2011 Another Award Winning Garden

I'm going to interrupt my posts from the Philadelphia Flower Show with one last post from the 2011 Antique and Garden Show.  

The theme this year was Elements. and our garden was Fragrance.  Other gardens included water, stone, iron and wood.
It started like it always does, with the hardscape.

And..... this one was really hard!  I have big plans for these boulders in my garden soon.

 
All this will be transformed in a matter of 3 days.

Please, come join me in the garden.

The garden entry path was flanked by two large columns.  As so often happens, farm land was converted into a subdivision and the gate columns were discarded and left behind in what turned out to be the new homeowner's rose bed.  The home owner just wanted them hauled away. These columns were each carved from a single piece of stone. Experts estimate that they were carved in the early 1900's.

Another Best of Show Ribbon for my talented husband and the landscape architect Stephen Wells.

Soft textures combined with an interesting hardscape made this garden a winner.

Here's the giant boxwood the crew dug up.

Rosemary, thyme, fennel, eucalyptus, lavender and hyacinth provided the fragrance.   

The Antique and Garden Show is in February.  They take it all down in one day and then do it all again in March for the Lawn and Garden Show in a different location!   The Lawn and Garden Show is held in one of the fairgrounds buildings where the space creates it's own challenges.  Here are the same boulders, used in a different way.  

All these veggies are now growing along my driveway.  We have already eaten some of the broccoli.

See the same boxwood tucked in the corner?

 After a month of back to back garden shows, my husband is exhausted.

Garden "Accessories"

One of the things that I remember the most from the Philadelphia Garden Show this year, was the competitions.  They had a window box competition.

Front Porch Competition

Terrarium Competition

Hundreds and hundreds of plant competitions.

The Miniature Garden Competition you can see HERE.  

Being a jewelry maker myself, the competition I enjoyed the most was the "accessory" competition;  Transforming plant material into incredible accessories.  Beautiful clutch purses made from corn husks, other large leaves, and seeds.

Earrings made from leaves and seeds.

 An amazing watch made seeds, tiny leaves and branches and the actual watch from a bean.  This watch actually worked! 

My favorite of the accessories was this incredible hat.  I would so wear this! The colors, the shape, everything about it was so beautiful.  

 Stayed tuned, I still have the amazing shadow displays and the carousel animals to show you.  There were just so many wonderful things to see I can't stop myself from sharing with you :)
Come visit everyone at Seasonal Sundays

My Christmas Surprise

In early December, I found a beautiful set of Fine Bavarian China with eight place settings and serving pieces, 30% off the consignment store price.

Because of my dish addiction, I resisted and ran home to brag to my hubby about how strong I was to avoid buying another set of dishes.  With the holidays upon me, I forgot about them.

On Christmas I was totally surprised when I opened a box from my MIL with one place setting of this beautiful china.  I was completely confused with the once place setting and because I didn't tell her about the dishes.  Yep, you guessed it,  my hubby told his Mom and she went that day and bought my china.
This china is special to me because it was made in Czechoslovakia and both my Grandmother and Grandfather immigrated to the US from Czechoslovakia when they were young adults and because it was given to me by my dear MIL. 

The pattern is Wild Flower.  I was able to add two more place settings from Ebay; gotta love the Ebay!

I found the fat blue birds at TJ in Atlanta and snapped them up! 

Hope the blue birds are nesting in your backyard!   

Happy to be linking with Susan's Tablescape Thursday

Mini Gardens

One of the things that blew us away at the Philadelphia Flower Show, was the Miniature Garden display.  After fighting the crowds all day and being so glad when it finally cleared out after 6:30 PM, I wasn't too keen to stand in a long line, but I was intrigued.  So stand in the line we did and we were rewarded with a view through the windows into the magical miniature gardens.  Each window was about 20" or so and the scenes inside were amazing.  This one had a real working fountain!  Imagine a fountain that is about an inch and half tall!

The lines were long, but I wasn't going anywhere before I saw every detail behind the glass.  Taking pictures was difficult because of the reflection in the glass and I held up the line trying to get a photo without a person showing in the glass!

Many of the mini gardens had more than one room.  Below is the first room and you can see a glimpse of the solarium.

Here is a view into the solarium

This is the candy store and the view through the windows is of a completely different garden area.

This is the patio outside the candy store  You can see the lights  of the candy store coming through the doors on the left.  

This precious garden was a Paris city street scene complete with a shop with tiny loaves of bread!  For perspective, the sundial is about 1" tall. 

The judges thought this house was too large for the rest of the garden.  They were brutally honest in their critiques which were written next to each garden for all to see.

Any my personal favorite mini garden...

I love the umbrella and the shadow of the couple in behind the curtains.  The inside of the room were even more wonderful than the outside.  The kitchen had a stone fireplace.

Come back again and visit.  I will be posting "Garden Accessories" the like of which I had never seen or even imagined, shadow gardens that will make you say Wow, and the Carousel Animals that blew everyone away.
I am joining Seasonal Sundays