Spark

Close your eyes… picture your favorite outfit in your closet right now. What do you love about it? Color? Texture? The way it fits? It’s one way to understand your overall sense of style and head off into the promised landscape.

Minimal. No muss, no fuss? Try a minimalistic approach – you may find layers of color, texture and objects in the landscape to be too much clutter. Make each choice you make in your surroundings reflect your idea of what is beautiful, functional and reflective (see #2 for more on these ideas).

Contemporary. Do you tend to wear trendy colors/fabrics/styles? Even if your outdoor space is small, you have the opportunity to impact it with a huge sense of style in a couple of simple strokes. Find modern pieces like these at Threshold in Austin.

English cottage style. Feel at home in pure linen? Love to wear your broad brimmed straw hat? Betcha this garden looks good to you. Purple coneflower, some Mexican sage, a bit of shade and a couple of chairs can turn a corner of your yard into the perfect place to read the Sunday paper.

More at home in jeans and squash blossom jewelry? This southwest garden might make your heart go pitty-pat. For more inspiration, check out talented Steve Martino’s work out of Phoenix.

Prairie style landscape architecture, which melds well with American Four Square and bungalow style we have here in Austin – this image is from Jens Jensen’s body of work.

Love tweed, cozy sweaters and Ugg boots? What do you think of this landscape featuring tons of stone texture with naturalistic plantings – this image is from a home in Colorado.

Let me know what your closet is telling you about the look of your dream landscape!

Image from Austin home tour Spring 2009. Outdoor living is around the corner here in Austin, a mere few weeks away really. Tuscan retreat designed by Annabelle Lennox-Boyd Last week I asked you to dream big about how you want to live in your outdoor spaces. I requested that you burst through those self-inflicted constraints [...]

It is absolutely frigid today in Austin! Yes, I hear you, New York, Boston and Chicago… what does Austin know about frigid, right? Well, um, okay, there isn’t any snow on the ground and spring is a lot closer for us than it is for you. The thing we have in common is this: while [...]

Snuggling up with friends on an outdoor couch with a fire in the firepit (or chimenea if there is a burn ban in effect) is so attractive this time of year. It just makes conversation flow. A Spark client is considering a structure for her firepit/conversation area so I went to one of my favorite [...]

So Christmas is over for 2010 and New Year’s Eve is beckoning. Before all the parties kick in, make a resolution to chip in. If you had a fresh tree this year, please consider recycling your Christmas tree and turning it into a resource. Bonus! Trees collected in many cities are recycled into mulch, which [...]

I buzzed into The Great Outdoors on South Congress in Austin last week to swoop up some plants for winter pots out back (fav find was artichokes – so gorgeous with their outsized silvery blue leaves) and found myself in the midst of some serious Christmas cheer. Loved this green gazing ball ($30), set like [...]

There is no better time to plant in Central Texas than now! Plants will have a long establishment time before getting socked with the searing summer heat. We can work happily in the garden without sweating ourselves to dried husks. And often times, nurseries will reduce the pricing on some stock to move it before [...]

We’ve been seeing the softer side of stones lately and we like it. These Felted Wool Stones are both natural and fanciful in their play on hard and soft surfaces. Having one or two of these in a room would be sure to start conversation and intrigue guests. Just for fun, take a peek at [...]