NYBG in the Mist

These shots were taken after class at the NYBG.  We had snow (finally) on Saturday and then the temperature started quickly climbing into the 40's in Sunday and yesterday.  Goodbye snow....for now!

That's SOME PIG!

At an interior garden installation in Midtown Manhattan, Isabella Rossellini was having a photo shoot in the same building with Sherman the Pig.  If you ask me, Sherman was likely the star of the shoot.  M-A-G-N-I-F-C-E-N-T!  BTW, I'm on the left....

Gardner Museum Courtyard Garden

Continuing on the theme of conservatory or indoor garden visiting in the winter, you should make it a point to visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum next you find yourself in Boston.  It contains one of the most wonderful courtyard gardens in the Northeast.  As a young lawyer in Beantown, my first apartment was situated directly behind the museum and I quickly became a member just to attend events held in and around the courtyard.  On rainy or extremely frigid weekends (of which there are many in New England), I would stop by the museum and simply perch myself on a bench surrounding the courtyard and read or just observe other museum goers.  The plants in the Venetian style courtyard are fairly static and rarely do they change, but the pots of flowers inaugurating each new season are a wonder to behold.  If you have the chance, attend an evening event at the museum because the candle lit rooms and courtyard are truly magical.

Isabella Stewart Gardner 1888

Field Trip: Haupt Conservatory at NYBG

The weather has been quite frigid here in NYC (14'F on Tuesday morning!), so a trip to the warmer climes of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the NYBG was in order.  The tropicals were amazing and all I needed was a coconut with a straw in it to have made the visit perfect.

Top 5 Gardening Lessons I Learned in 2011

5.  Massing is not to be underestimated!  My pent up gardening desires led me to plant too many groups of 3's and 5's of various plants.  Result - lack of overall cohesiveness in the garden.  What can I say, I love them all!  However, massing will be front and center in the redesign of Greene Garden in 2012.

4.  "Shade" does not mean "part shade" or "dappled sunlight".  "Shade" means "SHADE"!  My long departed Pulmonaria, Mertensia Virginica and Cimicifuga all would have to agree.  May God rest their souls.

3.  There is apparently a black hole at Greene Garden into which go my gardening tools and gloves.  I have yet to find the dratted hole, but I imagine I'll run across it in 2012.  For now, one wooden mallet, 2 right hand gloves and 1 left hand glove, a trowel, gardening twine and a pair of secateurs are hibernating in that hole.

2.  There is a lot of gardening advice on the internet.  A LOT.  Sometimes, almost TOO MUCH for my rather small brain to take in all at once.  And I love reading every piece of guidance, warning, two-cents, judgement, instruction and encouragement.  One thing I realize from reading these wonderful blogs and websites is that I don't have to be on one side of the proverbial fence on any matter.  I can enjoy, or at least appreciate, both formality and looseness in design, natives and non-natives, and complex and simple color palettes for example.  

1.  My garden will always be imperfect in a perfect way.  I love trying to understand the imperfections, figuring out how to improve them, get rid of them or otherwise make them work in this garden of mine.  I love it all.  Top to bottom, leaf to root, and "sun" to "shade".  That, to me, is what gardening is all about.  

Here's to lessons to be learned in 2012!

Happy New Year!

Best Wishes for 2012 and Many Thanks for your Kind Friendship in 2011!