A downtown couple merges households and brings in professional organizers to help them downsize and declutter.

Photos by Tessa Berg

Executive Coach Mary Ann Singer appreciates the value of a productive environment.

So when she and her new husband, Ezra, an executive with Limited Brands, decided to merge their households into a two-bedroom condominium at North Bank, they pulled together a team of home organizers and a decorator to tackle the job.

“As a coach, I have to walk the talk, so it’s only fitting that I should create a personal space that is highly productive and energetic,” Singer says.

In merging households, they had a combined 5,800 square feet of space. When they moved into a condo half that size, they said goodbye to several items, found new uses for others and put in place systems to organize the rest.

Today, their highly functional space offers plenty of inspiration for the organizationally challenged.

TAKING STOCK

The first step was to sort through the couple’s existing stash to figure out what would work in the new space. Their decorator, Chris King of Manifesto Inc., says he first shops the “free store”—the existing supply of furniture.

For example, Mary Ann’s dining room buffet now serves as the TV stand in the living room. A chest of drawers from her foyer is a night stand, and an armoire that was in her living room now stores linens near the bedroom.

A vintage Singer sewing machine from the family business was converted to a desk stand for Ezra, and an heirloom Sweda cash register from Mary Ann’s family business was mounted on a stand as a conversation piece.

UNIFYING ELEMENTS

The next step was to establish a unified color palette and design to bring together the couple’s varied pieces within the condo’s open floor plan.

“The challenge was working together a minimalist with a modern sofa and a Southern belle (with) a large trousseau of traditional furnishings,” King says.

Inspired by the Downtown high-rise’s striking views, he proposed a unified color palette reflecting the skyline’s grays, tans and blues. He also suggested a soft contemporary vibe to mesh the couple’s polar styles.

MELDING OPEN SPACES

The look starts just inside the front door in the library. Here, King added crown molding and a vintage library ladder to tone down the modern feel of Ezra’s utilitarian bookshelves. In addition, he negotiated space for accessories in eight of Ezra’s 42 jam-packed bookshelf cubicles.

 Ezra’s gray sectional provided the anchor for the open adjoining living area. Mary Ann’s traditional end tables are mixed with upholstered chairs in contemporary fabrics. Rugs and contemporary art, both in the chosen color palette, add to a unified finish.

Nearby, the dining room was converted to Mary Ann’s office. A large traditional desk is positioned in the center of the room like a dining table, and a custom-built wall unit hides unattractive binders, files, printers and stereo equipment.

When it came to accessorizing, King demanded restraint to maintain the clean look of the contemporary styling.

Mary Ann’s 60-plus miniature tea sets and Limoges box collections were contained in inconspicuous display cabinets, and various art pieces were grouped by frame colors.

 Favorite accessories were displayed sparingly with the intent of occasionally exchanging them for others tucked away in storage.

ORGANIZING STORAGE SPACES

Once the furnishings were complete, Mary Ann decided to dive deeper into organizing her storage spaces. She called on Leah Sneed and Brooks Brown of OCD@Home, so named for its mission to help clients organize, contain and declutter.

The duo started with the kitchen cabinets, making piles of items to toss, sell or donate.

Next, they organized the remaining items according to function. For example, grab-and-go foods were placed on a Lazy Susan in the pantry while entertaining pieces were stored in higher cabinets.

The home organizers then tackled the bedroom closet, an armoire of linens, an office supply closet and a laundry room.

“You don’t come in here overwhelmed,” says Singer about her laundry room. “Everything now has a place.”

Teresa Woodard is a freelance writer.

This article appears in the Home Garden – May/June 2013 issue of Columbus Monthly

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Posted: Sunday, June 9, 2013 12:00 am

Tips for drying hydrangeas

Tips for drying hydrangeas

Volunteers Bay Seale and Darlene Hinman have dried thousands of

flowers over the years for Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s botanical

arrangements and holiday decorations. They offer these tips for preserving the mophead hydrangea.

• Cut unblemished flowerheads in the morning (after dew has dried) when bracts are in full flower but slightly before peak bloom, leaving a 1-inch stem.

• Pour a 1-inch layer of silica gel (available at craft stores) into a plastic container with a tight-fitting lid.

• Insert stems into the silica, keeping blooms upright, and slowly sprinkle additional silica on the flowerheads. Gently shake the container occasionally to distribute silica to all flower parts. Repeat until completely covered.

• Close the lid tightly and leave for one week, away from sunlight and humidity.

• Remove flowers by slowly pouring off the silica until blossoms are uncovered.

Hydrangea botanicals can last one or two years when properly dried and stored. Additional tips, including air drying, are posted at http://bit.ly/DryingTips.

© 2013 Richmond Times Dispatch. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Sunday, June 9, 2013 12:00 am.

