garden design | Gardening

The Republican

on November 11, 2012 at 7:17 AM

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From left, designer Bob Whitney, Springfield Garden Club President Sherry Williams, event chair Suzanne Reed and designer Christi Langone.
The Republican | Don Treeger

Cold weather doesn’t mean you can’t have beautiful plant materials in your home,” said Judy A. Cmero, a member of the Springfield Garden Club.

Whether it’s fresh flowers from the florist or an arrangement of twigs with interesting buds and bark from a walk in the woods, arrangements can provide a lift at holiday time or any time.

The Springfield Garden Club will present “These Enchanted Seasons: Seasonal Designs for the Upcoming Holidays” on Friday, Nov. 16, at Wilbraham and Monson Academy’s Greenhalgh Athletic Center Dance Studio, 40 Faculty St., Wilbraham.

Three well-known floral designers—all members of the American Institute of Floral Designers—Robert G. Whitney, Heather Sullivan and Christi Langone—will show participants how to create trend-setting traditional and contemporary arrangements for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. They will use a variety of seasonal flowers, sprigs, holly, baskets, bells and unexpected materials as they educate, inspire and entertain their audience.

The Springfield Garden Club is getting ready for their “These Enchanted Seasons” fund-raiser on November 16. This is a floral display similar to one that will be auctioned at the event.

The Republican | Don Treeger

The event begins at 6:30 p.m. with a social with wine, punch and light hors d’oeuvres followed by the designers’ program. “They’ll give hints on decorating for the entire holiday season,” Cmero said.

Each designer will create multiple designs for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.
There will be a live auction of their creations.

Whitney, a sales representative for Springfield Florist Supply Inc., suggested selecting a variety of pinecones, pieces of bark and mushrooms—for example—to be used in arrangements along with fresh flowers. “How you put it together” is what makes the finished product appealing, he said, noting that the items found in nature or in the yard help stretch a floral design budget.

As part of the presentation at the garden club event, the designers will talk about good design and good mechanics. While creating the arrangements, they will talk about “why we put things together the way we did,” Whitney said. “That’s the educational part of the evening.”

“Having plant materials around you is very energizing, and working with plant materials is energizing and soothing and uplifting,” said Cmero, the garden club publicity chairman. “There are a lot of benefits for having plants in your home and around your home.”

Tickets for the event are $20 each and include a complimentary glass of wine and light hors d’oeuvres.

The event is a fund raiser for the garden club’s scholarship fund and outreach activities.

Since 1990, the club has given nearly $55,000 in scholarships to more than 30 Hamden County residents pursuing degrees in horticulture, agriculture, environmental science and related fields.

For more information, contact Judy Cmero at (413) 599-0462 or jacm56@charter.net.

To order tickets to “These Enchanted Seasons,” send a check made payable to the Springfield Garden Club to Judy Cmero, 452 Springfield St., Wilbraham, MA 01095. Include a stamped self-addressed envelope to have your tickets mailed or pick them up at the door.

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Croc’s chef doesn’t have to go far for his produce – The Virginian

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By Mary Reid Barrow
Virginian-Pilot correspondent
© November 11, 2012

VIRGINIA BEACH

There’s a vegetable garden down near the Oceanfront that’s a feast for the eyes.

And for the stomach, too, of course.

This little city garden consists of several rows of lush green produce in raised beds, designed to appeal to the aesthetics and appetite. The gem is behind Croc’s 19th Street Beach Bistro.

Standing tall in the back are still-ripening Roma tomatoes and cocktail tomatoes, various varieties in myriad shapes and colors.

Stair-stepping down in shorter raised beds are medium veggies like eggplant, broccoli and colorful peppers of several descriptions and degrees of hotness, and beds of greens like kale, tatsoi and arugula that will grow well into the winter.

In the front are beds of baby lettuces and herbs. In one bed, a medley of mixed greens spells out “Croc’s” – that is, if the greens aren’t overgrown.

The garden was planted in mid-summer, and now it is lush with cool-weather crops and vegetables that linger into the fall.

The bounty provides most of the produce that is used by chef Matt Knack at Croc’s Bistro. The veggies adorn salads and go into healthy green sides.

Those who visit the Old Beach Farmers Market Thanksgiving market from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday in the Croc’s parking lot will have an opportunity to get the lowdown on the garden.

