ReportWire

Tag: Smoke Bushes

  • Magic in Maidenhead: An English Garden That Glows in the Winter – Gardenista

    When Sarah Pajwani and her family moved into their house near Maidenhead (an hour from London) in 2011, it was surrounded by an “overgrown field.” Having created a design rationale with the help of professional landscapers, Sarah set about filling her garden with plants of her choice, border by border. Despite her best efforts, in winter she would gaze out of the windows and still feel that there was nothing to look at.

    Now, every garden-facing room in the house frames a different aspect of the winter scene, and the house has a lot of windows. Dare we suggest that winter is the garden’s best season? We can report that Saint Timothee, as it is called, was the first garden of the year to be open for the National Garden Scheme and Sarah gave us a tour.

    Read on for 11 clever design ideas from Sarah to make the garden glow in the winter:

    Photography by Britt Willoughby Dyer, for Gardenista.

    1. Red Twig Dogwood

    A row of glowing red Cornus sanginea �216;Midwinter Fire�217; brings out the best in Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii. Famously vivid in spring, the euphorbia holds on to its structure and excellent leaf color in winter.
    Above: A row of glowing red Cornus sanginea ‘Midwinter Fire’ brings out the best in Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii. Famously vivid in spring, the euphorbia holds on to its structure and excellent leaf color in winter.

    Saint Timothee is a picture of 1930s gentility, with an Enid Blyton kind of name. Yet the garden is not in a time warp. Sarah uses colorful stems, scented shrubs (such as Lonicera fragrantissima, Viburnum x bodnantese ‘Dawn’, Sarcococca confusa), sparsely flowering trees (Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’) as well as grasses mixed with evergreens to brighten the winter scene. Several paths and borders lead the eye from one of the inside windows, across the garden.

    2. Mixed Grasses

    Smoldering dogwood stems draw attention to the drama of super-sized pampas grass, flanking a pond.
    Above: Smoldering dogwood stems draw attention to the drama of super-sized pampas grass, flanking a pond.

    Source link

  • DIY: Foraged Thanksgiving Tabletop with Berries and Branches – Gardenista

    DIY: Foraged Thanksgiving Tabletop with Berries and Branches – Gardenista

    Above: In autumn, shrubs sport all color of berries. Branches with green leaves and colorful berries make pretty garlands. In my Northern California neighborhood, there are lots of orange bittersweet berries, black privet berries, and purple privet berries. Other berries to look for: purple beautyberry and orange winterberry. (See What’s that Berry? Test Your Knowledge of Fall’s Red Fruits.)

    .

    Above: Before arranging foraged finds, rinse them–extremely well–in the kitchen sink. Bugs are not welcome at the dinner table.

    The Look

    Above: I used garden twine to tie a sprig to each napkin. You can also get fancier and make a tiny bundled bouquet for each guest’s napkin. See how at Botanical Napkin Rings for Thanksgiving.

    Above: I like a big napkin, preferably made of soft linen because the fabric drapes beautifully and absorbs spilled wine better than cotton.

    Available in nearly two dozen colors, 22-inch-square linen napkins from Hudson Grace are washable and can be tumbled dry (and if you pull them out of the dryer while they’re still warm, you won’t need to iron them–they fold beautifully). Hand-dyed in San Francisco, the napkins are $18 apiece.

    Above: To assemble the floral arrangement, I laid a linen runner down the center of the table. The fabric defines the boundaries of the floral arrangement (a helpful visual cue for when you don’t use a vase or other vessel).

    Next, I laid a line of smoke bush branches down the middle of the table runner. Into them I tucked shorter lengths of privet, allowing the smoke bush leaves to cup clusters of privet berries. For extra drama, I tucked one hydrangea bloom into each end of the free-form garland.

    Above: I placed the napkins on top of the plates to add some height to edge of the table and offset the bulk of the foraged floral arrangement. This prevents the table from looking like it has a big, impenetrable hedge in the middle of it.

    Above: I wanted the table to contradict itself, to look glamorous and casual at the same time. So I skipped the tablecloth this year and instead relied on the runner to create a painterly frame around the florals.

    The Day After

    Above: After you disassemble the tabletop arrangement, turn the water pitcher into a vase with a sprig of long-lasting berries.

    We’re feeling thankful. See:

    N.B.: This post was first published November 2017.

    (Visited 228 times, 1 visits today)

    Source link