Plants, Ponds & Pottery

Click to enlarge all pics to see all the details!

We recently got plants installed in our office & I was in charge of shopping for the planters, so I went to a few places to see what was available. I found our planters at 2 different places downtown. This one is called The Arbors & they have really great looking concrete garden accessories, as well as some beautiful fountains. I always enjoy browsing here.
This is my kinda stuff!
This is one of the planters I picked up for the office. It now holds 2 beautiful plants (just got one of them). The others are all clay pottery pieces & we are so happy with the way they turned out. Our plant service is going to be great. I'll have to take some pics of the finished plants for you sometime soon. It was really fun picking out planters.

This is one of my favorite nurseries in town, Hanna's. They have gorgeous plants, accessories, & garden items. I love to browse here & have bought several plants from them. They have a huge selection of perennials & annuals & those of you here in AL would love shopping here. If you need a new nursery to try out, come to Hanna's. They have the cutest little shop cat. He lives here fulltime & has the run of the place. He finally plopped down & let me take his picture. Sometimes he lets me pet him.
Lots of architectural pieces too....I love these iron pieces.
Small garden table, lots of plants & see all the containers in the background. That's what we are looking at for the office. I see a few possibilities here.
More iron pieces.
Love this bunny bench. I'd love to have one of these for our yard.

This is part of the indoor plant selections, including orchids.
Outside in the conifer area.
Blooming treeforms.
More plants.

Cute concrete bunny that I love, of course.
Inside they have some nice accessory pieces.
Lots of garden things. Aren't those birds cute?
Right next door is a pond place, called Aquatic Gardens. This place is SO neat...I love to browse here. They have all kinds of fountains, they build ponds too, & just have a great selection of pond & fountains & garden art.
Front courtyard with lots of fountains to choose from. They have them all running too so you can see how they look.

Busts & more fountains. I just love all this stuff!
Pond with fountain & bench.
More fountains up close.
Pond with water feature. Wouldn't you love one of these fountains at home? I would!

Love this fountain!
This is inside, where they have lots of garden accessories too.
Place settings on a table.
Accessories for the pond.

Hope you enjoyed the nursery & pond tour. These are all fun places to browse. I really love gardening and will be ready to go next spring with some new garden ideas!

Plants: Real vs. Faux

Florals in my livingroom, sofa table off the foyer. Click to enlarge all pics.

I'm glad you all enjoyed my yardsale finds for this week! It's always fun to share them with you...and ya'll really appreciate a good bargain, I can just tell! LOL


Over the years, I've been involved in many decorating boards & have seen many discussions on real vs. faux plants & there seems to be a lot of differing opinions on this subject, so I thought that would be a great thing for us to talk about. I have both real & fake plants in my house & have been completely content with that for many years, but recently have begun to wonder if I have "too" many fake ones. Maybe it's time to rethink this. I made all of my arrangements & some of them are over 10 years old & while I still like them very much, perhaps it's time to change some of them.

I really need to get my magazines out & pay closer attention to what they are doing in there now. I know lots of photo shoots have real flowers in them, but you wonder what the homeowners do all the time...every day. It would be nice to have real flowers everywhere, but that's not practical either(or realistic $$ wise). But, this is the real world, so what do we do when we want some texture & life that plants inject in a room?

So, what do you do in your home? Real or fake...I'd love to know! Now ugly silk flowers, I just can't stomach either, but I'm sure if some real designers walked in my house, many of them would probably poo-poo my fake plants...I'm sure of it.

This one I made many years ago too & it's in my livingroom. I probably do have too many, now that I think about it, but what do you put in their place? I can't imagine taking out all the greenery, it would feel so cold & sterile. My livingroom has a floral needlepoint rug, muted colors & these arrangements fit in there so well colorwise.
These 2 iron urns are on the coffeetable with fake plants too.
I made 2 of these sconces a few years ago & this is all dried material. I still like them too, with the artichokes & pomegranites & feathers. These colors work well with the painting here. I love Mary Carol Garrity's style & notice that she uses lots of dried floral material. I'm trying to use more of that too & nothing garish or really fakey looking. I think I've succeeded at that,
at least I hope I have. This is an iron base with more pomegranites & artichokes & feathers. I still like it...and if this wasn't here, what then? I'd love to hear from all of you...is there something else that gives life to a room other than greenery or flowers?
Ivy topiary I made several years ago too & it's on a wall sconce seen from the foyer.
Tin container in the diningroom with more greenery & berries.
Large silk palm in the livingroom..this really adds some drama, so I'm sure I won't change it out. I'd love to do a real one, but I've heard they are pretty temperamental to keep going indoors. That's the main reason I do mostly fakes...real ones require quite a bit of care to keep them pretty.
Faux forsythia in a tin on my desk. These really look real, but of course, forsythia only blooms in the spring.

