All spring and summer long, Buck will refer to me as Miss Dirtiness. He will suggest with alacrity that I just might want to leave my work clothes in the laundry room before coming up stairs. Would I like to wash my hands before dinner? If I threw radish seeds in the back of my Suburban-you get the idea. I don’t mind dirt much. It has been a source of great pleasure-growing things. It allows me to make a living. I do not believe I have ever become ill from the dirt I have no doubt ingested over the years. This week my crumbs are of a distinctly sparkly material. Oh, the glamour of glitter. High chroma silver is the most sparkly glitter of all; it reflects 98% of all the light that touches its surface.
Winter light and bright can come from materials that reflect the available light. These glass and metal snowflakes are indeed sparkly. A mirror hung in a garden can be surprisingly and unexpectedly effective. It can create the illusion of greater space, or reflect light in a dark corner. A tree in the yard that has shed its leaves can be dressed up considerably for the winter with some similarly reflective ornament.
I like my winter pots at home to have a holiday element. Glitter picks reflect sunlight when I am so fortunate to have it. At night, the landscape and holiday lighting are are the more festive with some extra sparkle. Decorating the shop for the holidays is a bland phrase that doesn’t convey the fact that all of these glittery objects are at one time or another in my hand. This means I have glitter in my hair, under my fingernails, and in my socks-for weeks.
I am by no means the only fan of sparkle. Martha is posed in front of a pink/gold/purple and silver glittering wreath- wearing a silver sequinned jacket on the cover of her holiday issue. Lots of really dressy winter outfits come encrusted with sparkle. If I did ever decide to wear makeup, I might go for a little dusting of glittered powder in the winter.
Pine cones are just one of natures most beautiful objects. Sparkly pine cones are good fun. A sparkling garland can pick up and magnify whatever light you can muster on a Christmas tree, winter container, or in my case, dress up my jeans and fleece. All this glitter talk may seem a little incongruous coming from this dirt girl. I look at it this way: Sunlight sparkling on the water of my fountain pool surface-one of the best parts of the summer season at home. With the pool drained, I need to get my dose of sparkle from other sources.
The papery seed heads of the money plant are beautiful-but I would never plant it in a garden unless I wanted to look at it everywhere. The same goes for thistles. I like them much better in this form. This company makes shiny money plant stems in a variety of metallic colors. These are easy to spot from a long ways away, and I can store them for next year’s holiday.
This silver filigree wreath is studded with natural cloves; the combination of materials and surfaces is beautiful. The art of making holiday topiary and wreaths with silver wire and cloves is an old German art. A company in New York still makes them, by hand. I know which box holds these topiaries long before I open it; the smell of the cloves had permeated the box. The fragrance of cloves is to the holiday season what lavender is to the summer season. The silver wire sparkles.
These vintage glass ornaments have that softer sheen that comes with age. One of the best parts of the holiday-the tree that comes inside, and gets decorated. The combination of natural evergreen and some holiday sparkle-a tradition growing up that I still practice.
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Paper leaves encrusted with sparkly bits-I am thinking about them for my winter garden. They help me to be far less grumpy about the winter on the way.
I was finally ready this morning to install holiday decor for a client both inside and out; the wreath for the front door was the last thing to be loaded in the trucks. My clients have spent years restoring a beautiful late nineteenth century house; they moved in just weeks ago. Though the landscape renovation just got underway before we ran out of good weather, we managed to get the granite driveway installed. The new front portico and brick walks are still under construction. But being in the late stages of a construction project does not mean they have to forego the holidays. 
A formal tree in the foyer is decorated all in red. Glass ball ornaments in clusters and berry picks suffuse the interior of the tree with a red glow. Sparkly red ornaments of all shapes and sizes hang from the tips of the branches.
The space at the bottom of the stairs is a small one. Some of the lower branches of the tree spill into the stairwell going downstairs. A cloud of red sinamay shot through with metallic red threads finishes the tree at the floor. The garland on the stair railings is plain-but for bouquets of berry picks, ornaments and satin ribbons on the newel posts. 
My client requested that the ceiling of her dining room be dripping with holiday. I am sure she did not think I would take her request literally-but it seemed just the thing to do. The glass drops pick up the light from the windows, and the chandelier; the whole room sparkles. I can imagine it will look beautiful with candlelight. 