Even fresher than the produce at the market, the veggies show visitors how their fall greens grow in the field. Marketgoers also can get growing and cooking tips from one of the several collaborators who brought the garden to fruition.

Ashley Grosch, who owns Seasoned Gardens and designed the Croc’s garden, will be available to answer questions. Laura Habr, who owns Croc’s with her husband, Kal, will be at the market that morning, and so will farmer John Wilson of New Earth Farm in Pungo, who built the garden and who will be selling his produce at the market.

Grosch designed the garden using organic-gardening principles, where “friends take care of friends,” she said. For example, beans are used to fix nitrogen in the soil, and edible nasturtiums repel insects.

Grosch designed the beds with an eye to beauty, such as the taller beds and plants in the back that graduate to smaller beds. There is more subtle beauty, too, like the bed of contrasting kales – a row of green kale, then a row of black kale followed by a row of red.

Grosch gave her garden design to Wilson, who built the beds and filled them with a natural compost he made himself. Wilson also provides plants and seeds and ongoing advice.

The garden was a natural fit for Croc’s, Habr said. Not only is Croc’s home to the Old Beach Farmers Market, but the restaurant also is the first one in Virginia to be certified as Virginia Green.

Knack, Croc’s chef, is yet another arm of Croc’s gardening effort. He picks veggies from the garden every morning for that night’s dinner. An autumn side vegetable might be a saute of kale, tatsoi and mizuna with herbs and garlic.

Tatsoi is a pretty, dark-green Asian salad green, similar to bok choy, and mizuna is a peppery green similar to arugula.

“Tomatoes and lettuce are in the salads,” Knack said. “And the peppers, sweet and hot, go into our five-pepper sauce.”

Grosch said they hope to be in the garden every Saturday morning next summer at the Old Beach market.

“We hope to have tours,” she said, “and 101 Garden Instruction.”

Matt Knack’s Sauteed Tatsoi

Serves: 4 to 6

-6 cups tatsoi (about two heads)
-1 tablespoon olive oil
-1 garlic clove, finely diced
-3 sprigs fresh thyme, finely chopped
-Pinch of salt and pepper
-Splash of dry white wine
-Fresh Parmesan cheese, optional

Wash tatsoi, then dry completely. Lay leaves flat on a cutting board. With a sharp knife, slice into half-inch strips all the way down to the stem.
Place saute pan on burner turned to medium-high. Wait about 15 seconds for the pan to heat up. Add olive oil, coating the bottom of the pan. Add garlic, then cook for about 30 seconds to release flavor.

Add the tatsoi. Using tongs, toss the tatsoi so it’s evenly covered with the oil. Add fresh thyme, a pinch of salt and pepper, also tossing for even coating.

Cook for about a minute, keeping the tatsoi moving so it doesn’t burn.

Deglaze the pan with a splash of wine, letting it reduce for 30 seconds.

Grate fresh Parmesan cheese on top before plating, if desired. Serve.

Mary Reid Barrow,

barrow1@cox.net

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REDLANDS: Micah House Chapel dedicates garden, mural – Press

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Children tending the plants in the Micah House Chapel garden need only glance up to take in majestic mountains, the Zanja irrigation ditch or the Burrage Mansion.

All of those landmarks are featured in a mural that the children helped design and paint at the after-school program next to Sylvan Park in north Redlands.

The mural and the garden were dedicated in a short ceremony on Thursday afternoon, Nov. 8. Diana Lawson, program coordinator for the after-school ministry supported by the nonprofit Trinity Community Foundation, said it all started last March, when she took the children for some walks through the park’s rose garden.

The first time, the roses were blooming and fragrant and the children were delighted. But the next time they visited, the bushes had all been pruned. The children wanted to know why.

Lawson thought there might be lessons to be taught – about gardening, life cycles and such – if she could plant a few roses in an unused plot in front of the Micah House buildings on Chapel Street.

Then Emily Bueermann, of the Redlands Horticultural Society, suggested that Micah House apply for a $200 grant from the society, which Lawson figured she could use for the roses.

As she talked about her idea to her staff, volunteers and parents, it began to grow.

“Suddenly I had a garden committee of more than 10 people,” Lawson said.