A faux orchid is on the foyer table & I love the colors in this piece. It has the roots & leaves & I have it in a white urn. I see lots of orchids in magazines & they always look so pretty. We just added all those real plants & trees in my office & that really made me start thinking about all of this.
And here are some of my real plants. In the foyer, this iron basket is hanging on the wall.
And this floor planter is just inside the front door, also real. The ivy in this one is really taking off. This planter was a yardsale find for $5 last year.
Downstairs in the den is another peace lilly.
And I have several African violets in the laundryroom.

So, I do love real plants, it's just that they are not practical everywhere. I know there are so many people who absolutely hate fake plants, florals & greenery & wouldn't be caught dead with them in their house. I'm just not one of those people. I think there is a place for both...in the right balance. I've just been rethinking mine lately & maybe need to pare it back a little. And I do agree that the fakes need to be good quality. I hate the plasticy looking cheapies that you see out there...you know what I'm talking about!? For the most part, I think mine look like good quality, but I'm sure some who walk in my house would hate them.

So, tell me what you think! I'd love to know...this could be a great discussion. What do you do in your house??

Don't miss my 100th post giveaway on Wednesday!!

Petals from the Past.....

Is it just me, or does something come over you this time of year & just gives you the urge to dig in the dirt?? And when you get out & see all those blooms & blossoms in the nurseries, it really kicks into gear...I want them all! I visited a delightful nursery here in AL yesterday. Went with a ladies group down to Petals from the Past in Jemison, AL (about an hour south of B'ham) ...a wonderful family-owned nursery that was just amazing. I had heard all about it, but this was my first visit. I was in for a treat! We got the grand tour from the owner (who has a degree in landscape design & horticulture). He & his wife own the nursery & treat you like you're family. We all got some great advice from Jason, the owner & he took time to answer any questions we had. One thing that really amazed me & I thought it was genius...they grow blackberries on vines just like grapes grow, so that there are rows in between, no weeds or snakes, & you just walk along picking the berries...all neat & orderly, how cool is that? He told us that they get ripe around May & you can go & pick to your hearts content, so guess where me and DH will be heading soon?! There were also fig trees & blueberries in abundance, all for picking when harvest time comes. I would definitely recommend going there if you haven't been & live in the area....it is truly a treat. I bought some reseeding annuals that he showed us growing in the yard....I'm all about reseeding plants! The house that you see, which is now the nursery store, was an old farmhouse that they moved to the property...it was once a few miles down the road. It has an old-fashioned feel & they sell old-fashioned heirloom plants that your granny might have grown. Lots of old roses for the rose lovers out there. Me...I stick to Knock-Out roses that are easy to take care of...I'm a little leery of growing roses, cause I've heard how hard they are to take care of. It's a charming place to visit & they have lots of great garden ornaments too. Oh, and all their plants are grown in AL, which has to be a good thing. Hope some of you get there one day!

DH & I had a real bunny spotting last night right after dinner...we've been wondering when they would come out again this year...and then, there he was in the backyard. We had so much fun last year watching 3 bunnies frolic around in the backyard, putting on a show for us! They are so darn cute! I scared him when the flash went off...and away he scampered, but I know he will be back.

Who likes asparagus?? We sure do! Just a quick recipe to share with y'all...I watched Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee recently & she did these roasted asparagus. I used her exact recipe, but left off the kalamata olives she added. These are SO delish (as Rachel would say!)...asparagus must be in season right now, cause it's been really cheap lately & I've been buying it for about 4 weeks now. This recipe is one of the best I've found, I always have just steamed it before, but this one is great.

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Chop ends off asparagus, drizzle with a little olive oil, place on baking sheet (so they are all spread out), sprinkle with lemon pepper, bake for about 12-15 min. until crisp tender. Try it...it's SO yummy!

Happy Gardening Everyone!