One of Canada’s most famous gardeners once told me that Calgary was the toughest place in which to garden. The usual complaints are the fleeting frost-free season, punishing hails, bone-sucking semi-desert conditions and the diabolical Chinook winds. These are wicked challenges for sure, but I think the most overlooked challenge is the combination of bright sun with too little heat.

Sun but no heat? Sounds like someone’s been in the sun too long. The altitude is the key to understanding this seeming contradiction. During the main part of the day, Calgary is exposed to relentless rays of sun penetrating a thin atmosphere at an altitude of more than 1,000 metres. But the heat fades quickly as the sun sets, as anyone who has lingered in the garden after dusk knows.

The lack of night time heat shuts plant growth down. So, even if we experience a nice long stretch of warm days, our plants shiver through the cool nights, and maybe warm up enough to start growing again in late morning. So, they grow more slowly than in other Canadian cities of similar latitude.

The secret to success with heat-loving plants like tomatoes involves trapping as much daytime heat as possible and harnessing it through the night. One way to do that is to grow tomatoes in large black pots or in special bags designed to trap daytime heat that will keep roots warm all night.

Cut the bottoms off two-litre pop containers and place them over young transplants at night before things cool off to trap cosy warm air around the tender stems and leaves.

Some gardeners cover all their heat-loving veggies in small portable greenhouses. The trick is to keep the sides open during the heat of the day and to close it up at night, thus trapping valuable BTUs inside.

It’s a little trickier to grow some of the flamboyant tropical beauties such as callas and cannas. These bold patio enhancers will accept all the heat you can give them, but even though it rarely gets as hot as it does in tropical places, the intensity of our high altitude sun can scorch their large tender leaves.

As with tomatoes, growing tropicals is more successful in containers than in the ground. And containers situated on warm patios have a further advantage.

I have found moderate success avoiding leaf scorch while still providing heat by slowly introducing plants started indoors to warm shady areas, and eventually bringing them into areas with morning sun and light afternoon shade. But it’s always a race with Jack Frost.

In the garden, place large dark stones around plants that need a boost to cope with cool nights. Dark coloured mulches will absorb more heat than light coloured mulches. But avoid using black plastic over root zones. Plastic does not allow for air or water circulation and heat could build up to killing levels.

If you think of heat as something to conserve, as you do water, your efforts in the short months we have to grow stuff are more likely to be fruitful.

Sidebar: Growing a hot bank account

Horticulturists and farmers use a measure called growing degree days (GDD) or growing degree units (GDU) to measure the accumulated heat over a season. Usually, this is the number of hours in a day that the temperature is over some minimum temperature, below which the plant does not grow. Different plants need different amounts of accumulated heat over the season to grow, flower and set seed. These are known for most plants, and keeping track of growing degree days helps gardeners and farmers predict when bloom or fruit ripening might occur.

Turn Your Balcony into an Edible Garden

Tips for Growing Farm-fresh Herbs Veggies in the City

Improvements in container gardening equipment and techniques have cleared the way for even the most “brown thumb” city dwellers, and anyone without a yard, to grow their own groceries.

“There’s nothing to stop anyone who wants a garden from having one,” says Roy Joulus, CEO of Greenbo, www.greenbo.co, a company that designs award-winning innovative products for urban gardening including the new Greenbo XL flowerbox.

“Plants add a great deal to our quality of life – from cleaning the air we breathe to keeping us in touch with nature. Fresh, home-grown herbs and vegetables not only taste so much better than supermarket produce, they’re convenient, and you know exactly where they came from and what was used, or not used, on them.”

While hydroponic and vertical gardening systems have been developed to maximize the yield in small spaces, Joulus says starting a balcony garden needn’t cost much. Start with the right materials and choose plants that are right for your conditions, and you’ll soon be eating from the pots on your porch.

He offers these tips especially for balcony gardeners:

Plant the right plants for the amount of sunlight you have:

Most herbs and vegetables require six to eight hours of direct sunlight a day. So what do you do if you have just one balcony and it doesn’t get that much sun?

• Choose edibles that can take partial sun/shade (three to six hours of sun in the morning or early afternoon) or light shade (two to three hours of direct sun or lightly shaded all day.)

Some partial shade herbs: cilantro and parsley (both prefer cooler weather); dill, bee balm, spearmint chamomile.

Some light shade herbs: garlic chives, peppermint, rosemary.

Some partial or light shade veggies: lettuce, broccoli, green onion, collards, cabbage, peas, carrots, strawberries, beans, sweet potatoes.

• Remember, pale-colored surfaces increase the light your plants receive. Plants in regions with short growing seasons usually need the full six to eight hours of light per day. 

Choose the right pots:

• Bigger pots require less water and are less likely to blow over on high-rise balconies where the winds can be fierce. Terra cotta allows moisture to escape fairly quickly, which is helpful for people who like to water a lot. Non-porous plastic or glazed pots hold water longer and are better for windy balconies, where soil dries out quickly. Use brightly colored containers to add style and visual interest to your garden.

