Friday, March 20, 2009

No Sewing But a Great Garden Documentary

Last spring we were in Asheville, NC for our son's graduation and actually managed to fit in a trip to the art cinema in downtown. We have family in Asheville, but we had never managed to fit in a film here before. It is owned by the same man who owns The New Morning Gallery, Bellagio ( an art to wear gallery with very high end clothing and jewelry), The Blue Spiral Gallery, which specializes more in art instead of crafts, another clothing store that wasn't open yet for less expensive art to wear and this great little theater. He is a one man art scene in Asheville, and when I first started going down there he was pretty much it for better quality crafts. The film we went to see is a A Man Named Pearl, a great little documentary that is being shown on HGTV Sunday night. Here in the Northeast, at 8 pm.
Pearl lives in a small South Carolina town where he created a fabulous fantasy topiary garden. It and he are just amazing. I don't plant topiary, it's not my style of garden, but this is art. It reminded me of Watts Towers. It was created by a man with no horticulture or art background out of discarded plants he found on the garbage heap at a local nursery. Now there are 3 and half acres of gardens that people from all over visit. Take a look and I think that you will be as utterly charmed as we were.

In the garden vein, here is a parting shot of my Hamamelis x intermedia Arnold's Promise . A favorite witch hazel that I plant in the entrance gardens of many of my clients. This will bloom through a covering of snow as it did a couple of weeks ago and go on blooming 5 or 6 weeks here on Long Island. In front of it are my Helleborus orientalis, Lenten Rose, just starting to bloom, but I don't expect a great show this year as I just divided and planted them here last fall.

8 comments:

  1. Yay - you're blogging! I will definitely be following along - I truly admire your style and your beautifully constructed garments. (I'm an avid gardener and wannabe-foodie as well, so you're blog is "tailor made" for me!)

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  2. Mom that picture just made my heart sigh and go 'home!' Make sure you pick the 'large' size so the pictures show up larger in the blog. We want details! ...I'm sure your sewing followers want the sewing pictures bigger more than they want to see our pretty tree but still! Big is better! Be American for once :-p LOVE YOU.

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  3. If you click on the photos they blow up quite large.

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  4. What school did your son graduate from? Am looking at schools in NC with DD...

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  5. And we really want to know-did you get a chance to stop by Waechter's Silk Shop? They have a new location.

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  6. And a new name, Waechters Fine Fabrics.Yes of course I did. The old location is just down the street from my mil. I bought a couple of things. But, to tell you the truth, I liked the previous owner's taste better.

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  7. I live about 4.5 hours away from Asheville, and the last time I did a workshop at Waechter's in that tiny classroom, I swore I'd never do it again--do a multiday class, not shopping. I assume the classroom is bigger in the new place. Yes, I really liked Sally and the store too.

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  8. Hamamelis? So THAT's what that is!!?! Just a few days ago I saw someone call that shape a forsythia, which I was pretty sure wasn't right, but I didn't know what the right name was. Thanks! And yes, I think some crocus would be great under it!

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