This is my plant display for my storefront, as I left it as I went on vacation. This planter by the creepy alley has been vandalized 3 times so far this season. You can see dead broken leaves on my alocasia. We had to replant the sweet potato once already.
The planters along my windows have been mostly left alone - so far. Not sure if you can see how dented my containers are from the past year of people deciding plant boxes are fun to crush and bend. I'm also not too crazy about how the zinc weathered, but for what it cost I'm not replacing it any time soon.
This is one of the empty squares in the sidewalk I've taken upon my self to plant. Should have a tree in it, but the city did a poor job of that several years ago and never fixed it.
Anyone up in the northeast knows how little sun and warmth we've had this season...rainy day after rainy day. My coleus and zebra grass, while alive, are not thriving. They need some warmth - we all do!
First day on vacation and you can see one of the coleus has been stomped. I planted a thunbergia trellis last year that also got stomped, so I decided the zebra grass would make fine replacement. Quick growing, perennial, can get cut to the ground for the winter so it won't interfere with snow shoveling. We'll see. I half expect that without my constant presence this week, that everything will either be stomped or pulled out by the time I get back.
I'm adoring this book - The Contemporary Garden, by Phaidon! We can start with the cover, a fab San Francisco garden with staggered cubes of river stone and baby's tears. Some where I have a photo of this garden torn out of a magazine in my "dream" folder. Sigh...sorry to see in the book that this is at a private house. Will remain a dream though!
The Contempory Garden presents a chronological selection of 100 iconic gardens starting in 1920 through 2008. I like the historic order to the book, seeing the transition and evolution of the modern garden.
Massachusetts' own Naumkeag, one of the earlier gardens, is featured, a must see if in the Berkshires.
If you're an avid gardener who appreciates innovative and contemporary design, pick this book up, it's not too expensive and will delight and inspire you. Perhaps it should be winter reading, when you gardeners have more time to plot and plan!
I've been working on a list of locally grown flowers by month. Locally grown for our purposes means grown in the northeast - New England, New York, New Jersey. Sourcing flowers grown closer to the place where they are used has become increasingly important to some of my clients as they try to reduce their carbon footprint, especially on large events such as weddings.
You'll note this is a rather short list especially when compared to the hundreds and hundreds of flowers that are available weekly. We live in a part of the country which doesn't have much in the way of flower farms. New England was known for its carnation growers back in the 1950's, but the energy crisis of the 1970's made it too expensive to heat greenhouses and it hasn't gotten any cheaper.
On my list you'll see a few flowers that are available most of the year round - stephanotis, gardenia, and lilies. I have to say, we do get some of the most beautiful lilies which are grown in Hadley Mass., and stephanotis and gardenias are the quintessential, classic wedding flowers.
For the widest selection of locally grown flowers, you should look to the summer months into early fall. Hey, I don't even get a home grown tomato off my deck until August, so you know those are the prime months! Since most of the summer flowers are field grown, as opposed to hot house grown, they can vary from week to week depending on the weather, so it's best not to have your heart set on a particular blossom. The month listings are just a guide - a flower might come into or go out of season a week or two earlier or later than expected.
You'll also note, that the summer/autumn flowers tend to be more on the wildflower side, perfectly suited for casual and daytime events. Other things to keep in mind - locally grown flowers can sometimes be more expensive than imports, the savings on shipping can be far outweighed by the cost of local labor. Also, there are a few locally grown flowers which I don't think are nearly as good in quality as the imports, such as gerbera. You may have to pick and choose which things matter most to you.
This list isn't comprehensive as some flowers which are super seasonal don't even get listed by my vendors - they're here today and gone tomorrow! I'm sure I'll be making updates!
Locally Grown Flowers by Month
January · Anemone
· Callas, white
· Lily
· Gardenia
· Gerbera
· Stephanotis
Have you ever seen this flower before?! It's new to me, at least as a cut flower. It's called verbascum, also known as mullein. The long spike has this woolly white stuff all over it, which is very soft. Kind of reminds me of fluffy dryer lint! And then these bright yellow blossoms bust out of it, a few more every day. It does seem to shed some flowers, but more keep coming out, so I don't think it's too messy.
I hope they have this again in the flower market some time - very fun and unusual flower!
The new wealth of a young nation fueled a gardening obsession in early 19th century New England. There was a growing demand for plants, greenhouses, gardening tools, gardening catalogs, and flowerpots. Who knew?!
The exhibit includes a selection of New England made redware flowerpots, much like you can see being made in the village itself.
An assortment of handtools which are not largely different from what we use now. OK, those hand shears kind of scare me - we saw a village interpreter shearing a sheep with something very similar!
There are also some novelty pots. Don't you love the hedgehog crocus forcing pots?! Wish they had those in the gift shop. Will have to Google them. :-)
I adore this print of a sweet little outfit to garden in! Gardening for pleasure was definitely for the leisure set.
Check this out if you're going to Sturbridge Village, and FYI there are discount admission coupons available at MassVacation!
Quick shot of some flowers we did for a recent graduation held at the Hanover Theatre. It always seems when it comes to large scale event work, no matter how large a piece looks in my shop, it can always be bigger!
We have our first DIY wedding today, or at least the first on this scale. I'm sure we must have had one here or there before, but this bride needed flowers abundantly!
These quick shots are the "before" pictures of her flowers. (I hope she'll send me some "after" shots!) If you're DIY-ing it, your flowers are probably going to come in bunches much like you see here, so you're going to have to load up on buckets to keep them in until you're ready to use them.
Our bride picked up her blossoms yesterday - she was one of the most laid back brides I've ever worked with, which is certainly to her advantage. Doing your own flowers for a wedding can be rather stressful as everything is generally done only the day before, very last minute. I don't know, maybe she has a team of stressed out friends and family who are frantically putting flowers together while she calmly sips a cocktail and watches the beauty unfold!
Don't forget to use the search function in the upper left corner of this page to search the blog - e.g. search for weddings, flower names, or whatever satisfies your curiosity!
Ask Sprout!
Here's your opportunity to ask a florist all those flower questions that have been nagging you - what's in season, what flowers go with your color scheme, how to make your flowers last. To place an order or for things of a more immediate nature, please call the shop directly.