Volunteers Sandi and David Adrian created a landscape design, including planters, a retaining wall and benches. Mike Morse, a volunteer who has been running a bicycle club for Micah House for 10 years, built the benches – one that encircles a palm tree and another along a building on the plot’s west side.

Bueermann suggested plants for the landscaping and University of Redlands students, during their May Term community service projects, helped plant them.

Some city employees who work in Sylvan Park, Ken Bolger and John Ostler – known as Park John to the kids – helped out with irrigation lines.

Volunteer Susan Auciello, who tutors the Micah students and reads to them, helped create the mural. She and members of the Redlands Art Association taught the students about brush strokes and techniques. They created a smaller, practice mural inside Micah House before blocking out the design on the outside wall and setting to work on that.

“To do art with Micah House was a dream come true,” Auciello said. “Two of my favorite things.”

In a bit of synchronicity, one of the Redlands Bowl presentations last summer was a ballet performance of “The Secret Garden.” Lawson made sure the students attended.

Now that the work is completed, the students use the garden often. They have special programs there, read books there and tend the plants twice a week, Lawson said.

“The kids trim and weed. It’s not something that’s done and forgotten; it will be an ongoing process,” she said. “We can teach a lot of lessons in the garden.”

When Lawson looks at the finished project, she is amazed at what grew out of the idea of plant a couple of rose bushes.

“It’s what I hoped for, but more than I dreamed of,” she said. “You can’t do anything but give glory to God.”

Follow Jan Sears on Twitter: @jancsears or online at blog.pe.com/Redlands

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‘Orchid’ Blooms in Miami

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Imagine a fantasyland full of sexy flowers dancing to pop music and guests dining on indulgent delicacies. Where low lights suggestive of fireflies illuminate faces sipping exquisitely crafted cocktails. Where acrobatic bumblebees swing from the rafters of a vintage Belgian circus tent and lush greenery covers the white latticework of a secret garden.

For years, this exotic world existed only in the mind of Marty LaSalle, a juggler turned businessman who joined forces with an architect, a pop artist, stylist, musical director, choreographer and chef to create the Pleasure Garden. On Wednesday, this musical performance and restaurant will open in two red velvet-draped tents with ornately carved wood and mirrored doors in Miami’s Design District.

“The idea is to stimulate all the senses,” LaSalle says, “so that when you walk into the tent you are transported.”

LaSalle, who had a successful juggling act from an early age with his twin brother, drew on his experience under the big tops of Europe and the United States to create an environment that recalls the pleasure gardens of 19th century Europe. The installation, with all its moving parts, has come together “better than I could have dreamed,” he says.

LaSalle says he considered opening the show in New York, but decided on Miami, “a place that people are increasingly looking to for art and entertainment.” With a climate that lends itself to year-round outdoor entertainment and a rich cross-section of residents, he says, the Magic City is the perfect place to debut a production that is experimental yet decidedly “commercial, not avant-garde.”

“The Design District was an obvious choice for us because it’s a neighborhood that has cachet, is up-and-coming and understood as trendy,” he says.

Turning empty space into “active art” is the larger vision for Temporary Entertainment, the company LaSalle is launching with the creation of the Pleasure Garden. He imagines “popup performances” bringing beauty to forgotten corners of urban landscapes around the world, with musical performances and provocative installations. The show will run in Miami until Jan. 6, he says, and he’s looking into taking it to New York and Los Angeles.

The theater element of the experience is Orchid, an amalgam of song, dance and acrobatics that explores themes of innocence and experience, beauty and seduction, says William Baker, the director. Drawing on his experience as the stylist behind pop music productions like Britney Spears’ Circus tour as well as his theology studies at King’s College in London, Baker has created a loose narrative that follows a Garden of Eden-inspired discovery set to well-known pop songs.

“It’s an interesting collision between pop and burlesque that is hopefully very intelligent,” he says, comparing the melancholy figure of the Master Gardener to God or a circus master of ceremonies. The flowers that populate the garden are “celebrations of femininity,” or botanical versions of the biblical characters of Salome with her seven veils, Jezebel and, of course, Eve.

These themes are embodied by the title character, played by vocalist Lexy Romano, 25. Orchid is “the most natural thing in the world,” Romano says, adding that of course a flower is going to get pollinated and of course a girl is going to lose her innocence.

