At A Glance: The Lighted Rings


To follow is a visual collection of light rings which we have placed in winter containers over the past 15 years or so. This first picture is a detail of the last.  The last picture features our current display of them at the shop. I am very pleased that adding strings of twig garland lights proved to be transformative. We will go on making them – in one form or another.


lighted ring lined with fir

five foot ring with red twig dogwood


galvanized snowflakes and snowball picks


Jackie Classic style steel box and light ring both fabricated at The Branch Studio

curly willow on either side of a ring

2′ and 3′ diameter light rings featuring cherry light strings and galvanized steel holly and berry garlands.  The 5′ ring in the foreground is lighted with a Lumineo compact light set.


light ring in a thicket

2011

dried plants from the garden. The bright light in the foreground is a string of C7 incandescent lights piled up.


five foot ring lined with a boxwood garland

crisp and contemporary

alder branches


holiday

beaming in the rose arbor


cornus “Midwinter Fire” branches, magnolia branches and fir

alder branches and faux berry picks

white tipped green pinecone garlands and fir added to the rings

a client’s breathaking winter container featuring a five foot light ring


light ring wreathed in fir garland with a trio of steel pine cones

This three foot ring is additionally lighted with 2 strands of twig garland lights

Detroit Garden Works winter 2025

At A Glance: The Winter Pots and Boxes: 2000-2021


2000   To follow is a substantial run of pictures from my winter container arrangement archives-the photo collection and work dates back 21 years. I am as surprised to see this as you are. I did not think there were this many years and that much history-but here it is. I did not compare every picture from a given year, and choose what I thought was the best. Whatever seemed to speak to this moment was included. Some arrangements look in keeping with the year they were made. Some look ahead of their time. Some look great and others are so regrettably so so. Ha. You decide what you think. I have my memories.


2001  Tender    We recycled dead Bradford pears from our nursery supplier, and rubbed them down with a copper colored wax. The trees were ornamented with twine pillows and platinum fluff balls.

2002  This light garland was the first of many that Rob would make over the past 20 years. I am sure there are more to come.

2002, part 2  Galvanized pipe wound round with lights, curly copper willow, and greens augmented with light strands and lighted ornaments

2003 Dried and dyed mood moss fitted and glued over urethane topiary forms

2004   Prelit glitter and berry branches hover over fresh cut greens and lighted ball ornaments.

2004     More of those prelit metallic copper glitter branches.


2005  round wood poles, grapevine spheres and lengths of thin wood lath

2005  dried grasses, twigs, faux berry picks and cut pine

2006   stick stack, berry picks, and fresh noble fir over a large huck wreath.

2006  bleached willow twigs, stick stacks, bottle brush snowflakes and gold poly mesh

2007  a first foray into arranging natural foraged branches

2007 at Detroit Garden Works    live juniper topiaries, fan willow and mixed cut greens. We have never been able to source fan willow of this size and with this degree of fasciation, again – it was locally grown.

2007  contemporary stoneware pot by Francesco del Re filled with various contemporary sticks and stacks.


2008     red twig dogwood, red berry picks, fresh silver dollar eucalyptus set into cut noble fir boughs

2008    yellow twig dogwood and eucalyptus stems and pods

2009     red twig dogwood, faux red twig picks, magnolia branches and mixed evergreen boughs

2010   magnolia garland, red twig dogwood and red berry picks

2011  un-branched red twig dogwood, magnolia, boxwood, fresh cut winterberry and noble fir

2011 Detroit Garden Works  gold deco mesh enlivens fresh cut pussy willow, greens, and pine cones

2012      copper curly willow and magnolia branches – and mountain hemlock all around

2013   Tall red bud pussy willow, red preserved eucalyptus and mixed greens

2013    red bud pussy willow, lilac preserved eucalyptus, magnolia and noble fir

2014  flame willow, magnolia branches and mixed cut greens-

2014


2015  lime green faux berry picks and pale blue gray preserved eucalyptus. The basket planter is Dutch made.


