Deborah Silver is an accomplished and experienced landscape and garden designer whose firm first opened its doors in 1986.
To follow are some visual highlights of our winter work. I will not fault anyone who cannot wade through them all! My group produced a prodigious amount of work the past five weeks, and I am pleased that every winter project we had is finished. We are better than halfway through the Detroit Garden Works winter garden. Then it will be time to do my pots at home.
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Very pleased with this year’s winter pots and such.
Deborah Silver is a landscape and garden designer whose firm, Deborah Silver and Co Inc, opened its doors in 1986. She opened Detroit Garden Works, a retail store devoted to fine and unusual garden ornament and specialty plants, in 1996. In 2004, she opened the Branch studio, a subsidiary of the landscape company which designs and manufactures garden ornament in a variety of media. Though her formal education is in English literature and biology, she worked as a fine artist in watercolor and pastel from 1972-1983. A job in a nursery, to help support herself as an artist in the early 80’s evolved into a career in landscape and garden design. Her landscape design and installation projects combine a thorough knowledge of horticulture with an artist’s eye for design. Her three companies provide a wide range of products and services to the serious gardener. She has been writing this journal style blog since April of 2009.
Copyright © 2024 · Deborah Silver & Co. · Detroit Garden Works
Deborah
What plant and variety do the sticks covered with red berries come from? I would like to plant that in my garden in Tennessee. Is it a Hawthorn (Crataegus)? If so, which one?
Thanks
June Mays
Dear June, our pots are comprised of cut evergreens and branches, and faux, preserved or dried picks. best, Deborah
If you are interested in Hawthorns, look for Winter King. I love mine and so do the bees. In the spring you can hear the trees buzzing. And in the winter, they are LOADED with red berries!
What are those light green plants on the 10th picture from the top. Very unusual.
Do you prepare the pots in some way? One year I think water got into my pots, froze, and then caused the pot to crack. I’m afraid to ruin a nice pot in the winter. Any advice?
Dear Colleen, we do winter arrangements in frost proof pots only. best, Deborah
Deborah, I really love your holiday pots this season, you and your crew have hit a really amazing level of creativity and beauty- BRAVO!
The precision and the boldness make these all such unique and beautiful pieces. Thank you for the inspiration. I like the idea of the geometric – squares and rectangles – as a counterpoint to all the roundness of nature’s forms.
As always, Debra, your arrangements are inspiring, indeed majestic, and encourage one to save all those pruned water shoots from double-file viburnums and yellow-twig dogwood branches to make use of during the winter. I hesitate to ask a question when you’re obviously so busy, but would love to know what the silvery carex-like foliage is atop the greenery in the last photo. Here’s to some well-deserved resting on your laurels to you and your staff over the holidays!
Dear Christina, what you see is silver plastic carex. My zone does not permit live foliage in winter pots-too cold! best, Deborah
Hi, I love all of the planters and would like to have any of them in my yard. I especially love the large rings with the lights wrapped around them. What are the circles made of? I can’t tell if they are wood or metal. Do you sell these?
Dear Cathy, the steel light rings are available from Detroit Garden Works. You can find therm on the website in the seasonal section. Jackie ships them all over the country. Jackie@detroitgardenworks.com. all the best, Deborah
Merry Christmas to all the DGW team
Mightily impressive and inspiring to all of us who love natural decoration using beautiful plant material.
THANKYOU
All stunning – Merry Christmas and a restful New Year !!!
Who knew? There is such great imagination in these creations that one’s jaw drops with each new picture. Thank you for sharing these beautiful arrangements with your newsletter members. I consider this better than driving through a light display. I did not have to leave home.
Morning Deborah – these are a treat to see. Thank you so much for the generous sharing! Merry Christmas!
I love ALL your pots and you brilliant crew. It and they are really magical.
Dear Deborah,
Wow! Prodigious and prolific creativity and Winter beautification indeed! Love seeing all. Our favorites: Photo 12, 14,17, 19, 31 and last photo.
Wishing you, Rob, Sunne and staff a very Merry Christmas!
Just beautiful! ❤️ Thank you and Merry Christmas!
