Holiday | Deborah Silver & Co.

Behind The Scenes

The work involved in transforming Detroit Garden Works for the holidays and winter began last January. A week long intensive shopping trip was followed up with short side trips and lengthy decision making about what to order-this went on all spring long. We shop ahead, so we have what we want when the season turns. Our holiday revolves around a gardening point of view. Of course we have amaryllis. New this year are the vases made especially for growing amaryllis, and the glossy chartreuse hat boxes frosted in faux white amaryllis-a beautiful package for that gift of life inside-a single large aromatic bulb, brimming with the promise of holiday flowers.

No amount of advance planning prepares you for a client that needs a vastly overgown hedge of burning bush removed. I could not bear to throw all those mature branches away. Rob set a good many of them in this Belgian oak box, and trimmed the resulting tree for the holidays with ornaments and garland. This boxed tree occupies what I would guess is 144 square feet-the shop is almost 10,000 square feet. Ten times this space needs attention.

It takes several days to decorate my small house for the holidays-10,000 square feet needing display is a daunting task. Some people fuss about holiday decor in early November, but it takes many hands and many weeks behind the scenes to get everything ready. No matter what I buy for this holidays, I have an idea in mind-that idea asks for some detail. Display work is much about arranging any given object in such a way that what you loved about it so much to begin with is clearly expressed. These simple red-beaded wire trees-how airy, festive, and delicate. Displayed in tandem with a solidly cast and detailed sculpture from Garden Traditions-a good mix. Discovering what works well together is the fun of it. Unpacking and placing what seems like many thousands of small objects is the work of it.

What possessed me to buy four stained glass windows from a garden antiques dealer? The leaf shapes, the textured glass, the color-irresistable. I went on to do some considerable conservation on them-these windows are extraordinary, and were worth the expense. Someone will fall for them. In the meantime, a curtain of platinum garlands are weighted at their ends with glass icicles, and displayed in front of these windows. Indoors or out, glass drops, icicles and prisms can endow your winter with a lot of sparkle.

I have not one problem in the world with faux grass picks, or faux seed and berry stems. Should you ask, my idea of real is every gardener’s committment to their gardening life. Any gardener who collects and constructs a winter arrangement from both real and faux materials-that gesture is real. That creativity is real. The love of the garden is as real as real gets with me. I am all about horticulture, science, good gardening practices-and so on. But I want a winter holiday with a little theatre. These picks can help out with that.

I have to admit I value anything which reflects light in the winter season. Michigan goes grey early, and persists with that grey a long time. Lighting is a critically important factor in holiday display-as you can count on gloomy skies. This glittery-I am all for it. Chocolate and platinum-these two colors are great together. I could use this garland inside and out-I like that possibility. Though we have great ornaments for holiday trees, we do try to equally focus on materials that can be used outdoors.

Howard accompanies me, and stays close wherever I am working in the shop. He seems to know when I will be in a spot briefly, or for a long time. He is watching my face here-he knows I am trying to organize the opening gestures in this space. He has a shop dog’s incredible patience for the process.

My clients respond to any representation of a bird in the shop. Everyone who gardens respects and delights in the birds. From the geese to the hawks to the hummingbirds, the robins and the gold finches- and on to the cedar waxwings in transit-no small part of my feeling of success with my garden has to do with my bird population. I firmly intend that my landscape be a haven for any bird passing by. A glass or wood bird hung in my window reminds me of this. Birds at the holiday-essential.

Our outdoor display is changing over as well. Our stick stacks have arrived. Copper curly willow, yellow twig dogwood, black willow-these vibrantly colored natural stems add much to a winter container. This fiery red twig dogwood reminds me; to everything, there is a season.

Posted on: November 5, 2010 3 Comments

Have A Horrible Holiday

I do have a horribly soft spot for the Halloween holiday. As much as the gardener in me loves the colors, varieties and shapes of the squash and pumpkins that come to market in the fall, I especially relish the ritual carving of these large roundish fruits into faces of all kinds-silly faces, spooky faces, the faces of the dead, damned and long suffering, the terrifying faces, the simply terrified faces. A client who needed a number of fanciful carved faces-how could I speedily scoop and carve? Though I love my dremel tool, its grinding wheel coated me in pumpkin juice and bits in seconds. I needed a time out to wash my windshield.

My battery operated drill was a lot more friendly. After a ink sketch on the pumpkin rind, I drilled holes in every spot I neede a curve. A florist’s knife is sharp as heck, but generating curves with a straight blade on a curved surface-a blisteringly difficult job. Any child would be thrilled with this pumpkin in its current state- holes from which worms seem to be emerging-perfect. Another reason to really like Halloween-kids. They care nothing for the elegance of your execution. They are ready willing and able to climb on the gestalt wagon and go-no questions asked. They like ripped hems, things that don’t match-plastic in any form is perfect. Pools of blood, skulls, spiders, bones and rats- poorly represented in plastic-kids like me to bring all of that on.

My client was not interested in horror-she had a birthday party for a sister planned. She asked for fanciful-but the pumpkin medium has its demands. The finished pumpkins-try as I might-would never enchant an adult like they would a child. I finally quit worrying-carved pumpkins lit from within will warm up any end of October celebration. No trouble-she was pleased with what I carved. Would that I could see them lit up, and beckoning visitors.

Any Halloween celebration can have an aura of horror given an army of spiders. Multitudes of little plastic spiders can make anyone’s skin crawl. The fruits of the gardening harvest seem to settle right in with all the Halloween plastic. A bale of hay and some hemp can put a composition together; I have no fear of making an unfinished mess of a Halloween celebration. Ask any kid-but be prepared to hear an answer you may not be ready for. A natural and gentle Halloween-thank heavens I have not seen that essay. Every kid I have had occasion to meet encourages me to bring on the dirt, the graves, the blood, the guts, the bats, the skeletons, the worms-are these kids not gardeners in the making?

Broom corn is a plant that for hundreds of years has been cultivated for utilitarian purposes. A corn broom-do you not have one? Fresh broom corn is beautifully multicolored-some stems are droopy-others upright. A giant tie of orange raffia ties this entire arrangement to a porch pillar. Seeding broomcorn stems and stalks-this is my late October fireworks.

I used to finish all of my carvings like they might be cited by the Library of Congress-no more. The truth of the best part of Halloween-a loose and fast gesture will do just fine. Buck and I so enjoy Halloween-as we have hundreds of visitors. They never critique my decor. My Halloween at home is all about meeting kids, photographing their costumes, sending them out into the night with some decent chocolate. I meet, see, and talk to every kid living in my community but once a year-Halloween night.

Gardening is an obsession, a serious business, an organizing metaphor for a life. I could go on, but this is Halloween weekend. I would turn everything over to those kids for this weekend. Who knows how many of them might might grow up to be gardeners-growing their own pumpkins for their kids to carve.

I feel really confident that gardeners all over my area have decorated from the garden, and from the plastics industries- and are ready for Halloween just like me. Sunday night, Buck and I will be ready. I cannot entirely explain why we both enjoy Halloween so much-but fun has a lot to do with it.

A love of the garden can be satisfying in ways I never imagined in advance. I anticipate, and plan to enjoy my Halloween. I am hoping you will have an equally horrible holiday.