Gardening Friends

Today we visited each of your garden spots. You didn’t know we came by….it was intentional because we came just to view the process of winter. It’s been a mild one so far and the growth and dying back process is about where it shouid be. We did do a few things at each property. With two more full months of winter likely, we are making notes and planning tasks and thinking about new ideas to introduce to each of you…….come spring

We are fighting flu like symptoms but a much needed outing helped us to fight off the chill and fever. We needed fresh air, space and some filtered sunlight. It seems we accomplished soaking up these attributes from our much needed outing. We are feeling somewhat better this evening. Hoping our chilled feelings and mild symptoms of winter flu are giving in slightly…..to the rest we have cherished and so needed over the last seven days. It’s our winter hibernation of sorts. Plain old fashioned rest.

We have made notes and have some ideas we will share with each of you as we get closer to spring. Mother Mature  certainly knows what she is doing…. and our brief respit is perhaps her intentional way of slowing us down. The earth is at rest and so are we.

And now we will sleep. And so will each of your properties also rest. And we can work out visions in our mind of “new” projects for each of you when spring arrives.

Good to be in touch and good to see your lovely spaces today. We will communicate individually with all of you between now and March 15th.

Do take good care….and be well  

“Contessa”

……OF SPECIAL INTEREST……THE GARDEN MUSEUM, the U.K.

Garden Museum Literary Festival 2023: Tickets available now! We are delighted to announce that the next Garden Museum Literary Festival will be held at Parham House, West Sussex on Friday 23 and Saturday 24 June 2023, hosted by Lady Emma Barnard and her husband, James. This boutique annual festival is Britain’s only travelling Literary Festival, with previous hosts including Chatsworth House (2022), Helmingham Hall (2021), and Houghton Hall (2019). Each venue provides a space over two summer days for us to celebrate the best in garden writing and to share what inspires us in gardens. Parham House is one of the country’s finest Elizabethan houses set at the foot of the South Downs in West Sussex. This beautiful place, with its award-winning gardens, has changed little over the centuries and remains a family home. The festival will include talks by some of the UK’s most influential and award-winning garden designers and authors, as well as opportunities to explore the magnificent historic gardens and house at Parham. Limited tickets available so don’t hesitate! Weekend Tickets (Friday and Saturday) Standard: £225 Friend: £190 Concession (Young Frond/Student/Unemployed): £95 Day Tickets Standard: £140 Friend: £120 Concession (Young Frond/Student/Unemployed): £60 The festival programme will be announced at a later date. Book tickets Images: Parham House photo by Elizabeth Zeschin; Parham Long Gallery with vine leaf pattern painted by Oliver Messel, photo by Jonathan Wilkinson

Copyright (C) 2023 Garden Museum. All rights reserved. You were subscribed to the newsletter from Garden Museum Our mailing address is: Garden Museum Lambeth Palace Road London, London SE1 7LB United Kingdom

Amazing Contemporary Hydrangea Arrangement

www.instagram.com/reel/CnTF_ImIZ8R/

Check it out. Very genius…,,

Our Wellington Client – Today’s Assignment

Our client has been away since December 10th and today  we are making preparation for her arrival back home from Tennessee. Her back yards common area had never been cleared since she bought the property five years ago. So yesterday and today we finally completed this task. She had hired a contractor to build a lovely brick patio, which due to covenant rules in our  condo association, had to be removed. The center of the yard is now just dirt after a demo crew came and tore the patio out. So in anticipation of her being approved for a new “regulation” patio, we completed a serious clean up of her entire open area in the back. She has a number of patio pieces and we clustered them at one corner of her back wall area. When she returns we plan to tarp them and leave them there until the new patio construction is approved by our Condominium Board.

So while there today we cleaned up all her beds, deadheaded all her Pansies and hauled away four bags of debris including a good bit of the crumbled cement foundation of the first patio structure. It was quite a mess but it’s taking shape. Her small wooded common area has a rich and dense undergrowth that’s actually kind of native woodlands, so even though we cleaned up a goid bit of it, she still has some perimeter growth at the back of the property offering her location some very nice privacy.