Jaw dropping gorgeous! Beautiful works of art! Each one is perfectly made to go with the architecture of the house. Truly amazing!
Beautiful! Wonderful work by you and your crew. Loved seeing the icicles hanging from the eave of the one house. Brings back such great memories of growing up in IL. We live in the PNW now and don’t get snow like back home(or much of any, haha). Thanks for sharing your beautiful work!
Stunning and inspirational as always!
Beautiful! I’m curious, what are the picks that look like small Pom-poms? The are light green or lt brown in color. So fun!
Dear Kim, they are pom pom picks-yes. best, Deborah
Dear Deborah, each photo I scroll to, I say, well now THIS is my favorite, and then I see the next one, which becomes my favorite, and then….. well, with each photo the argument for moving to Detroit within range of your wonderful touch gets all the stronger. Happy Holidays to you all!
Marguerite in CT
Thank you Marguerite! Happy holidays to you, too. best regards, Deborah
Love the planter with the red balls, red and white sticks. All are just fabulous.
Inspiring work, Deborah! I revamped my planters with birch tree branches for the vertical element and the greens and faux red berries around it. They are in a very windy area so I really appreciated reading your tutorials about supporting the arrangements. Thanks so much!
The pots are spectacular! I wish you were in Cincinnati.
Stunning! Thanks for sharing your incredible and beautiful work. You truly inspire me with each and every plant vessel shown here. Well done again! Merry Christmas
Always love seeing the creative arrangements put out by you and your team, Deborah!
Food for thought and something that I had never really thought about before reading about this phenomena in an email blast, possibly from Audubon: faux berries in outdoor arrangements are causing the death of many birds and they suggest we refrain from using them. The realistic berries are gobbled up by hungry birds at a time when food supplies are limited and, as a consequence, many of them are choking to death … And, with the steady decline of nearly three billion North American birds since 1970, primarily as a result of human activities, and the loss of 1 in 4 birds in the last 50 years alone, this seems like a request worthy of serious consideration …
Dear Liz, I have to tell you that I have been using exceptional quality faux berries in arrangements of decades. It would be impossible for a bird to pull a berry off-I can hardly do that. I am sure I would notice bird damage were there any, as we save the picks from year to year. But I will read up on this. thanks, Deborah
Thanks, Deborah! I thought the same when I first read the article and maybe it is easier to pull the berries on the cheaper faux berries. Should you happen to find more in depth coverage, I would love to know about it!
Thanks for always being so generous in sharing your design secrets with the rest of us.
By the way, the dozens of plant supports I have purchased over the years look lovely in my garden, and especially at this time of year when the architectural warp and weft of the garden is more evident, adding great interest.
Liz, I was very concerned when I read your comments. As my family lives on tight budget, I have been using the inexpensive faux berries in my outdoor arrangements. This year I noticed that the berries barely managed to survive the first icestorm of the season before bursting open to reveal their foam centers; the qualting of these is getting poorer and poorer. Given that we have lots of birds in the area, I will be switching to more natural materials like the beautiful eucalyptus and coloured twigs to enhance my greenery like the urn that Deborah has pictured above. Thanks for the comment. I will be looking into this further.
Dear Lorelei, we occasionally stock foam berries-but they are of the explosion proof and weather proof type. Some artificial berry stems are simply not rated for outdoor use. They will explode and degrade with bad weather. That does not necessarily mean that birds are eating them. We mostly use heavy weight all plastic berry stems. best, Deborah
so extraordinarily beautiful !
Absolutely Magnificent!!!
I am in awe with the creativity and diversity of all of these projects. AMAZING – you inspired me to practice on my home this year!
Beautiful slide show! I can replay these pics over and over and ENJOY the beauty of fine creative artistic talent. BRAVO to the team. BRAVO to your guidance. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Many of these beautiful pots have lighting elements. Do you run extension cords or are the lights solar?
Dear Pat, we use lights that plug in. best, Deborah
Each arrangement had me in “aww”. Your talent is enjoyed by many. What is a natural talent for you is wonderful to see that you enjoy it so much and can love your job doing it. So beautiful.