Love Notes

Jun 29, 2024 • #italy

Arrivederci Venice 6/16/24

Buongiorno!
I am feeling a little bit like Sybil of the multiple personalities this week. I'm writing about Venice this morning, while sipping coffee in the garden of the charming Christopher Inn on Martha's Vineyard. (We are here for a special wedding - the beautiful-inside-and-out daughter of dear dear friends.) My brain is swirling with Venetian treasures, while here sits a bevy of floral fun and inspiration from the beautiful nuptials of the past two weekends. Quite an embarrassment of riches! READ MORE

Jun 16, 2024 • #baby

Baby Steps 6/10/24

I'm back, but I'm off again to a beautiful wedding in Northern California. (More on this glorious affair next week). Sometimes life just hands you too much good stuff at once. I confess, I'm feeling a tad bit overwhelmed - behind in sooooo many work projects, while my house is a mess and my garden beckons with its own litany of overdue tasks. The weeds are flourishing, while they natter away in my ear, singing a refrain from a bad Supertramp song, "the more we stay, the harder it'll be to make us say goodbye"*?

And yet,

Jun 07, 2024 • #gardens #italy

Labyrinth of Inspiration 6/3/24

How to begin to make sense of the centuries of beauty witnessed during my recent trip to the gardens of Venice and the Veneto? With some jet lag and a full plate of work awaiting me this weekend, it seems like a labyrinth to decipher. So let's make sublime Italian inspiration a multi-Monday journey, and for today, we'll just start with the spectacular gardens of the Villa Barbarigo. READ MORE

Jun 07, 2024 • #charlottesville #italy #peony

Full Color Living 5/1/24

You know those weeks that just rev nonstop full tilt? I'm in a stretch of them. That's not a complaint, it's more like an embarrassment of riches - life in full living color. Usually, my garden's peonies reaching peak bloom just about now would be plenty of excitement for one week.

Don't get me wrong - I've also been working non stop. I'm just enormously lucky in that work often feels like play for me too. I have some really big drops in today's note, AND I'm heading to Charlottesville today for my annual peony pilgrimage to Pharsalia Farm, AND on Friday, I'm heading to Venice and the Veneto visiting the villas and gardens of Andrea Palladio. READ MORE

May 12, 2024 • #flower arranging #Mother's Day

Mothering Sunday 5/6/24

Sometimes I don't know what to write here. Sometimes it seems there is too much to encapsulate into this little space, and I, the eternal optimist, am poorly equipped to feign with my usual, "Isn't this lovely" epistle. Mother's Day is such a time. I am overly lucky, having been dealt the world's nicest mother. But for some, the holiday can be packed with a kaleidoscope of emotions. I'm thinking today about the young women in the throes of IVF treatment and their sisters in the universe who have lost a child. We are ALL with YOU and those pretty tulips above are for you. Then there are our friends whose mothers were, well, just not that great. You didn't deserve that hand. READ MORE