We had secured permission to take care of this clean up and we think she is going to be very pleased with our progress.

Once cleaned up it provided an opportunity to see lots of  new spring flowering shoots coming up, which you couldn’t even see prior to our work. It’s looking very promising now.

Happily today it was 67 degrees here and quite lovely day outdoors for doing a yard work project like this one. We had a good time and feel accomplished. Gradually it will all come together we are certain.

We completed and billed our client for four (4) hours of work today.

“Contessa” says….. it’s all a very good thing!

THE GARDEN MUSEUM News, the UK

Sarah Price: Designing a Cedric Morris-inspired Garden For the 2023 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, The Nurture Landscapes Garden built by Crocus and designed by Sarah Price will be inspired by artist-plantsman Cedric Morris’ garden at Benton End. To find out more about what to expect from this exciting project, we had a few questions for Sarah:How did this project come about? Nearly four years ago, I was lucky to visit Benton End, and spend time immersed in the garden. It was April and demure fritillaries and Anemone pavonina scattered the long grass like a beautiful tracing. Entrancing, and as close to a medieval mead as I’ve ever seen, this filigree was a physical and enduring memory of Cedric Morris’ plantings. This visit to Benton triggered memories of Sarah Cook’s mesmerising display of Benton Iris within the Pavilion at Chelsea in 2015. The poise of the Iris and their wavering hard-to-describe colours were pure, visual pleasure! Together with Cedric Morris’ paintings, these two experiences helped to build up a picture of Benton End as a place of astonishing creativity; a place latent with inspiration for a Chelsea garden design. Knowing that the plants and materials of a Chelsea garden could support the reimagining and reopening of Benton End gave the project added depth and longevity… Keep reading Merry Christmas from the Garden Museum! This is our last newsletter of the year, the next Garden Museum News will land in your inboxes early January. If you’re planning to visit the Garden Museum over the festive season, please make a note of our Christmas closure: Garden Museum: last day open Wednesday 21 December, re-opening Monday 9 January Garden Café: closing after lunch Friday 23 December, re-opening Monday 9 January We hope you all have a restful break, and look forward to welcoming you back in the New Year! Plan your visit

Object of the Week: Christmas Tree Growers, c.1912 This photo from the 1912 publication One & All: Gardening Annual of Amateurs & All Garden Lovers shows two men pulling up the year’s Christmas trees, location unknown. Gift of Tony Elphick Explore our collection online Images: Illustration for The Nurture Landscapes Garden courtesy of Sarah Price Landscapes

Garden Museum 5 Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB gardenmuseum.org.uk

Contessa Explores A Writing Career

Hello ContessasHome Friends….

After blogging for fourteen years, and writing about gardening, yoga, my store in Delray, daily reflections and my spiritual prayer times, I am led to pursue my newest “calling.” I want to write a book. I have gazillions of thoughts and ideas in my head about things to write about. I have decided to pursue a writing career. My blog is and will remain a continued communication tool, in order to be able to keep in touch with all of you…..my gardening friends. 

I have been thinking about writing professionally for about two years. Today I visited the library to find a few books about how to start a career in writing. I will be doing some studying and some writing. I’m not sure where I’m going exactly…but it is all about getting started. Will it be a novel, or a series of short stories, a devotional, poetry or a collection of daily spiritual reflections. I do not know that yet. But “beginning” is where I will start. Creating characters possibly, making characters come to life, inventing a story and a writers style all come in to play. Being a writer will require some solitude, research, writing and rewriting and using the inner resources of my mind to gather all the material I’ve stored in my brain for these last fourteen years while I was blogging. My inner urge to write comes from my creator. I am no accident and neither is my inner urge to write. It’s all part of His plan for me. My best self so to speak. Diving deep into my mind to explore so many things I have learned about my life, my previous careers and just simply about learning. Life long learners are interesting folk. We have lived and grown and shared. This new adventure is a place I’ve not been before. But it’s been planted as a seed in my heart and so I will begin…..and I bring with me, for support and encouragement, my best friend, and the love of my earthly life and my soul mate. [JB/MP]

Tonight I’ve brought four books home with me from the Duncan Library in Delray. All very different. Each focusing on writing……and so now, for a week or so…. I will become a student of others research about writing. I will share with you as I go along in this new and scary, but exciting writing journey.

