Inspired by the Emerald Isle: Eight Pretty Irish Flowers You Can Grow to Enjoy a Greener Garden Life

While we most often celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a robust combination of food, drink, fashions, parades, along with singing and dancing traditions; as a garden designer and horticulturist, I thought it appropriate to mark the day with Irish Flowers. 

After all, Ireland is referred to as the Emerald Isle for good reason. With its rain and moist air and moderate temperatures, it’s a kind of Shangri La or plant utopia. So while I wouldn’t ever change up your affinity for such customs as drinking green beer while crooning “Danny Boy” or wearin’ the green to the local pub for corned beef and cabbage, I wanted to add a bit of garden magic to your Irish festivities. And who knows, maybe you’ll be dusted with some of a sprite’s fairy dust and be inspired to grow some of these Celtic classics.

How to Ignite Your Garden Beds for Spring: "Fire Farming" Ornamental Grasses & Pruning Perennials

       

Oh the Sunlight!  Just when you think you can’t take the darkness anymore, we turn the clocks. Happy Daylight Savings Time. 

With the days getting longer; the ground starting to thaw, it’s only natural that our thoughts turn to gardening. 

But before you start planting anything, especially annuals ~ I recommend you follow my planting guideline that I practice for my gardens and with my garden design team at the clients’ ~ and that is to refrain from planting until after Mother’s Day. There could be an overnight frost.

For now, it’s key to prepare the plants and the beds. 

The Era of Ladies Who Lunch Percolated a Frothy Nexus of Food, Fashion, & Culture

The Intersection of fashion, food, and fame, illuminated by money, politics, media, and society could be found in no place other than Gotham.

The era of the “Ladies Who Lunch” (LWL) best percolated this frothy nexus, hitting its stride mid-century - from the late 1950s and 1960’s; enjoying its heyday throughout the 1970s and ‘80s. 

Some credit Women’s Wear Daily publisher John Fairchild for inventing the phrase, “Ladies Who Lunch.” Stephen Sondheim claims to have coined the moniker: his 1970 hit play Company and LWL ballad sung by Elaine Stritch was a backhanded salute to the grand dames. Not to be “out-lunched,” New York Magazine too claims to have introduced the phrase.

Orchid Show Returns to NYBG in the Bold and Colorful Vision of Famed Floral Designer Jeff Leatham

                                           

You can’t help but feel it. Spring is pulsing. Broadway is back. And in the world of gardens ~ the slowest of the performing arts ~ there is a return engagement as well.  

I received word the other day from The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) that its popular orchid exhibition returns with “The Orchid Show: Jeff Leatham’s Kaleidoscope, from February 26 through May 1. 

Clearly, the orchids are the heartstopping stars of this show. And yet it cannot be denied that the irrepressible lifestyle icon and floral designer to the stars, Jeff Leatham, shares marquee status. This is a man who so loves orchids that he literally wears that love, well, not on his sleeve, but his leg! The Vanda, his favorite orchid, is tattooed there. Jeff is reprising his role because the 2020 Orchid Show he designed was cut short due to the COVID pandemic. I was fortunate to review the original Kaleidoscope so you’re in for a treat preview here.