Moonlight White Garden Dreams

One of my favorites, Moonflower.
Just planted some around our little barn door.
Photo courtesy of blogger jonesgarden

My dad, loves to garden and landscape. As a child, I spent many Saturdays planting trees, making terraces, and scavenging for special garden stones with him. He once told me it takes 5 years to make a yard your own. Having 30 years in my last yard, I knew every cup of soil in each bed. Each plant was my choice, give or take a few. This new place has a wonderful wild quality to it. But when I start to weed and yank and plant, it feels like an overwhelming jungle. I have to keep reminding myself to enjoy the planning and dreaming part of the process. I've asked my friend Katherine Tracey at Avant Gardens to help me plan the perfect all white garden that will be beautiful in moonlight. Fragrance is important to me too. While I work on getting my jungled tamed, visiting her exquisite nursery in Dartmouth will get me through. All these plants can be found on her website here. If you are interested in white, pink, blue, yellow or whatever color, there's a search on her site to guide you. Remember they specialize in the rare and uncommon. You won't be finding what they sell at Home Depot.

One of the prettiest gardens I've ever enjoyed.
Paul and I shot it for Avant Gardens last summer.
Photos courtesy of Paul Clancy Photography

Just a few of the white beauties Katherine suggested 
for my dream garden. You can find all of these at Avant Gardens. 
From top left, Helleborus Joseph Leper, Nicotiana, 
Oakleaf Hydrangeas Snowflake, Oxalis White Pillow, 
Echinacea Milkshake,Asteromoea Mongolica, 
Helleborus Niger, and Stewartia

What I Did on My Summer Vacation Part 1

Great summer. 

Writing a posting after being AWOL for 2 months feels like putting on new school shoes after a summer of flip flops. A lot of family visiting, some great projects professionally to work on with Paul, setting up a new sewing room and going to the San Francisco area for a beautiful wedding and to see old friends kept us going at a lovely speed.

First I'd like to introduce you to a new client that had us shoot some of the most beautiful, well thought out gardens I've ever walked through. Kathy and Chris Tracey of Avant Gardens in Dartmouth, Massachusetts hired me to design their logo last winter. Logos are one of my favorite things to create and the process with them was one of my favorites to date. They can design and build a garden for you, sell you some of the most rare, uncommon and delightful plants, inspire and instruct with their blog, and offer you a walk through one of the loveliest nurseries you'll ever visit. Client crush big time. 

Below are three collages of some of their work Paul and I captured. For general info their site is http://www.avantgardensne.com  To see more of the photos you can visit my flickr site here.