Gardening Inspiration
by Mary Beth Evans
As a follow up to last week’s blog I thought I would share where I get my gardening inspiration and hopefully give you some ideas in the process. One of my favorite things to do when it comes to gardening is to COPY. I’ll go to high-end stores or look on their websites and get ideas and then shop around for something similar for far less. It’s kind of fun to see how I can pull off the high end look for bargain prices – trust me, it can be done, so don’t let what you think will cost a fortune deter you from trying.
Great places to scout out some ideas are hotels. I have gone to some of my favorite hotels like, The Carnaros Inn in Napa Valley or San Yasidro Ranch (right) in Santa Barbara to get garden ideas. I’ll snap photographs and keep them on my computer until just the right time when I’m feeling inspired. I also look through magazines and make a file of “tear sheets” for …some day. It’s easier to keep a file and reference back than scouring your house for the magazine that you think you saw a great idea in once. Martha Stewart’s magazine serves as some great inspiration. My creations are certainly not as perfect as hers but they are my own and they look good.
People often ask how I pull my house and garden together…well this is it. I look around me…I look at friend’s houses or other houses in my neighborhood. I look at nurseries, ect. ect. There is inspiration everywhere.
One of my recent creations was so simple and beautiful that anyone can do it. On a shopping trip to Lowes I had seen these little inexpensive succulents. I immediately remembered that I had photographed some cool pots with succulents at a nursery in Newport Beach called Rogers Gardens. I went back to my computer and looked up the photos and made my own version. I had three wooden boxes that I got from a floral supply store that have been sitting in my shed for years – just perfect for this project! It’s was so easy and they take VERY little water and even less care. I put some outside and the three boxes I put inside and they look like art. I’ve included some step by step photos so you can see how you too can do it. Feel free to use this as a “tear sheet” of your own and use it when you are inspired!
Give it a try…
Rogers Garden’s succulents on the left and my version on the right:
Creating my boxes….
Recent Posts By Mary Beth Evans
- Big Transitions - September 2nd, 2010
- My Baby Update - August 26th, 2010
- Having a Vision - The Finished Product - August 19th, 2010
- Hopes and Dreams - August 12th, 2010
- Ancestral Family Favorite Recipe - August 5th, 2010
Tags: gardening, Mary Beth Evans, Napa Valley, Rogers Gardnes, The Carnaros Inn, Yasidro Ranch
You never know when inspiration is going to hit or you are going to find something that pings your fancy. That’s why I always carry my camera. My husband and I have been planning on re-landscaping our backyard for a few years. Work and deployments have belayed the execution part but not the planning. This spring we are a go and look forward to bringing together our personal ideas and marrying them with those we have seen and liked.
Cut sheets, photos, chatting with others, doodling on a napkin or other paper product are great ways to grow ideas.
What’s even more fun is creating the same beauty at a lower cost. It can be done. Just takes time, some legwork and perseverance.
Be well!
Some of my best ideas have come from our local Botanical Garden…as well as driving through other neighborhoods. I have oodles of gardening magazines with folded corners…and good intentions of using! My garden seems to take on a different feel each year. Love your gardening updates Mary Beth!
I actually like your version better than Roger’s Garden. Great idea to tear out the pages of magazines instead of keeping the whole magazine. To make them keep longer you can invest in a cheap laminator and laminate the pages, punch holes in them and keep them in a binder. Thanks for the ideas; they are always great!
We in the learning and leadership development business, call copying “leveraging”. It took me quite awhile to get used to that concept because I had always thought that you needed to have “your own ideas”. However, saying that, there is much value to leveraging others ideas at a much lower cost. Hotels, garden centers, model homes, magazines, websites are great ways to obtan ideas to improve your home regardless of whether or not you are gardening, decorating your home or doing flower arrangements. I still haven’t been able to get the courage to take pictures at these sites, but I am working on it. Mary Beth, thank you for your blogs and thank you for helping me to get over my guilty feelings of leveraging and for giving me the courage to begin taking photographs.
Hi Marybeth: I have enjoyed watching you on Days for many, many years. Also, you were fabulous on Nip/Tuck! I’m a container gardener in San Francisco and want to thank you for your great idea with the succulents. I will definitely be able to use them in my business. Check out my website: thepotlady.biz. All the best, Leslie
The succulents look a lot like the hens and chicks I grow. I had hundreds of them around the yard before I moved. The garden club (I didn’t belong) would come by when they were in bloom as they had never seen it before.
I too always enjoy looking for a good deal on new plantings and just about everything else (you should see my “shopping list”). Though some of my best “finds” ended up costing nothing! Friends and I swap plants all the time. I took the original dozen hens and chicks and daylilies from my folk’s place in Maine. I forget who gave me the chives, which are beautiful in the spring and the flowers are great in salads. If the are dead-headed properly they will bloom most of the summer. The hostas came from my grandfather’s grave when they needed to be thinned. The ground cover under the tree came from the trimmings of a local landscaper. I even scored tree onions from a grounds keeper at Colonial Williamsburg. My favorite find was in the compost pile at the local dump (my town is too small for trash pick up). I found a couple dozen iris rhizomes. I knew what they were, but not the color. Waiting for them to bloom was like slowly opening a gift.
Cheers
Call me inspired. While not as pretty as yours (and not even in the same neighborhood as Martha’s), I planted my very own little flower box this weekend. And, though it’s still a little too early to call its fate, I certainly had fun doing it.
Oh, and while I was at the garden supply store, I spotted a few other things I liked. Now my mind’s at work…plotting and planning my next planting.
Thanks for the inspiration Mary Beth!