The performers had a grueling rehearsal schedule as the complex production was built from scratch in a little more than two months. Richard E. Waits, who plays the Master Gardener, says the production has a decidedly collaborative feel.

“A lot of the younger cast members don’t realize how rare that is,” Waits says. “But for me it’s like paradise.”

The other feature of the production is a three-course, prix-fixe menu for $38 by award-winning Miami chef Michelle Bernstein that takes circus fare to its elegant extreme with dishes such as truffle popcorn, caramelized onion dip, lobster salad sliders and Kobe beef hot dogs. The dining tent is set up within the Pleasure Garden, beside the theater tent.

The idea of finding sophistication in ordinary things runs throughout the production and is a characteristic of Miami itself, says architect Luis Pons, who designed the exterior garden and is known in Miami for his 2005 Art Basel installation The Fabulous Floating Inflatable Villa.

Pons says this installation, and LaSalle’s vision of Temporary Entertainment, could provide a nimble model with a brighter future than traditional stage productions.

“I think this show reflects a new way of understanding entertainment, adapted to a new reality where productions have smaller budgets after the crash of 2008,” Pons says. “From now on, for shows to be successful, they have to be from the heart.”

The Pleasure Garden will be unlike anything people have experienced, he says, and will “touch your senses in a very deep way.”

Distributed by MCT Information Services

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S.F. transplant: tropical garden oasis

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“Where you find the darkest avenue/ There you’ll find the brightest jewel,” sings Richard Thompson. That would describe the improbable garden Richard Gervais and designer Chris Jacobson have conjured up in South of Market’s ecologically mean streets. We’re tempted to call it a secret garden, but the redwood anchoring one corner shows up on Google Maps. Gervais’ touch has also spread to this narrow street, now tree-lined and refreshed by plants. But nothing prepares visitors for what’s inside.

Through a corridor of Southeast Asian carvings, one enters a lush piece of the tropics transplanted to San Francisco. Jacobson and Gervais, a longtime importer of Asian antiques, have assembled a distinctive blend of plants and art. Surrounding walls cast shade, so the stars here are foliage plants, sparked by occasional flowers: ferns, Japanese maples, bromeliads, monsteras, gingers, begonias, giant strelitzia, bamboos of every color and size – forest, understory, rain forest plants.

Large koi swim in a sunken pond ingeniously designed to evoke a running stream. On each side, mirrors framed in Balinese temple doors and Philippine runo-reed matting insinuate themselves subtly to visually expand the space. The pond and massed plants encourage each other physically, sharing moisture and nutrients, filtering the city air.

Everything reflects Gervais’ fascination with the East, especially the Philippines. Among the flagstones and bridging the pond are traviesas – 100-year-old railroad ties of Philippine molave wood, “the hardest wood in all Asia,” Gervais said. Grave markers from the southern islands, carved from volcanic stone, are upholstered in volunteer moss; so is a carved-coral spirit boat. An Indian cart wheel supports a glass table top.

All the moss, the aged timbers, the floor of stone and pebble mosaic make the spot feel serenely ancient, but only the redwood and a couple of tree ferns were there when Gervais moved in, 17 years ago. “The place had been a club for SM types,” Jacobson recalled; Gervais added, “with an ugly burnt-orange hot tub in one corner.”

Gervais started out in Springfield, Mass. (“I had to get out!”), drove west in 1964, headed for the University of Hawaii and spent a week in San Francisco: “I fell in love with the city while waiting for my ship to leave.” Inexplicably, Hawaii bored him, and he returned to finish school at San Francisco State. A world tour with a fellow student concluded in the Philippines, his companion’s homeland. Gervais knew nothing about the country, but was entranced by the people. He and his traveling companion set up the New Manila Import Co., which eventually became the Richard Gervais Collection; the garden is part of the showroom.

Chris Jacobson is an old friend, recently reconnected, who used Gervais’ art imports in clients’ gardens. A native Californian, he too had the urge to light out for the territories: “At 16, I tried to hitchhike out of Auburn in my new sport jacket.” No one picked him up. He hired out as a gardener in his teens, then worked as a ditchdigger for commercial landscapers. “I could always get a job because I knew plant names,” he said.

Six months away from an art degree, a falling-out with his faculty adviser (“He said people like me didn’t belong in art”) sent him back to his garden roots: “I started bringing my art background into landscaping. I wanted people to know there was an art to gardening.” He says he’s never taken a horticulture class.

