She makes garden design look so easy. Last Thursday for the second time in exactly a decade Julie Moir Messervy enraptured the Garden Design Luncheon crowd with her graciousness, easy-going wit, energy, style, and utterly pragmatic approach to design. For busy homeowners she promotes outdoor living spaces capable of enticing anyone away from their computer screens (and has somewhat ironically created an app for that.) For gardeners who might be paralyzed by the endless possibilities she shows us how to tune in to our deepest desires to create a garden as comfortable and welcoming as our kitchen.

According to Julie, we already know how to design the garden of our dreams. We formed a connection to the outdoors as children. – Where did we go for daydreaming, reverie and reflection? Those places are part of our inner garden. We are full of great ideas that we have been collecting from all of the places we’ve ever visited and loved. We know what we like and what we don’t.

We can take an inventory of those ideas and predilections and translate them into what Julie calls the “big moves”, which are not unlike what we do inside when we set the table or rearrange the objet d’art on the mantel until we get it exactly right. Granted, the “big moves” outside often involve a little more heavy lifting, sometimes a lot more money, and even occasionally someone with an engineering degree and that is why some of us (my hand is raised) become too scared-rabbit to commit.

But Julie’s gorgeous slides were enough to catapult anybody out of inertia (if you could have heard the gasps!) To begin, we might identify our garden’s comfort zones; think about the frontyard as if it’s the back; create paths that choreograph pauses; audit the visual energy; place the pieces, and set about “crafting the details of nature.”

Julie also urged us all to follow Doug Tallamy’s advice about planting natives for the bugs and the birds. Whatever kind of garden you design, be sure to plant a few natives at least along the periphery. When our neighbors follow our example, swath-by-swath we may begin to restore the ecosystem we’ve all but destroyed.

It’s as clear as a sunny fall day that what Julie wants more than anything is for everyone to get outside and to have a garden to feel completely at home in. To that end she offers all the assistance she possibly can – from a range of design services for every budget, to an iphone/pod/pad app that’s way more fun than a piece of blank grid paper. (Believe me, I bought it and can’t stop moving patios and paths around my yard.) And her book, Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love is the confidence-inspiring blueprint that takes us through the creative process step by step.

Have you been able to channel your inner Julie* to create the garden of your dreams?

(*credit for “channeling your inner Julie” goes to Julie Murphy Christina)

It’s almost 70 degrees outside, the air is feather-soft, the sky is blue-blue and the sun has that golden, get-under-your-eyelids slant. It’s the kind of day that absolutely insists that we get outside. We should be looking for fall color and reindeer moss, or sitting back against a warm wall with our eyes closed, or propping up fallen seedheads…

I had to look up Indian summer to see if this would officially qualify and it must. The definitions say that it’s that spell of warm weather after frost and right before the ground freezes solid and snow covers everything. It’s also the thaw that comes later in the winter – January or February – that feels so much like spring. Perfect time for an Indian raid evidently, which explains the name. According to Wikipedia, other countries call it things like “Old Ladies’ Summer”, “Little summer of the quince”, “Golden October”; and “a tiger in autumn”. (I have to say, I like those names better.)

We’ve had frost – we even had a dusting of snow – but it hasn’t been cold enough to do absolutely everything in (maybe because of this Old Ladies’ summer we’re having.) It’s been interesting to note the survivors particularly among the annuals. The lettuce in the raised bed is perky as ever; borage is fine and so is most of the nicotiana, agastache, and the salvias. What Dahlias were left in the ground went not in the snow surprisingly, but over a cold night a couple of days after that. Unfortunately we had to take most of the other annuals out – particularly in the cutting garden and North Garden – and I would have liked to see which were the ones made of tougher stuff. Some of my neighbors still have zinnias blooming… What annuals survive the first frosts in your garden?

I hope you’re outside right now (if you’re having this perfectly lovely Indian summer too) taking the opportunity to futz in the garden, lie back in the chaise, or collect bouquets of leaves. Come to think of it, what the heck am I doing still sitting in front of this comput—

There has been a lot of speculation ever since Irene blew through that this wouldn’t be a good fall foliage year. Even in the days after the storm the horizon – particularly anything facing south and east – has looked markedly brownish. And then we had our unseasonably freakish snow storm (little more than a dusting here but still…) and it’s easy to just give up and think winter’s here. But we’ve had lots of  days of lovely fall weather interspersed among the ugly days (we’re enjoying a blissful spell right now) and there is plenty of fall color. Pockets of it. We just have to look a little closer.

Despite the freakishly unseasonable weather that might make us think it’s too late to plant bulbs, it absolutely isn’t. We were able to stay right on schedule – this sunny and warm post-nor’easter week is a bulb planter’s dream. We were able to wait until frost (erm… snow) to take out the last of our annuals and dahlias – amazingly some still haven’t been fully hit despite cold nights. But out they came to make way for bulbs. The Deadheads planted over 1000 tulips and alliums in the cutting garden and other display garden beds on Tuesday; Over 300 more in the North Garden that same day; and this morning the Rockettes planted 1800 little bulbs in the Rose Garden (Chionodoxa, Puschkinia, Fritillaria, Anemone…) Tomorrow the Florabundas will finish up planting something like 400 more tulips and alliums in the Rose Garden. No matter how weird the weather is this coming spring we can look forward to (amazing) pockets of color then too.

This marks the last official work-week in the gardens for the garden volunteers (they still have the big Christmas tree to decorate) and our intern Tara who saw us through a full growing season. Gail and I will really miss everyone’s smiles, good-natured growls (Toni), hard work, stories, dedication and easy company. Come by for tea any time!

Are you finding – or planting – pockets of color too?