plants, but they all stay within the color scheme.  This is also a great example of everything I mentioned above.  The color blocking, contrasting, and repetition all make this grouping of containers a single garden.

And finally, height.  Take note that in all the pictures I posted that there is something that draws your eye up.   That's not to say that a garden cannot be beautiful with low plants.  But having layers of tall and low elements add drama and movement.  It could a fountain, an urn, or a tree. So as you visit those gardens, remember to take pictures and start planning for spring!

Flat screen art

One of today's modern technological wonders is the flat screen television.  But it's one the great challenges interior designers face.  How do you make a black rectangle look good?  There are ways to hide them if you do not want to have it out in the open.  Personally, we have ours in an entertainment armoire.  We were limited by the width of the cabinet, but that was fine with us.  There are console units where the TV rises up, and there are ways to hide the screen behind a movable piece of art.  And some people are fine with the TV being front and center on the wall.  So that's what I'd like to talk about, how to make your flat screen TV part of your decor.

In this example, I created a home theater; something that might be done in a finished basement. I faced all the furniture towards the TV, and raised the back chairs up a few steps. The TV was placed on a "built in" cabinet surrounded by red drapes.  We added uplights behind the TV and behind the flanking plants.  This adds some extra drama to the space.  It would be easy to take this up a  notch by adding some gold fringe to the curtains and even making them open and close with a remote control.  And this would look even more dramatic with a larger flat screen or projection screen.

How about adding some bookselves around your TV?  In this example the TV is mounted to the wall surrounded by books and collectibles.  I left plenty of room below the TV to decorate.  The low cabinets could easily turn into extra seating when the TV is not in use, just add some pillows or a cushion. The bookshelves frame the screen and make the wall interesting and pleasing when the TV is not turned on.  This a great solution for a small space where storage and floor space are much needed.

And if all else fails, make your TV art.  I completely surrounded the screen with framed art, empty frames, and shadow boxes.  I used black and white pictures and neutral frames.  The TV becomes part of the art wall even when turned off.  To make it blend even more, create a frame for your TV that coordinates with the frames on the wall.  To take this idea of TV art one step further, Restoration Hardware is just one of the companies that offer television easels.  Artists style easels built for holding flat screen TVs.  Great idea!  So don't settle for a TV stand, make your TV part of your room.