Jacobson’s credo, published in Sunset’s Western Landscaping book: “I like gardens that connect their owners with the real world of earth, weather, seasons and change.”

“I have an environmental point of view,” he said. “That involves trying to be responsible, incrementally move closer to the goal of sustainability, cut back on water and chemicals.” But that doesn’t mean the result has to be boring: “When I want to introduce clients to the rather exotic style I work in, I take them to Flora Grubb’s and to Richard’s warehouse. They either get it or they don’t.”

After an hour in this fascinating, marvelously oxygenating oasis, we get it.

Joe Eaton and Ron Sullivan are naturalists and freelance writers in Berkeley. E-mail: home@sfchronicle.com

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KLR Design is firm on the move

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Almost eight years ago I announced that Karen Robertson had opened her own KLR Design Group studio in a house she had purchased; a nice creative space enhanced by a pleasant garden.

It was a great spot for her staff of two, but a steady increase in clients and projects has increased her staff to eight designers, plus support staff, and created the need to move to bigger premises.

Robertson still has a view of a garden and also boasts of working out of a penthouse suite.

The garden is Central Memorial Park and the view is over 12th Avenue from the 2,500-square-foot second (top) floor of Lacey Court, the offices of John Lackey, consultant and honorary consul-general of Thailand.

It’s close to her downtown clients, steps away from River Cafe’s casual cousin Boxwood, and food trucks park right across the street.

Robertson has 25 years of experience in her profession, working here with Sizeland Evans, Vancouver-based SSDG Interiors when it opened a Calgary office, and with the interiors department of Gibbs Gage Architects.

But she always wanted her own firm and it has been a particularly exciting time of late for KLR, with Robertson being approved as a Licensed Interior Designer in Alberta and taking a recent, very informative trip to Germany on the invitation of Armstrong World Industries, the company that provides much of the sheet flooring she regularly specifies.

Armstrong invited Robertson as the only Calgary interior designer, along with a Vancouver and a Seattle architect, to tour two of its plants and learn about new products.

She was proud to tour the linoleum plant and talk Calgary as our South Health Campus used the largest single order of linoleum in Armstrong’s history.

KLR recently completed the interiors for a 10,000-square-foot expansion of the EFW Radiology rooms in Cambrian Place and, thanks to a long-standing relationship with Fluor Canada, designed interiors for its new expansion into 60,000 square feet in Quarry Park.

Dan Velcic is KLR’s retail expert who has worked on the design for the interiors for the Airport Duty Free Shop and Sunglass Hut at Edmonton International as well as Hudson News in the Vancouver airport.

An interesting challenge was for KLR’s specialty design group in providing the interior design work for the new science lab wing at Webber Academy.

Students were invited to the design presentations to give their input into what they thought was needed in the 10,000-square-foot facility that was delivered with custom-made laboratory benches made in Italy.

Other recent projects include providing the furniture for the common areas in Cardell Place and the interiors for Talisan Centre.

Robertson changed her business cards with her new address, but is reprinting them thanks to an exciting recently completed partnership.

KLR Design Group is now a member of ONE Global Design Platform, a partnership of 14 similarly successful North American design companies able to provide coast-to-coast services for businesses seeking consistent interior design solutions in multiple markets.

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The Garden of Our Dreams: Better Living, by Design

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Home Family | Your Life
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“We’re going to build a stone wall and a terrace for our garden,” my husband, Jonathan, announced. “We are?” I replied, hoping he was joking. No such luck. We had contemplated starting the garden in our back yard, but that area was steeply sloped all the way down to the pond! I had tripped and slipped several times and my sister had gotten leveled in mid-sentence. Obviously, not the best setting for a garden. But we didn’t really have a choice; the rest of our property is thick with tall and beautiful trees. So much shade, so little sun.

But a DIY terrace? Our skill set for building a terrace was highlyquestionable. I didn’t have the heft needed to move wheelbarrows of soil, let alone lift large stones into place. My husband’s ongoing chemo treatments and afternoon napping wouldn’t quite put on us the fast track for a summer garden. And it was already May. I really didn’t think we could pull it off.

