Tips on Container Gardening

Boston Flower & Garden Show, 2011

New England is finally warming up, and now is a great time to start planning for our summer landscapes. A good place to start is with a collection of containers, which when combined, create an above ground garden! Visit my latest post at Lynnfield Patch to get some professional tips on putting together a container garden of your own.

Guest Designer: Nicole Yee

White looks fresh with blues and browns
in a room designed by Nicole Yee.

When spring arrives in New England, my first instinct is to head outside and replace my evergreen-filled winter containers with fresh spring buds. But how do those blessed with warm-and-sunny-days-on-end welcome spring? Who better to pose that question to than native New Englander, Nicole Yee, now living – and designing beautifully! – on the West Coast.

A palette inspired by spring colors
Nicole Yee Interiors

Crisp white and bold brights make this kitchen shine.
Nicole Yee Interiors



Here are Nicole’s tips on creating
a spring inspired interior ...

“I’ve been working with a client to change bedding, pillows and throw blankets in her bedrooms to go from cozy warm to cool summer breezy. Changing bed linens has a huge design impact and freshens things up for the season. For me, spring also inspires color! I have attached a few photos of recent projects that are blooming with cheerful color. While these rooms are designed to look good all year, there’s something about them that says, ‘spring is here!’ Finally, don’t skimp on spring cleaning! Purge, purge, purge so that you can live simply this season! Happy spring to you! – Nicole”

All photos above by Greg West Photography
for Nicole Yee Interiors


Thanks, Nicole, for sharing more great
design tips (and photos) from the West Coast!




While Nicole chose a plate of pears to decorate a kitchen windowsill, I chose a pineapple to be the centerpiece of our Easter table. Fresh fruit displayed on a white dish says warm weather to me –
regardless of which coast it is served on : )

Spring container gardens

This year I am going for white, both inside and out. Our front porch now has fresh containers of delicate ranunculus blossoms combined with white pansies, tall branches and deep purple sage for a touch of foliage color. This miniature garden should look nice for quite some time. When the ranunculus are spent,
I will find a summer replacement.

On my side porch, growing tulip stems
are supported nicely by a bird cage...

Time for spring decorating

If you are looking for bunnies, carrots, chicks and eggs to add to your spring decorating, then a trip to Gregory’s in Wakefield, MA would be well worth your while. For my out of town readers, please enjoy this peek inside one of my favorite floral shops.



How creative is this cold storage case
trimmed with birch branches?!
Fresh tulips were the special of the day.



Along with offering fresh flowers, floral arrangements, wreaths and potted plants, Gregory’s stocks a large collection of gift items, pretty home decor and unique vintage objects.

I picked up one of these bunnies last year for
a design show that I participated in.
He is still one of my favorites.

I love the “chocolate” bunnies on the top shelf,
and the fish made of twigs near the bottom.
The green gingham background is a nice touch.

Spring lambs, garden ornaments, mercury glass and
topiaries look great when grouped together.

Close up they are adorable.

If you are looking for a pair of cute ceramic pups
with red handkerchiefs, I found some!



Baskets of colorful flowers are ready to go! I just might
have to stop by today to get something for my porch.
Maybe I’ll see you there??


GREGORY’S

329 Vernon Street
Wakefield, Massachusetts
781.246.1230

Improvements that make me happy ...

Our new refrigerator has arrived.

And so has spring!

Old magnets still work on new fridge!

Happy to see the sun shining
again in New England!

Now that the warmer weather is here (please stay!) we are ready to move on to the demolition of our 1960’s kitchen. How happy I will be to take a sledge hammer to that room! We got a decent 6 years out of the kitchen that came with this old farmhouse, but it is no longer functioning as the work-horse of the home should (especially for our large and always hungry family!) Even though living with our outdated kitchen has tried my patience — and has reduced my cooking efforts from Martha Stewart-like to just getting meals on the table — I am kind of glad that we waited so long to get to this part of our renovation process. With all of the great design ideas that I have been exposed to online and in magazines, I am more than ready to start this project! For now, our new refrigerator will be temporarily located in the dining room, so that we can make a new home for it in the adjacent kitchen. I am also happy to report that stainless steel blends very nicely with the gray blue of my dining room walls!

Getting close to nature.

I am inspired this week by
the world outside my window ...
enjoy the view and bring some of
the outdoors-in for yourself.

The budding of the trees. My favorite green.


Hand printed Sprig Storage Box from bookhou.com

Organic. Practical. Beautiful.

Narcissus gone wild ... my deer friends obviously don’t care for the taste of these scented beauties, because they are everywhere in my yard, yet I have only a couple of surviving tulips.

“White Flower, 1929”
fine art print by Georgia O’Keefe

Pair an unusual frame with a contemporary print to make it unique. I am quite pleased with this classic design combination of “floral with stripes” that I created using the Frame Studio feature at art.com. The warm gold frame (Cosmo Metallic) is a nice complement to the cool blue and white of the print.

Bringing colors indoors ...

If you love the sunny yellow of a forsythia, try painting a room with Benjamin Moore Hawthorne Yellow HC-4. It is subtle in tone, almost buttery, and will avoid the “highlighter yellow” that would result if you match to the flowers true color. Add linens in soft greens with pops of bright rhododendron pink, plus dark woods as an accent, for a fresh first-weeks-of-spring palette. Try plugging in your favorite colors as I did here compliments of Benjamin Moore Personal Color Viewer

This print says floral in a subtle way. Put a couple of pillows made in this fabric on a khaki colored sofa, and all of a sudden it looks fresh and modern. Hatteras Daffodil Fabric $50 per yard, available through Company C.

A tree trunk left bare of it’s bark ...
(deers devour bark like some of us
humans devour salty snacks!)

Tables made from reclaimed wood available through Pottery Barn ...
Rustic Wood Accent Table $199.00 - $249.00

Take a shot at making your own if you happen to have some dead trees hanging around and a decent saw-z-all. My husband was inspired to make this pair of rustic chairs. I was impressed.


Perhaps if I keep feeding the neighborhood deers, they might be so kind as to drop a couple dozen antlers as a thank you?

Paul Bunyan, Large Chandelier: 6 feet high, 6 1/2 feet wide, 24 lights

These antlers – shed naturally – would look stunning hanging in my barn/future function hall (my husband and I both come from large families, every gathering is like a small catering event!). I’ll have to wait to collect deer gratuities, however, because this amazing creature is sale priced at an impressive $5,990.oo antlerartinc.com

Waiting for spring and something new ...

Sunny yellow kalanchoes in a brilliant aqua-blue urn; a garden friend in white; a modern vase with forced azalea blossoms; a folk-art inspired tray with a gentle reminder of gratitude.

Just when we thought winter had left the building, here we are face to face with another snow day. Spring seems so far off when you wake up to a fresh foot of snow on the ground. For a lot of us in today’s economy, starting or completing our design projects seems off in the distance, too.

A shiny new countertop and modern appliances would certainly be welcome in this out-dated kitchen, however, the look of joy on the faces of my boys as they suit up for some backyard sledding on this “snow-holiday” has it’s own type of sparkle.

Why this vignette works: Adding a shiny object (aqua-blue urn) on a dull surface (vintage formica countertop) creates a nice contrast as does the colorful flowers blossoming during the gray days of winter. Try it at home: I picked up this small azalea branch after it was broken off of a bush during one of the last snow storms (there were so many this year!). I brought it in, put it in water, and weeks later it opened with delicate pink blossoms, a forecaster of spring to come. Cut some branches from a forsythia bush or a flowering tree and you, too, can enjoy spring a little early this year.