We pinned copper and pewter colored oak leaf garland at the top of each beam. Coppery brown manzanita branches were zip tied together in a configuration that would allow for hanging the drops at different levels, and in different planes. Natural reindeer moss is glued over the zip ties. The contrast of the old and somber hand hewn beams with the delicate glass drops-lovely. 
The old fashioned cooking fireplace is draped in magnolia garlands which are fastenened at the corners with pewter colored leaf and pod picks. Small custers of brown berries add a subtle shine to the garland. I always hang magnolia garland with the leaf tips up. As the leaves dry, they open, and fan out, giving the garland greater volume. Garland hung with the leaf tips down will dry down, and be smooth and uniform in width. This is gravity at work.
The new portico outdoors still lacks lighting and finishing, but Christmas is next week. The steel topiary towers were custom made for these large pots; they are wound with brown corded lights. As the bed of greens is so massive, we did a mix for textural interest. Large branches of magnolia grandiflora were zip tied together to make a shrubby form akin to the steel topiary form. 
The walk to the front door is kept company by an overscaled concrete planter of our manufacture. The stick stack frames the house numbers on the wall. A walk that does not immediately appear to lead anywhere needs a strong signal-come this way, please. How the weather works on these twig stacks is a hand over which I have no control. They gracefully open and bend with the weather in a way I could not duplicate. Two parts a client, two parts nature, and one part from me-looking good.
There is ample room on the terrace for this pair of Francesca squares. Like all of the other pots, these squares are sparingly lit. It is less than two weeks to the shortest day of our year.
Four Francesca flutes make for a striking holiday garden at the front door. This Italian terra cotta is tough enough to withstand our vile winters; the ability to have terra cotta outside at this time of year is cause for celebration in and of itself. Some contemporary expression is hard on the eyes, and lacking human softening; this can border on cold. This is no time of year to add cold to the cold we already have. I so like how she chose materials so soft in color, and so subtle in contrast-it was up to me to put them together in a contemporary way. The interplay of contemporary and traditional elements is lively. 
We spent over a week tearing apart a thirty year old landscape for this client. They had decided that though their kids were grown and gone, they would stay, and renovate both the inside and out of their family home. They had not ever spent much time outdoors; a very small back yard with no privacy from neighboring terrraces and play structures kept them indoors. New screening, and an enlarged gravel addition to their terrace opened the door to a new living space for them. The finishing touch-a collection of Italian style, English made concrete planters.
Their children are all coming home for Thanksgiving; they asked if I could dress the pots in their winter coats in time. They are very excited at the prospect of their kids seeing how their home has been transformed in the past 3 months, and the landscape is part of that. Four of the five pots on the rear terrace would be planted for winter. As they have little in the way of outdoor lighting in the back, we installed lights in every pot. The electrician just installed outdoor plugs for them yesterday, in time for the holiday gathering. 
Preserved and dyed eucalyptus provdes a leafy texture much like the magnolia. The chocolate brown color is surprisingly lightfast outdoors. The container looks dreesed for the weather; the colors perfect for the Thanksgiving holiday will go on looking good as winter settles in. 
The pots are positioned to provide good views of the outdoors from the inside. I will move pots from a summer location to a winter one, if need be. I spend a lot more time looking at my garden in the winter from indoors; I am outdoors as much as possible in the summer. These pots can help alleviate that cooped up feeling invariably creeps up on any northern gardener. 
After the rear terrace pots were installed, they called-could I please do three more. Though they plan to replace these front door pots in the spring, they are not the center of attention here. Red bud pussy willow and dark purple eucalyptus make a formal and quietly beautiful statement at the door. My landscape crews construct and install all of this work; they do such a beautiful job. Clients who have winter pots done for the first time are surprised at what a difference they make. I hear about how nice it feels to have something beautiful to look at outdoors at this time.
The side door has the same pot as the front, but a different treatment. As variety is a very precious commodity this time of year, I avoid repeating the same materials everywhere. These snow branches are all plastic; they look just as good up close, as they do in this picture. I try to include a third, mid-level element in all the winter pots; just sticks and greens is a little too spare for my taste. 