Partially-completed Terrace

Sometimes Crazy Ideas Work

Weeks went by and Jonathan’s enthusiasm for the project grew by leaps and bounds. A passionate gardener, he had always dreamed of building a stone wall and a beautiful patio for his garden. His excitement began to fuel my curiosity and sense of adventure.

But tackling the entire project ourselves would be daunting. So instead, we decided to act as the general contractor, do the planning and a lot of the work, and hire workers to do the heavy lifting. Now, we had a plan! And my husband was going to live his dream.

Here’s How We Did It

Once we made the decision, we plunged in!

We immersed ourselves into the world of rock, stone, and gravel. We borrowed stacks of landscaping books from the library and watched how-to videos on YouTube.
We hired two workers to help us move soil, build the stone wall, and add the top soil. Presto,

Workers Leveling the Sloped Yard

we had a terrace garden.
We chose bluestone (a natural stone) for the patio and walkway and made the path 36” wide to be user friendly for anyone using a mobility device. We took multiple excursions to the local stone yard for bluestone (oops, we had a couple of counting mistakes) and hand selected more than 100 stone slabs, 1.5” thick for you DIYs. This was the fun part. It was like being in a candy store and each color variation looked more delicious than the next.
I sketched out the walkway pattern with various shapes and sizes of colored stone.
The same workers who helped build the terrace helped carry and lay the bluestone.

We Did It!

It took a lot of planning and hard work, far more then we ever expected, but I’m still in awe that we built a terraced garden. We now have a usable backyard that is both safe and accessible. Because we acted as our own general contractor, it didn’t cost us a bundle. For $6,000, we built the garden of our dreams, with ripe heirloom tomatoes and the sweetest beets I’ve ever tasted. Just as wonderful, we sometimes abandon our deck to sit on our terrace, surrounded by our garden plants, and immersed even more closely in the colors, scents, and sounds of the natural world. Looking back, I now realize that Jonathan’s dream of a terraced garden was my dream, too.

Finished Product

Visit RosemaryBakker.com and ThisCaringHome.org, a website for caregivers of persons with dementia. You can also find out more about her book, AARP Guide to Revitalizing Your Home: Beautiful Living for the Second Half of Life.

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Blue and white a winning design combo

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Color trends come and go, but blue-and-white remains a timeless design combination.

For centuries the soul-soothing, easy-on-the-eyes partnership we find in nature has inspired people to create porcelain, paint, fabric, wallpaper and rugs that bring blue-and-white indoors.

Ancient blue-and-white Chinese porcelains, long the envy of collectors, are still copied today. French-country style stays comfortably chic with blue and white gingham and toile. Grandmother’s collection of English Blue Willow tableware still sets an inviting Thanksgiving table.

Shirley Hill of the Changing Look reported a resurgence of the blue-and-white combination at the recent furniture market in High Point, N.C. Among the items were Thibaut wallpapers and HGTV designer Genevieve Gorder’s globally inspired update on the classic theme: an ikat rug with bright blue chevrons on a pure white background.

Paint companies offer seemingly endless shades of both blue and white. Blues run from deep ocean navy to aqua to pale sky, and whites from gleaming snow to sand to soft cream. They can be paired to create every mood, from dark and mysterious to light and airy, and any style, whether contemporary, country or coastal.

Hill says the color combination works in most any setting.

“It’s classic. It’s welcoming. It’s calming. It’s nostalgic. And I think it’s addictive,” says the designer, whose blue-and-white collections include Imari porcelain, flow blue and Royal Copenhagen china, and vintage marbled graniteware.

It’s easy to introduce the color scheme into a home.

Ease into a blue-and-white décor with a bold sapphire club chair contained with crisp, white welting. Or update an antique sofa with casual blue and white stripes. Hill goes for the unexpected by using a blue-and-white ceramic garden stool as a shower seat.

Touches of cobalt can be repeated in kitchen island lights and stemware displayed in white cabinets.

Play it safe with a few botanical, graphic or tribal-pattern accents. Slip a piece of graphic blue-and-white wallpaper beneath the glass of a coffee table. Cluster blue-and-white ginger jars on a front hall chest. Or group blue-and-white porcelain plates as wall art.

Make quiet or bold statements with paint. Add robin’s egg blue to the back of a cabinet to show off white tableware.

The fearless may wash dining room walls in glossy indigo and heighten the drama with white chairs and candles.

