More Fall

As promised, here are more photos of the home my partner, nkohlinteriors, decorated for Thanksgiving.  He had a florist do some of the arrangements, but he did all the other, non floral arrangements.  I hope you enjoy and can get some ideas for next Thanksgiving.

Wreaths on the front door.

 Here is the front porch and the containers that I showed in my last post.  All but two pumpkins are real.  Nature is full of beautiful colors.

Buffet table with gourds.

The inside staircase.

 The dining table is set for 14.  There are three of the flower centerpieces with the single candle and two of the other arrangement. The table cloths are a deep violet mixed with gold napkins. 

 I love this grouping.  It's in the kitchen and is therefore slightly less formal.  The glass cylinders have a mix of cranberries and nuts.  The small container is in a simple terra cotta pot.

The florist was asked to use fall vegetables and fruits in the arrangements.  There are pomegranates and artichokes mixed in with the magnolia leaves, pheasant feathers and other greens.

It's still Fall

Despite what the commercials and retailers are showing you, it's still Autumn. And with Thanksgiving this week, I thought I would share a few more fall ideas.  My partner, nkohlinteriors.com, is decorating a client's home for Thanksgiving, and I've been helping him with some of the details and ideas.  He is putting new planters on the front porch and surrounding them with pumpkins and gourds.  We thought that it would be rather easy to find mums, pumpkins, etc, but it turned out to be a little more challenging.  It seems that after Halloween, most retailers, nurseries included, start switching over to Christmas. Poor Thanksgiving.  It's the holiday that Autumn is all about, and yet, it seems to be forgotten.  The good part is that much of the fall decorations were on sale. Mums were the most difficult thing to find, but the grocery store saved the day.  This weekend I planted the containers for him.

 

We used a red spike in the center with two burgundy mums, two purple cabbages (the one container has a spikey kale and cabbage), and a dusty miller. I then filled in the empty spaces with arborvitae.  The colors look sophisticated and festive.  Adding the dusty miller and greens also make these containers great for transitioning into the Christmas season.  Once they are in place on the clients porch surrounded by the pumpkins and squash it will be a very welcoming scene for Thanksgiving.  

I will hopefully be adding more posts this week as the decorations go up and the table is set.  I think it will turn out to be beautiful Thanksgiving for this family.

Halloween Decor

It's October, and that means it's time to put out my Halloween decoration.  Yes, decoration; a single item.  A couple of years ago I wanted to do more than just display a few pumpkins, but I did not want to do the normal yard full of tombstones.  I stood in front of my house and tried to picture what would be dramatic and make an impression on the neighborhood kids.  So I thought of this:

I started with a picture of my house, printed it out, and began figuring out the contact points for the web.  I wanted the kids to be able to walk under it, so that meant it needed to go near the door and go into the yard as opposed to being flat against the house.  Then it was off to the hardware store.  The center point is a 3 inch steel ring.  The web is clothes line, about 600 feet of it, with cable ties, around 250, piercing the horizontal and vertical runs to hold the intersections together. I had to build most of it in place; I'm sure the neighbors were a little puzzled when I started. 


The spider itself is styrofoam from a craft store. I glued layers of them together and cut and sculpted the body of the spider.  He has 4 eyes and fangs also carved out of styrofoam and glued on the head.  I coated the whole thing with Mod Podge to smooth out the surface and to help the paint adhere.  His legs are PVC pipe, 4 feet each.  I used a heat gun to bend them at the joints. There are connector pieces attached to the body so I can remove the legs to make it easier to store.  I put a small tea cup hook at the end of each leg to attach it to the web.  The paint is UV so it glows with a black light.





Besides the black light, I used a green flood light shining on the house.  I changed out the bulbs in the front porch lamp with flicker flame bulbs. And, finally, I added the pumpkins in the upper window.  These are store bought faux pumpkins that I stack together.  I get just as many compliments on the stacked pumpkins as I do the spider.  (This window gets a lit Christmas tree in December, and a lamp the rest of the year.)
I knew the kids in the neighborhood liked our Halloween decoration when a group of teens asked if they could have their picture taken in front of it.  It may not be very scary but it still says "Happy Halloween".

A Fall Refresh

It's fall, and that means it's time for apples, sweaters, and planting.  Around the middle of September I get the urge to redo the urns and containers around the house.  Don't get me wrong, the summer plantings were very pretty this year, but towards the end of the season some of the plants have gone past their prime.  Petunias start to look a little straggly, impatiens don't look healthy, and even the coleus are getting woody and losing leaves.  Now is the time to purchase mums, kale, cabbage, and pansies.  I like to stick to a color theme for my containers, and this fall I chose purple and crimson.  I found these dark purple pansies, appropriately named Halloween II.  Combined with some crimson pansies, and dark red mums they replace the yellowing impatiens that lined my flower beds.  Pansies are quite hardy and many will continue to flower in the winter.

For our large urn, I replaced the petunias and other annuals with a couple spiky kale and 2 red mums.  I like to choose mums that have not quite burst into bloom yet.  I want the color in the garden to last a as long as possible, so I pick flowers that will bloom in few days or weeks.  I used a few small pumpkins as accents.  The umbrella grass was still going strong and it adds the height to this grouping.

TIP:  When planing your summer containers, plan ahead.  Try to use a few plants that will age nicely into the fall so you are not replacing everything. 

Summer

Fall

For my smaller porch containers, I replaced the coleus and petunia with a small mum and a cabbage (the petunia is in the back of the urn in the summer picture). I kept the begonia since it still looked nice and the blue arrow juncus.  I use both perennials and annuals in my containers, but sometimes perennials do not winter in containers.  If you would like to save a perennial for next year, you should bring them inside or a sheltered area for the winter or replant them to the ground before the frost hits. Add them to your existing flower beds or designate a section for wintering your penennials.  When spring arrives, simply transplant them back the containers.  (I love the texture of the juncus, so I'm hoping it will survive the winter.)

During these crisp autumn days, before the leaves start falling, make a trip to the local roadside stand or nursery and pick up a few fall plantings to refresh those summer containers and flower beds.