Flower May/June 2015

MONKTON, MARYLAND Garden Festival at Ladew May 2, 2015 www.ladewgardens.com NEW YORK, NEW YORK Kips Bay Decorator Show House May 14 – June 11, 2015 www.kipsbaydecoratorshowhouse.org SHARON, CONNECTICUT Trade Secrets May 16 – 17, 2015 www.tradesecretsct.com BRONX, NEW YORK Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life May 16 – November 1, 2015 www.nybg.org LONDON, ENGLAND RHS Chelsea Flower Show May 19 – 23, 2015 www.rhs.org.uk MACKINAC ISLAND, MICHIGAN Mackinac Island Lilac Festival June 5 – 14, 2015 www.mackinacislandlilacfestival.org NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND Newport Flower Show June 19 – 21, 2015 www.newportmansions.org DUBLIN, IRELAND Dublin Garden Festival June 19 – 21, 2015 www.dublingardenfestival.ie ATLANTA, GEORGIA ADAC in Bloom July 15, 2015 www.adacatlanta.com indicates flower is attending or sponsoring the event. For more events, visit www.flowermag.com.…

travel verb | trav•el | \’tra-vǝl\ to go on a trip or journey: to go to a place and especially one that is far away (Merriam-Webster) Especially one that is far away is exactly the travel I encountered when friend and contributing editor, event and floral designer Matthew Robbins invited me to accompany him on an Italian tour. These days, when we’re living in the global village made possible by the Internet, blogs, Facebook, and my favorite, Instagram, it’s easy to get oversaturated by and inured to the visual wonders of the world. However, I find these digital postcards only serve to whet my appetite, and I could not WAIT to experience Italy through Matthew’s lens. Though I longed to personally record and share every gorgeous artifact, garden element, and…

LYDIA SOMERVILLE Writer A contributor to Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles and Southern Living, Lydia Somerville wrote about architect Bobby McAlpine for Outside In (page 27). During the interview, she picked up a tip for her own garden: “I’ve always chosen plants that are bright and cheerful, but I realized after talking to him that a better plan would be to plant things in the palette of my interiors. So I’ll be planting hydrangeas and other shades of blue this season,” says the Alabama native. What inspires you the most? Travel. Seeing other landscapes, cultures, and the way people dress, eat, and live is always so stimulating. What book are you currently reading? The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes (Penguin Books, 2012). MELANIE NASHAN Photographer Ever since being armed with…

My inspiration for this design was the desire to take a no-longer-wanted object and transform it into something both fun and functional for the garden. I’m often offered things that people were otherwise going to throw away, which has earned me the title of the “junkyard gardener.” I love to give salvaged items a new lease on life, as many times these one-of-a-kind pieces display interesting layers of peeling paint, rusty patches, or a spattering of Mother Nature’s mossy-green patina. Why throw something away when you can reuse it in the garden? Now what once was a rusted old chair without a seat is a whimsical planter whose foliage can change with the seasons. MATERIALS: ■ ‘Rustic Orange’ coleus■ ornamental pepper plant■ shrimp plant■ sweet alyssum TOOLS & SUPPLIES ■…

flower: When we first met, you were firmly based in Montgomery, Alabama. You’ve branched out quite a bit since then. BOBBY McALPINE: We have offices in Montgomery, Atlanta, Nashville, and New York, and now I live in Atlanta. I’m about to begin building a new house for myself here in Ansley Park. “The landscape is the correction to the architecture. Sometimes it is parallel to the house; sometimes it’s a counterpoint.”–BOBBY McALPINE You drew your first house when you were five, despite growing up in some pretty uninspiring surroundings. How did that early exposure influence your development as an architect? I grew up in a mill town in South Alabama, which shaped me in that the houses there were built by the mill for their workers and were not proprietorial.…

Bobby McAlpine often gets asked, “What places do you find most interesting?” and “Who has inspired you the most?” For this architect, the answers to both of these questions are inextricably linked. McAlpine travels constantly, sees a bounty of beauty everywhere he looks, and continuously discovers interesting and inspiring people and places. However, the work of British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens has sticking power, and will forever be at the top of McAlpine’s list. Here are McAlpine’s top three Lutyens properties in the United Kingdom: Castle Drogo Drewsteignton, Exeter Devon, England Often called “the last castle to be built in England,” and now a National Trust property, McAlpine cites it for its “poetry, genius, and theatre.” (www.nationaltrust.org.uk/castle-drogo) Greywalls Muirfield, Gullane East Lothian, Scotland McAlpine is inspired by the property’s “gathering…