Broad blue-and-white-striped wallpaper can anchor a nautical theme in a bedroom. White bedding against a sky-blue headboard creates a softer touch.

All shades of blue and white blend easily, so cobalt and turquoise pillows can go on a denim couch. Or mix shades in a glass tile back splash.

The combo also blends well with other color schemes, including yellow, coral, red and brown. Hill’s choice: blue and white with watermelon.

kathy.huber@chron.com

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Michael Spencer’s Make It Green: Mid-story landscape is critical to design appeal

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Ligustrum japonicum

Photo by Michael Spencer

When designing a landscape, it’s important to consider plants in the mid story — the middle part of your garden that starts about 5 feet off the ground and goes up to about 15 to 20 feet. Mid-story plants help add stability and balance to the landscape.

Ligustrum japonicum | Ligustrum

Photo by Michael Spencer

ABOVE: Bougainvillea is a flowering plant that can add a pop of color to your mid-story landscape.

LEFT: Notice how this ligustrum japonicum adds balance between the low plants and the tall palm trees.

Assessing design and design process is one of those enterprises regarded as either simple or simplistic, chiefly by those not engaged in the exercise.While the process of design is second nature, writing about it has been a sometimes uphill endeavor. I find myself peeling away layers of my own efforts, asking myself why this or that, is done. For the most part observing my own process has been has been quite encouraging. But how to describe it to non-designers?

The middle

Since Aristotle is one of those timeless people needing no introduction, here is his take on a subtle truth about artistic excellence: the middle.

Speaking about plays, Aristotle said they are “a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.”

And as with so many things, once you read these words you realize the truth of it: It’s the middle that counts.

Now think about art class in school, where the teacher patiently explained to 11-year-olds the notion that drawings have a foreground, a midground and a background. Oddly, this idea was not discovered by the art world until quite late in history — imagine just about any Egyptian representation, or Greek, for that matter.

Egyptian carvings would have been cool with palm trees or sand dunes in the background, don’t you think?

Turn it over

You can rotate this notion, like this: background becomes “canopy,” and foreground becomes “ground plane.” And perhaps most importantly, the midground becomes “mid story.” This middle part of your garden, the part that starts perhaps 5 feet or so off the ground and goes up to 15 or 20 feet, is called the “mid story.” This is where your garden comes alive, because without the middle, it is not whole.

Many designers remember that a garden needs a canopy provided by shade trees (oaks, mahogany, black olive) or by large palms (royals, for example). These canopy plantings provide scale and shade, which is necessary on the ground plane. Think of the canopy as more than 30 feet in the air.

Shrubs, too, rarely escape attention. Shrubs are mostly 5 feet tall or less. Shrubs are what many neophytes focus attention on.

Inside the range

The mid story is the heart of your garden, populated largely by patio trees, multi-stem critters with no leaves below a small canopy, and there are dozens of examples. Among the larger patio trees are ligustum, seagrape, queen’s crape myrtle and senna (also called cassia and currently blooming with yellow flowers here in Southwest Florida). When a garden requires a smaller individual, consider jatropha, angel trumpet, pygmy date palm, or even Everglades palm (Paurotis), which is easily managed as either a large plant or a daintier individual.

The rules of design apply in your choice of mid-story plants: First, do no harm, which means horticultural requirements of the plant are the first factors to consider. Following suitability, your design is driven by texture, contrast and the other usual suspects that will help you make your choices.

Not just trees

The mid-story might be populated by garden objects other than plants — we don’t want any stifled creativity around here, do we? A large hanging staghorn fern, for example, is mid story. Those of you who appreciate statuary will find them creating a useful scale, depending on the piece. And an overhead trellis is mid story while providing shade and a place to hang vines.

As always I welcome your comments, feedback, or questions, and I answer all email: ms@msadesign.com.

Filed Under: garden design

Worth the pain – Las Vegas Review

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As caretaker to the Botanical Cactus Garden at the Ethel M Chocolate factory in Henderson, Steve Bowdoin knows it is a matter of when, not if, he will get pricked by needle – especially as he prepares the garden for the annual holiday light display.

No matter how careful Bowdoin and his three-man team are, wrapping lights around cactuses is hazardous.

And none of that really bothers Bowdoin. He enjoys what he does.