“Contessa”

Latest Fall Bookings Still Available!!’

Happy Monday…….

Today we wanted to give a shout out to everyone that this is an excellent time to book your latest “fall” Contessa Signature Bed Clean Up. We are taking bookings now. Please give us a call. We want to make sure you all are on our calendar. The weather is chilly, but when sun prevails we will provide our services to you. Do not hesitant to call us. We are used to working up to the end of December, because our coldest temps don’t usually roll into Virginia until January.

If you are a current client and someone you know can use our service….. we will appreciate all referrals of business. Thank you. And if you refer a booking to us, we will give you a $25 credit on your next ”Contessa Signature Service.”

Do think about booking NOW. We don’t want anyone to have to wait to be served. We are preparing wreaths but still have time to tidy up your areas. Yes….this is a very busy season for us, but we love it and your yard is just as important to us as it is to you.

Just Saturday we were called to visit one of our ongoing and “maintenance” subscribers. He wanted a final tidy. We spent  1.5 hours…. and what a difference it makes. He is “hooked” on what we do for him…. And his yard is completely ready for winter.  And to top it all off, even though all his plants have now been cut back his garden beds and his property still looks fantastic.  Bravo!

“Contessa” says…it’s a very good thing’

Indoor Bulbs for Christmas (REVISED)Jan 4th – 9 am – Wed

(REVISED) – Jan 4th – 9 am – Wednesday 

ta….da!

How exciting and pretty. Today all three blooms are at peek.  It was worth the wait. We have now learned the planting/growing/blooming cycle. Again, we planted Nov 30th, so if we want full bloom for around Dec 24th, we need to plant approximately November 15th. We also believe we will plant a larger planter next year because a collection of say  8-10 bulbs will be so lovely.

They are so easy to care for and the amount of water is so small. Plus securing them well in the planter is so important. Our success this year is so gratifying. We will enjoy these blooms most likely for one full week. It’s been so much fun! We are thrilled

• •••••••••••••••••••••• •

We planted our three “paperwhite bulbs” on November 30th. We have watered with just a dropper. We water every day.  Our saucer doesn’t hold that much and frankly you don’t want your bulbs swimming in water. The tiny pebbles secure the bulbs in place, and only the tiny roots at the pointed end need the moisture to grow.  

So here they are today. Poking themselves upward. Once they begin to breath indoor air their growth takes off pretty quickly. We haven’t had many sunny days, so it may take them a little longer to grow. That’s ok though, because pretty “pure white” blossoms for Christmas, might be our “joy.”  Perhaps signifying the birth of the babe…. On our Christmas Day! We will continue care and watering until then….. in anticipation. 

Paperwhites

(REVISED) 12/28 – Wed – 8:36 am 

Today we have a bloom on our Paperwhites that we planted Nov 30th. So that tells us that it took almost 30 days to produce a blossom…. Meaning that if we want pretty white blossoms for Christmas next year, we probably need to plant them about the 22nd of November. ✅

We have included some photos from just this morning. We did tell you they grow really tall and that it’s best to tie them with a ribbon once they start to grow, so because we see the other buds will most likely bloom in the next couple days we have moved our ribbon tie to secure all three sprouts. And our last photo shows the pretty blossom, which smells divine. With the heat running in the house…make sure to add a little water a couple times a day. Our blossoms  shoukd last about one week. It’s a miracle….!  Beautiful pure white fragrant blossoms in December.  Such a treat, And with our sun shining so brightly this Morning, and news on the weather this morning,  we are already just beginning to have longer days each day ahead. The promise of “spring.”  Alleluia!