2015   with the Christmas holiday in mind


2016   English made steel topiary form with lights, spruce tips, and snow


2017       flame willow, magnolia and spruce branches


2017     yellow twig dogwood, yellow fuzz ball picks, white eucalyptus, variegated boxwood in a large corten steel planter box

2018   3′ diameter lighted ring over a mix of silver and noble fir

2018    a thicket of “midwinter sun” dogwood branches and mountain hemlock

2019   a sparse arrangement of red bud pussy willow, green and white fuzz ball picks, gold and white berry picks and magnolia

2019   “midwinter fire dogwood branches and a light ring

2019     yellow and green


2020    a winter sculpture made of fan willow, boxwood and noble fir

2020    flame willow and large scale snowball picks awash in LED cherry lights


2020  layered look with tall faux astilbe picks
2020  wool felt stole and gold grass picks

2020  wicker basket pots


2021  bleached sticks of several diameters and heights; white berry picks


2021   the centerpiece:  cream berries lining the interior of a 5′ diameter light ring, twigs, picks and magnolia

2021        3′ diameter light ring, alder branches, stainless steel spheres on stainless stems, silver plastic grass
2021          green and white


2021  evergreen branches set vertically

2021  window boxes with light rings,  faux lambs ear garlands, silver plastic grass, blueberry picks, white flower picks-and beaded stars. Very keen to see what will come next.

On The 4th Floor


Detroit Garden Works has a milestone of note in its immediate future. It was the evening of the 28th of March in 1996 that we announced the opening of the shop via an evening reception to loyal friends, family, and clients of Deborah Silver and Company. That following morning, we welcomed anyone and everyone with a big love for the garden to visit and see what we were all about. It is hard to believe that this was 25 years ago, but there you have it. A vintage machine shop provided a home for the dream. In the months leading up to the opening, we decided to paint the concrete floor in the entrance room. That concrete was from an addition made in the 1940’s, and did not match the exposed aggregate character of the original floors dating back to the 1920’s. That floor would be a way of saying welcome. I am happy to say that the floor would need repainting every six years or so, necessitated by ever increasing foot traffic. The third floor painting was quite worn, and we had an anniversary coming up. It was time to get going on the fourth floor.

Dan’s crew cleared the decks. Drew scraped off what was left of the loose paint. Dan laid out the space for the base coats from a sketch. Drew painstakingly painted most of the base coat shapes, and I rolled the rest. We were underway. How I decided on the design has lots to do with making a simple reference to being in a garden. Equally important is a realistic assessment of what would be possible to paint –  given my age, and the fact that we would need to have access to that floor as soon as possible. 6 containers from Europe were due in at any moment. What was in those containers would need homes. But I did want to celebrate what the Works had done such a great job of over the past 25 years –  offering passionate gardeners a way to express themselves through meaningful objects for their landscapes. Gardeners of all descriptions, I might add. Lookers and doers. Those that swoon over any object imbued with history. Cottage gardeners as well as those seeking a clean contemporary look. It took years of plowing the proceeds from every sale into amassing an inventory with both diversity and depth. The Works is packed.

This picture clearly shows the largest area of wear sustained by the previous floor. Part of our concrete block wall sprung a leak, and water had been sitting in this spot on and off for several years. The rest of that floor was in remarkably good condition. I ascribe that in total to the quality of the paint. Porter Paint, routinely used by sign painters, comes in a 100% acrylic formula which hardens much more than latex paint. Owned by PPG, Porter’s exterior Acri-Shield paint is exceptionally durable and comes in a vast number of colors. It is eminently strong enough to use as a floor paint. Happily, one of a few paint stores in Michigan that carries this paint is near us. See more about this great paint store here:  https://www.pontiacpaint.com/

The floor would have but a few elements.  A grassy plane, admirably described by the French as a “tapis vert”, is as elemental a garden as any. And it is the starting point for any number of more elaborate expressions. That green square is a prominent part of the logo for the Works. In additional to the green plane, there would be a surrounding gravel path, and a planted area marked by large leaves to enclose that gravel. Painting the gravel was the first order of business, as plants from both sides would likely overlap onto it.

