I had occasion to be home during the day today for the first time in weeks. This time of year, I usually leave for work in the dark, and come home in the dark. My work for the season is finished. This means I have some time I can call my own. While Steve was finishing up the very last of the landscape work, I went home to try to figure out what I would do for a Christmas tree. Buck and I celebrate Christmas Eve, so I need to make a move fairly soon. I was pleased to see my garden was holding its own, and hosting a little holiday display. I am so happy for my evergreens in the winter. They mean I still have a garden, in late December.
My home was built 81 years ago. Vintage, it is. I like a traditional holiday display that compliments the architecture-this I talked about yesterday. Southern magnolia does a great job representing that feeling. I hang the garlands, leaf points up; magnolia curls as it dries. These garlands will bulk up, the more they dry. The color and volume suits this old house.
I do very little in the way of entertaining. It is hard enough to find friends that understand and are willing to work around my work schedule. My good friends come to the back door, or come through the garden gate at the back. Those friendships are serious enough to welcome them to the back of the house. But I still want my front door to look dressed properly for company.
A magnolia wreath is a joy to decorate. My wreath is decorated with bits and pieces left over from other projects, a stem of curly flame willow, some brown dyed bracket fungus, some pine cones, and a string bow in chocolate. Not so fancy, my materials list.
My resin cherubs are not such a fancy material, but their shape and expression recalls lots of classical garden ornament I have seen over the years. The detail and color is amazingly convincing. Not everyone is a fan of the putti, the cherubs, and the angels, but I fell hard for this pair.
My winter pots have lights-this is their holiday moment. I will run those lights much longer than I really should, and enjoy every minute of it. I am just glad to see that the arrangement looks good at midday.
Rob fixes a pair of pots for me in his own inimitable style that sit on the wall at the end of the driveway. They are the first thing I see, when I pull into the drive during the winter. These cream beaded picks are ablaze with light at night, thanks to a few strings of C-7 lights placed underneath them. During the day, they still look great. Bleached willow sticks, a few sprigs of flame curly willow, the cream picks and a ruffly skirt of magnolia-this looks as good at midday as it does when I come home after work. I cannot really explain this, but these Galway stoneware pots beautifully dressed for winter mean all the world to me. What fun to see them at noon time.
The raindrop pots got their topdressing yesterday. I decided a mix of noble fir and fresh silver dollar eucalyptus would be just the thing to set off all that glass. The eucalyptus wavers in the slightest breeze-just like that glass. The color is bright-not a bad choice for weather which is predominately overcast. A little morning rain gave everything a fresh look.
Eucalyptus stems are wiry, but slight. Sandwiching them between the stiff layers of the fir gives them some much needed support. Up close, the red stems repeat the red/brown crabapple trunks-this a visual bonus. The network of stems need to resist the weight of the snow that is sure to come. Much like arranging a vase of flowers, we cross stems over one another. Under the green, a woody nest.
Pam made quick work of this phase; the fact that she is a great gardener endows her work with a natural and graceful feeling. The greens were stuffed slightly wider that the dripline established by the glass. The dry foam form into which all of these greens are stuffed are bricks that have been glued together, and wired with concrete wire. We have only to come by some sunlight to get some sparkle going on. 
Rob decided to light the pots with strings of clear c-9 bulbs. We set them well into the foliage; the green cords are not a good look. This warm light is in contrast to all the attendant blue, makes much of the warm brown of the trunks, and the olive orange winter color of the boxwood. 
Late in the day, the drops start picking up light from the bottom. The eucalyptus discs repeat the round shapes of the drops.
I do so enjoy decorating the front of the shop for the winter. Ideas start surfacing in October, as it may take me six weeks to make up my mind. November first I planted these six crabapples in my pots-a first step. I took my further cue from Rob, and his client Claudia, this year. She has been collecting prisms for years; she hangs them from the branches of her trees in the winter. Glass lightcatchers. Her idea enchanted him such that he loaded the shop with all manner of chandelier prisms, raindrops and icicles. 
I fell in love with the idea of the glass drops. The 30 boxes of inch long glass drops I needed to dress these Coralburst crabs sold out in a matter of days. Most holiday ornament is manufactured to order; we place most of our orders in January for the following winter season. No one had these little glass blobs available, in spite of my idea to organize my winter pots around them.
The only drops I could find after days of searching were nine inches long. At the moment I was willing to give up, a supplier had numbers of these very long drops in stock-I fretted for an hour about the long length; would they blow around and break? I fretted another hour, and then ordered a case-432. Funny how the only ornament available can sometimes turn out to be just the right thing. We attached 410 glass drops to these six trees; it was my job to cut off the tags, and attach long wires. Four of us spent three hours getting those raindrops up there. 
How they caught the late day light was beautiful. We did try to place them such that a big wind would result in not so many losses. Some design involves risk; who knows what nature might send my way. Should we loose some, so be it. 
At 4:30 in the afternoon, these black and blue drops have my attention. At my request, Buck fished my Mom’s tripod out. The idea of a tripod for my camera bores me beyond all belief, but I knew I needed one now. A photographic record of how the available light would endow these drops would need a hand steadier than mine. 
By 5:30 pm, my clear skies have gone blue. The drop stalks are almost invisible; the bulbs have gone a curvy black. What I am paying so much attention to outdoors now is singular to this time of year. I would suggest that if great design is on your mind, first and foremost,tune in to what is around you, and be persistent with what you see; something will come.
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. 