••••••••••••••••••••••

And…..every year we grow our Red Amaryllis outdoors and it produces several very tall green fronds. We prop it up with reeds, tied with pretty ribbon, knowing that it’s growth is all part of the process of “new flower growth” come the winter season.

So in late October we bring it indoors, add some fresh soil and cut back all the green… all the way down to the dirt. Yes you got it. Because, within about ten days to two weeks the bulb starts producing a new green shoot. And…..here it comes. It’s such an amazing process. The plant knows it is winter and that it’s time to produce its beautiful flower. It’s very exciting and we always look forward to its arrival. The timeframe can vary slightly…. But it never fails us. It’s reassurance to us that if we do all the right preparation, we will reap the rewards of new growth and gorgeous red blossoms.

Amaryllis

“Contessa” says…. It’s a very good thing!

Client Requests

Yesterday we were called to complete a final tidy for a garden that is very close to being ready for winter. Our client  is used to a very crowded bed….prior to us removing all the “green” crowding, and creating a flower garden. He was not mentally prepared for sparsely populated beds in the fall leading into the winter season. But we have prepared the beds gradually, so as to postpone the “shock” factor to his Psyche. He has now adjusted and we are about half way there, in completing populated flower beds. It’s coming along and in the spring, which we both look forward to…we will both look forward to adding new flowering perennials. It’s going to be fun to watch things return and to once again make plant selections. I must say he does his own research in to plants that he thinks he likes. And with our help….together we make the picks. Sun is a huge determining factor. But he is pretty specific about what he wants. We enjoy the process. And we of course have the delightful task of recommending placement and completing the planting. It’s rewarding….and I think that now as we prepare to enter year two together,  we will create an even more lovely Garden this year. He has a very nice spot and enjoys entertaining his friends and colleagues in his lovely garden “oasis,”  Very Nice, and we look forward to spring.

“Contessa” says…it’s a very good thing!

GARDEN MUSEUM NEWS, the U.K.

