I missed talking to you.  Maybe you could have reminded me how crazy it would be to open a store in the middle of a recession.  It’s been a few months now and I finally have time to process all the changes.  Funny, we simply moved across the street from our loft office/showroom but it feels like we moved into a whole new town.  After years of being in the Fur District we’re finally meeting all our Furrier neighbors.  But it was our own recent fur aquisitions that really made us neighborly…..enter my Min Pin Mutt rescue, Rambo and Raquel’s, French Bulldog, Benson Froggly.

Our in store Personal Shoppers

I have a feeling we will be carrying dog beds soon.  My cement sofa is sufficing as dog-lounger now but it’s not quite right.  The GreenGrids nestled into the deck in the middle of the store are now hiding more than a few dog bones!  No extra charge!

Dog bones buried in GreenGrids next to lounger

So come on by and bring Spot, Rambo and Benson,will be happy to show you and your mom or dad around.

If you love gardens but live in an apartment or condo without an inch of land to your name fear not. I have made it my mission to find the coolest stuff you don’t have to water, fertilize or take care of in any way. I have always been a big proponent of using garden accoutrement to indoors. My own living room has a life size cast stone statue of a goddess of the garden peaking over my modern olive green curved armless sofa. Not only is it beautiful and whimsical, it takes away some of my resentment that the only greens growing in my backyard are the weeds creeping throught the cracks in the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.

Some of my favorite things are the aluminum dragonfly and ginko leaf trays made from recycled hubcabs! How fun are they?

Smack dab in the middle of a recession, the middle of a flaundering block, in the middle of New York City I decided it would be fun to open a store with a HUGE sign in bright neon green that read GROW.  I had a sneaking suspicion that other designers and architects had discovered the fantastic Deco loft buildings being vacated by a the furriers who were going out of business, like I had, and moved their businesses into their beautiful open spaces.  My hope was, that being close to the flower district, but not in it,  we might attract the folks GREENING their apartments, terraces and backyards as well as the pros in the biz.  The best part of moving onto the same street our offices have been on for 3 years is that we are finally meeting our neighbors…landscape architects, interior designers, structural engineers, building contractors, architectts, lighting designers…and that’s just on this block!  So my dream is coming true.. I wanted to open a store/showroom where the GROWing industry of urban living, green roof gardening and organic home design merged and I wanted to be on a block that was growing.  ANd I think we did it.

Come on down and see us sometime.  Til then…

keep GROWing

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/garden/09open.html?_r=1&ref=garden

http://rebeccacoledesign.com/store.html

When I first agreed to enter the Garden Shows,  my intent was to do a roof top garden as green as it could be.  I wanted to tie in all the cool green building products I could think of.  But most of all I wanted to design a garden that was functional AND beautiful.  I wanted some interior space to show the seemless transition of inside to out.  I want a comfortable lounging area and a dining table large enough for a family.  I knew I wanted an easy path thousands of people to walk through the garden.  I hate going to garden shows that have no access into the gardens.  I can’t imagine not exploring the layers and secrets planted within a garden. 

The truth is I desigend my dream garden.  If I had the money,  I would build this garden on the in the middle of Manhattan,  design my clients gardens from my penthouse office,  drink wine with friends nightly on the cement sofa and have Sunday brunch for girl friends only.  The shape and size was dictated by the Garden shows first and the concept of a skyscraper second.  I want a standard rectangle but given the fact that I had enter the shows so late in the came there were no rectangles left.  All this to say the positioning of the penthouse was dictated by the shape of the space.  The rest of the layout was like a puzzle so I actually made little pieces that represented the cement sofa,  the log dining table and a few stools and chairs.  I wanted a large carpet of the green grid in front of the penhouse so I marked that off limits right away.  It took a bit of finagling to fit the large peices of funiture but I was determined to use large pieces as I believe smaller spaces will feel larger with larger furniture and trees.  I spent the first two weeks  of the design process without a plant or container in sight.

Since there is precious little space to grow things in a city, the roof has become the new green frontier.  And though we have been slower to green our roofs than in Europe and some parts of Asia,  we have at least become aware of the benefits of a green roof.  And many building companies are playing catch up with the demands of new green construction while others are leading the way.  I must admit as a garden designer I did not know much about green roof technology just a few year ago.  I thought  that a green roof was only one that was planted directly on the roofs membrane,  and that the energy saving benefits were substantial but no one could walk on it. I thought the idea was cool but didn’t really see how I could apply the principals in my work designing roof gardens and terraces for clients in New York City.  Every one hiring me lives or works in the space they are asking me to garden.  They live in a crowded city with very little grass or even trees within walking distance.  They spent a lot of money for their condo, home, office or restaurant  because it has outdoor space and they want to walk and eat and sit on it, not simple look at it. So to ask them to give up that space entirely to plants would be unthinkable.  I needed to come up with a way to combine the technologies and philosophy of the green roof with the desire to LIVE on the roof.  I believe if more city folk spent more time around trees and plants they would be a much happier bunch. And as I live with them I could see how this was going to benefit me as well.

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If putting your garden to bed outdoors depresses you, pour yourself a cup of eggnog and start planting indoors. Fill your living room with the huge blossoms of an Amaryllis or the sweet scent of the Narcissus (or paperwhites) to stave off the winter blues. (I know some hate the scent, so just open a window and enjoy the beautiful white blooms.)

Choose your Paperwhites like you would an onion,  they look quite similar. The larger, firmer bulbs will yield the best flowers. They can be planted in a low bowl that has no drainage hole by using small rocks, seashells or marbles.  Just fill the container with rocks, etc, and nestle the bulbs close to each other, burying them halfway down planting material.  Add and keep water just below the top of the rocks, don’t place it in  direct sunlight as they begin to grow and move them closer to the light ten days after they begin to sprout.

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Papering the Town…One Room at a Time
Wallpaper is back, big time, and it is not limited to the walls anymore. It’s now covering furniture, wall art, doors and window treatments as well as walls.  And Grandma might be surprised by the with the textures, patterns, designs and colors wallpapers now come in.

And the best part is this new generation of wallpapers are easily strippable, washable and fade resistant. There is now wallpaper for every style, every budget and every room in your house. The impact can be substantially bigger than paint and the labor, depending on the type of paper, can be surprisingly less.  The choices are so vast I’ve outlined some easy ways to narrow down it all down.

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Toxic Holiday Decorations…Stay Stylish but Safe this Season

There is nothing more beautiful than bringing nature indoors for the winter holidays. I just love those halls are decked with real holly, Ivy topiaries flanking the mantle, and mistletoe that beckons suitors to the living room.  Mmmmm, that smell….I could swear I hear reindeer and scraping on the roof.

But beware; lurking beneath the surface of all that natural beauty is an organic toxic brew. So please use caution when decorating with plant material from the garden or florist. As green, natural, and beautiful as it all, Best keep it out of reach of small children, pets and hungry guests. Many favorite holiday plants are poisonous:
Holly berries, for instance, if ingested will cause vomiting, diarrhea, and could even explain the stupor Uncle Sal is in the easy chair. You can’t always blame the eggnog. Or your your cooking for that matter.  Ivy foliage, contains saponins, which, if chewed on, can cause a burning sensation in the throat and gastronomical eruptions that could render the downstairs bathroom unusable.

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