This would be the easiest part of the painting. A series of colors would be dripped on to the floor surface from a wood plant marker. The only finesse to this part would be slowly thinning the paint so it would drip at a reasonable rate-not too slow, and not too fast. Of course there was plenty of wrist and shoulder action, so the drips would be spaced out.

There were 4 colors to start with, and more colors created by mixing those initial colors. I did remember to use a pinkish taupe color reminiscent of the decomposed granite we use in our garden installations. It’s a subtle color variation, but it is there. As for the random drips over the edge, has not every gardener dealt with gravel moving around? It goes with the territory that there are limits to what a gardener can impose on nature.

Some effort was made to keep the gravel darker and less detailed on the edges.  Once the leaves to come were painted over the edges, that would help create a little sense of depth. This is decorative painting-not fine art. But a nod to composition and technique gives the mural a little more polished look.

I have never painted large scale leaves on the floor before, and it took some experimenting to find the right tool. I finally settled on a 1″ sash brush. The bristles are arranged on a steep angle.  With the longest bristles closest to me, I would set the brush on the floor, deposit some paint, and push the brush away from me. 1 stroke, 1 leaf. No going over or redoing. A stroke laid was a stroke played.  Once I got that action down, The large leaves went fast.  Of critical importance was a finely engineered three legged saddle topped stool with an adjustable seat height. I was able to paint and push along to the next location.

Positioning the work is an essential element for any successful project. Trying to work in an awkward position adds so much time to a project. Painting gracefully is dependent on establishing a rhythm. Sunne made sure I had music playing all day long.

Some of the two weeks it took to paint the floor was absorbed by watching paint dry. Our concrete floor in winter never warms up much, so the drying time was considerable.

At some point it seemed like there were enough colors of those big leaves. The gravel and lawn areas would be so finely textured that a contrast would be welcome. I did want to establish the mass and size of that border before tackling the interior. By no means was any of the application of paint established in advance. Just an outline of the shapes.

What now?

I thought I might get away with just a suggestion of grass here and there, with some accompanying drips, but that looked like I was loosing interest, or energy, or both. I resigned myself to making thousands of grassy marks with that sash brush held backwards, and settled in to the job. It took more time to do this one step than any of the other elements, but it was well worth it.

Those marks were very lively. They brought the dark center up to the same visual plane as the gravel. Eventually I settled in to the job, and two days later that portion was finished.

Drew was in charge of the aerial snapshots, which helped to give an overview of how the floor looked in its entirety.

The brush strokes were deliberately styled on an angle. Grass does not grow in horizontal rows. It grows every which way. Painting the blades on varying angles helped to create an overall look, as opposed to a linear look.

It is easier to see the grass marks undulating in this picture. I like the action of the pattern.

The English daisies on the previous floor was a favorite finishing touch, so I wanted to repeat that. A generous blob of white paint had its edges feathered with a wood garden stake. This gave the flowers a much more windblown and casual look, in contrast to the grass blades and stylized leaves.

The centers of the flowers were done in our signature lime green color.

Due to the transparency of yellow pigment, it took 3 or four coats to get the color to represent clearly.

The largest daisy medallion is a nod to our anniversary. You have to look very close to see the the 25 in the very center, as it is painted in the same lime color as the disk.  That was deliberate. There will be many years to come for the Works after this one.

It was a good day, the day the room started to come back together.That floor grounded the space, and would compliment whatever went in there.

One of the fabricators at Branch said it the best.  He called Detroit Garden Works a passion project. Yes, it is.

At A Glance: In The Same Genre

Rob has planted so many herb/flower and vegetable pots-to follow is a big selection that compliments my last post.

Rob’s genre-I like the sound of that.