A year of art and gardens awaits! We are delighted to announce our 2023 exhibitions programme: Private & Public: Finding the Modern British Garden The interwar period in Britain saw a flowering of artists retreating to plant and paint in their gardens. This exhibition will bring together intimate depictions of private gardens and public green spaces by artists including Charles Mahoney, Evelyn Dunbar, Eric Ravilious and Ithell Colquhoun. Presented in partnership with Liss Llewellyn. Works will be available for purchase in aid of the Museum’s educational programmes. 22 March – 25 June 2023 Find out more Jean Cooke: Ungardening Jean Cooke (1927-2008) was not a conventional gardener, once describing ‘ungardening’ as her hobby. But she derived much inspiration from her overgrown London garden and the cliff-top meadow at her Sussex cottage. Emerging from the shadow of her difficult marriage to the artist John Bratby, this exhibition will spotlight Cooke’s long-underrated yet magnificent garden paintings and expressive portraiture in a museum setting for the first time. 19 July – 1 October 2023 Find out more Frank Walter This exhibition will present the landscape and nature paintings of Antiguan artist Frank Walter (1962-2009), exploring his genius as a gardener and early conservationist on the islands of Antigua, Barbuda, and Dominica, as well as one of the most distinctive figures in modern Caribbean art. Guest curation by Professor Barbara Paca, Ph.D., O.B.E. 18 October 2023 – 21 January 2024 Find out more Gift Membership for Christmas Fancy going to all of our 2023 exhibitions for free? Garden Museum Friends can enjoy unlimited free entry year-round! Membership also includes discounted event tickets, Friends Private Views, 15% discount in the museum shop, a complimentary copy of the Garden Museum Journal and priority booking to our popular garden visits and Literary Festival. Or why not give a year of art and gardens to a loved one for Christmas with a gift membership? Membership starts at just £36 a year. Friends Membership A thank you to Bertie Leffman, long-time supporter of our Horticultural Traineeship By Matt Collins, Head Gardener We were saddened by the news recently that Bertie Leffman, a long time supporterof the Museum’s Horticultural Traineeship, had passed away. Bertie’s generous annual donation, which was given in memory of the pleasure he took visiting gardens with his late wife, has since 2013 enabled us to run a successful, unique and increasingly popular traineeship programme. Match-funded by the National Garden Scheme, it offers one gardener each year the opportunity to work with me in the gardens here and engage in the Museum’s busy and exciting schedule of horticultural talks and events, while also getting to spend time in gardens nationwide (and occasionally abroad), learning alongside fantastic plantspeople from head gardeners and landscape designers to floral artists, growers and garden writers… Keep reading Plant of the Week: Mexican tree dahlia (Dahlia tamaulipana) By Matt Collins, Head Gardener Two years ago we marked the flowering of our enormous tree dahlia in a stand alone piece for the museum newsletter, however its blooming this week has been so spectacular — and right on the cusp of frosts — that I wanted to mark the occasion once more, with a ‘Plant of the Week’ dedication. In fact, watching for a crown of amethyst-pink flowers to appear on this behemoth of a dahlia (D. tamaulipana, a rare species dahlia introduced to the UK from north east Mexico by plantsman and collector Nick Macer) has become something of an annual fixture in the garden calendar: a ‘will they/won’t they’ each year, as we gaze up at fattening buds hoping a sudden temperature drop won’t prevent their unfolding. Had this week’s weather arrived a little sooner, this may well have been the result. But once again we’ve been treated to a final and fleeting flicker of colour to close out the year. The slow progression of this tender perennial is a quiet delight: throughout the growing season it is no more than a leafy foil for the various bulgings and bloomings of the courtyard; a steady swelling that by autumn would equal a garden shed in size; a small elephant, maybe. In October we stake and support its bowing branches, with a stake the size of a fence post sledgehammered-in somewhere towards the middle and string woven between stems as inconspicuously as possible. Once trussed, we await the morning when gathering buds are suddenly spied — usually by one of our volunteer gardeners — as if sprouted over night. If we’re lucky, the first violet flowers open by December. Earlier this week I stood watching a solitary bumblebee moving from flower to flower, which I’d not seen before: might this be the year we get seeds? In the New Year there will be bud break on the fatsias, and then the melianthus, followed by the erythroniums that creep through the courtyard planting. Soon after, spring bulbs will emerge, which promise to put on a great show. But for now we celebrate another fantastic, energetic, eventful year at the museum in the presence of rare flowers.

About our gardens Object of the Week: Mary & Pete (1948) by Anthony Gross British printmaker, painter, war artist and film director Anthony Gross painted this picture of his children Mary and Pete in their Chelsea garden in 1948. Mary recently visited the Garden Museum to see the painting in person for the first time in years, and shared the story behind it: “It was painted in 1948 when we lived in Old Church Street, Chelsea from 1945 to 1958. We seem bored with posing and would prefer playing with our toys and swinging on the swing hanging on a branch of the pear tree. It was spectacular when in blossom in spring and seemed to invade the house. In fact, it influenced the short story ‘Bliss’ by Katherine Mansfield written by her in 1918 when she was living two doors down from our house. A few words about my green fabric horse seen in our toy box: he was my favourite toy and I adored him and ever since green has been my favourite colour, but I cannot remember his name…!”  This painting was acquired for the Garden Museum Collection through the HLF Collecting Cultures scheme. Explore our collection online Images: Evelyn Dunbar (1906-1960), Invitation to the Garden, c. 1938, image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn; Jean Cooke, Through the Looking Glass (1960) Oil on canvas © Royal Academy of Arts, London, photographer John Hammond; Sailboats through Coconut Palms, oil on card, 33 x 28 cm, no date Frank Walter; British Flowers Week Late 2022 © Graham Lacdao; Garden Museum courtyard photo courtesy of Gardens Illustrated © Eva Nemeth; Mexican tree dahlia in the courtyard garden © Matt Collins; Mary & Pete (1948) by Anthony Gross, image courtesy of the artist’s estate