The NY Times is High on Pots - What are they Smoking?

Stone Urn on a Concrete Pillar

Sometimes, and by this I mean daily,  the design pages of the New York Times provoke me to scream, ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MINDS?

And I say this fondly, being an ex-New Yorker, born and raised and schooled and once able to tell at a glance a real Gucci bit on a shoe from a knock-off -- and consider this essential information.


I'm looking here at a wood frame plant stand. It's essentially an open-sided packing crate made of ash, with a built-in saucer. Pop in your pot  and it's off the floor -- Thank God the parquet is safe!

The collection, by "designer" Trey Jones, begins at $550.  I think, I'm in fact sure, there's something like this lurking in the garage, or possibly the basement. Maybe the attic.

How do they write this stuff without snickering?

Now, no one loves pots and planters more than I do -- see various posts on the subject --  but the most I've ever paid for one, and technically it's not a planter but an umbrella stand cunningly redeployed, was a hundred bucks. I considered this a charitable contribution to the legal costs of a couple of guys who got caught selling a miniscule amount of weed, which is neither here nor there.

Cast Iron Pot on Stone Stand

Otherly, every otherly, the plants  that  stud our porches and gardens (that sounds a lot grander than it is) were found -- discarded on the sidewalks, sticking out of a dumpster, or gifts of a sort, as in: Please take this or I'm throwing it out.

An Early Find in Georgetown

Generally, all one needs to do to land free stuff is have knowledge of the trash truck timetable for various neighborhoods; of course the finer the neighborhood the finer the trash.

Where once Capitol Hill  was considered more shabby than chic, and one needed to forage in Georgetown or Cleveland Park, our streets are now littered with Bugaboo strollers pushed along by au pairs and nannies endlessly chattering on their cell phones in French, and Spanish, and Chinese, and the restaurant line for Roses stretches hours down the sidewalk.



Add to that being a rather transient place, what with upheavals of political fame and fortune, and the pickings are rarefied.

Chinese Pot on a Bunch of Put Together Junk

I've found pots and pedestal bases made of stone and concrete and porcelain. A cast iron pot with curly handles, weighing easily 100 pounds and valued at around $350 (triple that in New York) was a moving giveaway. I was very moved, as was my back. It holds a sago palm and summers on the front porch atop another find, this one picked up at curbside, a wonderful stone stand with protruding lion heads that winters in the living room and makes a fine extra seat when magazines aren't piled on it.

I don't know where I found the Chinese pot on the back porch and am, in fact, amazed that it is not broken. This one comes upstairs to my little greenhouse come November.

Furzed Terracotta

Nestling near the pond,  in a collection of ferns, is a gorgeous terracotta number the Prince brought home from who knows where last year --  it's now growing a fine furz of moss, which is a lovely touch.

Furz, I've just discovered, means flatulent in German. It sounds like it should mean a fine spread of soft fuzz. Doesn't it?


Last Sunday morning I toted home three fine pots glazed green. They'll be good on the porch steps, planted with the pink hibiscus and a jasmine that are currently being smothered by elephant ears.

Concrete Pot in Front Garden

I MEAN!? WHO throws this stuff out? But they do.

We have also acquired a pair of these rough concrete pots (at right), both are tucked in the front yard ivy and usually sport something seasonal - pansies or mums, maybe tulips. At the moment they're doing this crumbly thing that I quite admire, and anyway they flank a pot I'm saving for another post that's stuffed with geraniums and lavender and something else that I can't remember.  

The swirly half moon of wrought iron behind it was another trash fine,
I believe it was a headboard. This arrangement of stuffs totally thwarts the tromp of the postal persons, a 30-year goal finally realized.

Happy trashing!

Larcenous Thoughts on an Urn

Despite frequently mentioning thievery as the cheapest, most efficient method of obtaining plants and ornaments for the small urban garden, I am not the sort to wander the neighborhood by night uprooting and scavenging peoples possessions. Really I'm not.

Oh, I might snip a bit of a plant here and there, nothing that anyone would notice, just enough to stick in some water or dip in rooting powder. Or I might pick up a twig at a garden center, something they'd otherwise discard, and do the same. But actually pillage?

Bad karma.

HOWEVER. If I was Going to Steal, this urn would be at the top of the list. With a witty interplay of color and texture it has the look of MacKenzie Childs, though I don't think it is. (And if it was, I couldn't afford it. Just look at the photos -- and prices!)

Nor can I think of a way to fake/make it, although I have most of the parts -- a reasonably similar urn, a base that would work, a husband that could be beaten into assembling the thing. My painting talents, however, are decidedly minimal. 

But this urn has taken this porch from charming to I-almost-clipped-someone's-new-Mercedes trying to get a look at it. 

So I shall put it out there into the universe, which is something I keep hearing one needs to do if one whole-heartedly wants something.

 Universe! I'm telling you I really really want this pot!

Dracunculus Vulgaris, My Holy Grail?

Dracunculus Vulgaris

I recently decided to begin fiddling with twitter and am reveling in my popularity. In virtually no time -- just a few weeks--I have ten followers. Some might say eight, since the list includes my daughter and my sister who charitably plonked my twitter follow button, which will probably be the end of their involvement with my communications.

I can't blame them, since I have myself been adamant about this form of social networking being a complete waste of time, a bunch of fools stroking each other while talking to themselves, a pyramid scheme of sorts - I read, in some internet instruction that if you just follow a bunch of twits, likely they'll have some mechanism set up to automatically follow you back and you'll quickly build a following!

Of people that are talking to themselves. 

That is the way I felt about twitter until approximately 20 minutes ago when -- while searching for something worthwhile to retweet to my ten (or eight) followers -- I came across a tweet that led to a retweet that led to Tropical Britain, which unsurprisingly is in Great Britain, and a photograph of  the Dranunculous vulgaris, also known as: Dragon Lily, Dragon Arum, Black Arum, Voodoo Lily, Snake Lily, Stink Lily, Black Dragon, Black Lily, Dragonwort, Ragons, Drakondia, Wake Robin, Dragon's Tongue, and Devil's Tongue.

I gasped in wonderment at its strangeness--thinking I would go to great lengths to posses one. Possibly even moving to the land of drizzle and mutton -- no offense to my British friends.

A White Garden on Capitol Hill

The guys that own this house a few blocks from mine are heavily into white flowers. They must have been riddled with questions as they felt the need to hang a note of explanation on the front gate.

This touch of country in the city is wonderfully blousy and particularly cool and calming given this blistering spring and summer.

The flower mix is simple enough: great sprays of white clematis with faces the size of salad plates tumble together with white roses over the black wrought iron fencing, then frolic their way through the border greenery with Dusty Miller providing a silvery accent.

Pots of white impatiens stationed along the walk can be moved here and there to fill in the inevitable gaps left by an August vacation.

There were white peonys in the spring. 

At night, there's a soft glow from the lamp posts along the brick sidewalk and the twinkle of little white lights in the tree beside the front door.

Enchanting.