The joy he brings to the thousands of people who visit the garden each holiday season compensates for the pain inflicted by the cactuses.

“It’s fun and crazy all at the same time,” he said.

Bowdoin said his work kind of makes him a goodwill ambassador for the garden.

“I talk to 200-300 people a day,” he said.

It takes 960 man hours and nearly 175 pairs of gloves for Bowdoin and his crew to hang more than half a million lights – 503,000 to be precise – that transform the Botanical Cactus Gardens into a colorful holiday wonderland.

This year, Bowdoin added 3,000 bulbs to the display, all of which are LED so they will appear brighter and use less energy.

In addition, he has several new figurines and five inflatable displays, including Green, who joins Yellow and Red, the popular MM’s characters.

“No matter how hard I try to seclude them in the cactus, people go up and hug them,” Bowdoin said.

A less dangerous opportunity to hug the characters would be to visit on Fridays and Saturdays when life-size MM’s roam the gardens and interact with guests, he added.

Bowdoin said the figurines and inflatables give the gardens some holiday atmosphere during the daylight hours for those who cannot visit at night when the lights are on. He hopes, however, that it will entice visitors to return after the sun sets.

Among the new figurines this year are several LED-lighted pelicans.

“They were cool so we will try them out. If you are from Florida, they will fit right in,” he said with a mischievous grin and lamenting the fact that he could not find any lighted, wire-frame penguins.

Work on the holiday light display begins in September when Bowdoin begins inventory and testing each bulb on his 100 palettes of lights and decorations.

“No matter how yard we try, there’s always one string, one strand, that doesn’t work,” he said.

The actually hanging of the lights begins in early October.

Bowdoin has the process so narrowed down that he can tell you exactly how many man hours it will take to complete the job and how his team is progressing at any time throughout the weeks the lights are being installed.

For example, on Friday, 10 days before the annual lighting, he still had 82 hours of work remaining and was six hours behind. And that was after making up two hours from the day before.

By tomorrow, all they will have left to complete is to bury all the cords and tidy up the gardens.

In reality, Bowdoin said it takes about six months of work to prepare the lights, hang them, unhang them and plan what will go where.

Bowdoin and his team begin installing the holiday lights on the ground cover and work their way up to the canopies of the trees.

One of the last areas to be completed is the gazebo where Santa makes his home for the duration of the holiday season. Bowdoin said he makes the special display different each year and it’s always a great surprise to garden visitors, as well as factory workers.

Taking the lights down is “not as stressful as putting them up,” he said.

Although it typically takes four to six weeks to take all the lights down, Bowdoin said they are not on as strict of a schedule to complete the task.

“If some trees lag behind, it is not as critical,” he said.

He said he also uses the time as an opportunity to prune the plants, especially the trees.

By February, all is quiet at the garden and Bowdoin and one other person maintain the grounds.

“It’s when the quail and lizards come back,” he said, imagining what they must think about the holiday spectacle and multitude of visitors.

The 19th annual Cactus Lighting event will take place Tuesday from 5- 8 p.m. at the three-acre garden adjacent to the chocolate factory. The countdown to the lighting will take place at about 6 p.m.

Those wishing to attend the cactus lighting event can receive a family four-pack of tickets by bringing a new, unwrapped toy to the chocolate factory no later than noon Tuesday. Tickets are limited and will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Toys collected at the factory will be donated in the annual KLUC-FM toy drive for distribution to needy children this holiday season.

The evening’s festivities will be hosted by comedian George Wallace, with entertainment by Zowie Bowie and Michael Grimm, a winner of “America’s Got Talent.” Additionally, there will be performances by local choirs, face painting, balloon artists, prize drawings and chocolate samples.

Pictures with Santa are free, but a professional photographer will be on hand offering images for $10 each.

Also, Ethel M will be selling hot chocolate and water for $1 each, with all proceeds benefiting Smile Train, an international charity that provides cleft palate surgery to those in need.

New this year, all guests at the lighting event will receive special 3-D glasses. With glasses, the attraction will come to life with special 3-D effects; they can be purchased for $2 throughout the season.

Santa Claus returns to the gardens Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 5 to 9 p.m. Also on weekends is entertainment by local choirs.

For those who would like to visit the gardens when it is a little less crowded, Bowdoin said Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are best.

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