• Most vegetable plants require even watering – don’t let them dry out completely and don’t keep them soggy. Apply water directly to the soil.

• Make sure your containers have drainage holes or a drainage system. If they have an attached tray to catch excess water, don’t allow the plants’ roots to sit in the water, which promotes rot and fungus. Either empty the tray regularly, or use a design that holds the water away from the roots.

Use the right dirt:

• It’s important to use dirt that allows for good drainage. Most edible plants don’t like to sit in wet dirt, and soil without good drainage tends to become compacted – a difficult medium for plants that like to stretch their roots out. You can buy a sterile soilless potting mix, a soil-based potting mix, or mix up your own batch using 1 part compost, 1 part perlite and 1 part potting soil.

• Don’t use garden soil or top soil, which won’t allow adequate drainage.

• On windy balconies, top-dress your container with small rocks to keep the soil from drying out so quickly.

Joulus offers one more tip for high-rise dwellers: Rely on self-pollinating plants, or plants that don’t need pollination by insects, unless you’re willing to hand-pollinate.

“You likely won’t see many bees buzzing around the 40th story,” he says.

Don’t worry about pollination for root vegetables, like carrots and potatoes. Some self-pollinators include beans, peas, tomatoes and peppers.

About Roy Joulus

Roy Joulus is CEO of Greenbo, which was founded in 2012 in Florida with a focus on simplicity, efficiency and innovation in creating urban agricultural products. Its Greenbo XL flowerbox, designed to hang securely on any balcony railing up to 6 inches wide, won the prestigious 2012 Red Dot Design Award. Greenbo products are manufactured in a multi-cultural Israeli-Arab setting using sustainable and recyclable materials, and with safety the No. 1 priority. Find Greenbo products at garden centers and independent nurseries in the United States and Europe, and online at amazon.com.

One of Canada’s most famous gardeners once told me that Calgary was the toughest place in which to garden. The usual complaints are the fleeting frost-free season, punishing hails, bone-sucking semi-desert conditions and the diabolical Chinook winds. These are wicked challenges for sure, but I think the most overlooked challenge is the combination of bright sun with too little heat.

Sun but no heat? Sounds like someone’s been in the sun too long. The altitude is the key to understanding this seeming contradiction. During the main part of the day, Calgary is exposed to relentless rays of sun penetrating a thin atmosphere at an altitude of more than 1,000 metres. But the heat fades quickly as the sun sets, as anyone who has lingered in the garden after dusk knows.

The lack of night time heat shuts plant growth down. So, even if we experience a nice long stretch of warm days, our plants shiver through the cool nights, and maybe warm up enough to start growing again in late morning. So, they grow more slowly than in other Canadian cities of similar latitude.

The secret to success with heat-loving plants like tomatoes involves trapping as much daytime heat as possible and harnessing it through the night. One way to do that is to grow tomatoes in large black pots or in special bags designed to trap daytime heat that will keep roots warm all night.

Cut the bottoms off two-litre pop containers and place them over young transplants at night before things cool off to trap cosy warm air around the tender stems and leaves.

Some gardeners cover all their heat-loving veggies in small portable greenhouses. The trick is to keep the sides open during the heat of the day and to close it up at night, thus trapping valuable BTUs inside.

It’s a little trickier to grow some of the flamboyant tropical beauties such as callas and cannas. These bold patio enhancers will accept all the heat you can give them, but even though it rarely gets as hot as it does in tropical places, the intensity of our high altitude sun can scorch their large tender leaves.

As with tomatoes, growing tropicals is more successful in containers than in the ground. And containers situated on warm patios have a further advantage.

I have found moderate success avoiding leaf scorch while still providing heat by slowly introducing plants started indoors to warm shady areas, and eventually bringing them into areas with morning sun and light afternoon shade. But it’s always a race with Jack Frost.

In the garden, place large dark stones around plants that need a boost to cope with cool nights. Dark coloured mulches will absorb more heat than light coloured mulches. But avoid using black plastic over root zones. Plastic does not allow for air or water circulation and heat could build up to killing levels.

If you think of heat as something to conserve, as you do water, your efforts in the short months we have to grow stuff are more likely to be fruitful.

Sidebar: Growing a hot bank account

Horticulturists and farmers use a measure called growing degree days (GDD) or growing degree units (GDU) to measure the accumulated heat over a season. Usually, this is the number of hours in a day that the temperature is over some minimum temperature, below which the plant does not grow. Different plants need different amounts of accumulated heat over the season to grow, flower and set seed. These are known for most plants, and keeping track of growing degree days helps gardeners and farmers predict when bloom or fruit ripening might occur.

Being in nature is one of the most healing and inspirational gifts we can give ourselves. If you are fortunate enough to have a garden, you have an opportunity to create a magical and healing place that will lure you into spending time there. You may want to create a shade structure and plant it with fragrant vines, add a swing and other whimsical objects. (See my article Feng Shui for an Inspiring Garden.)