Interior Design

Table Setting (version two)

Another dress rehearsal with three new elements.
Another dress rehearsal with three new elements.

What’s new and different in this table setting are the Venetian goblets, the Mottahedeh porcelain, and the silver mint julep cups. I ordered my goblets while on vacation in Venice, and they are by far my favorite. But unfortunately, after eleven years of use, I only have a few left. I am currently trying to reconnect with the Murano shop where I purchased them and my chandelier, but their website has disappeared.

Landscape & Gardening

What? Another One?

Baby makes three.
Baby makes three.

Now there’s three flower spikes. I guess the triple digit temperatures agree with this plant. But the big question is “Why do the three spikes lean west?”

Interior Design

Table Setting (version one)

Detail view showcasing my new William Yeoward crystal goblets purchased through Neiman Marcus.
Detail view showcasing my new William Yeoward crystal goblets purchased through Neiman Marcus.

This dress rehearsal had been long overdue. Mixing the old, the inherited, and the new on my new forty-eight inch round dining table has worried me for quite some time. I knew it would be a challenge. And after setting up this first arrangement with place mats, it’s now obvious that only four guests can be accommodated. If I were to have five or six guests, I would need to use a linen tablecloth with one or two additional and much smaller chairs, and limit the number of items at each setting. But since I don’t own a tablecloth or the two smaller chairs, I’m only allowed to have three guests for now. If you feel inclined to see more and read up on the details, continue on for more.

Just Because

Up Close and Personal

A detail of my cast stone statuette shot with my new macro lens.
A detail of my cast stone statuette shot with my new macro lens.

She may be showing her age, but in statuary, this is very desirable. Her provenance is unknown, but if she’s from Texas, her flecks of time took decades to form. Perhaps you remember her from a previous photograph, even if it was a shot of her rear profile. This time I wanted to use her as the subject using my new Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens, which you see above. For the following photo, I switched back to my standard zoom lens.

Landscape & Gardening

Remember My Bald Patch?

Nine newly planted Pink Preference Autumn Sage.
Nine newly planted Pink Preference Autumn Sage.

Pink Preference Autumn Sage (Salvia greggi ‘Pink Preference’). Remember this bald patch? It had become obvious that the Texas betony was not going to thrive, and my landscape architect Michael Parkey started to think about what would be a good replacement. We had also hoped to do the switch in the autumn, but timing wasn’t on our side. Last week he called me with his choice, and in trying to locate this cultivar, I discovered that it’s hard to come by. It’s one of the more vigorous autumn sages and with its complimentary coloring was the perfect replacement. Nicholson-Hardie was able to find one grower located near Oklahoma, who had gallon pots of which I needed nine. But since Nichoson-Hardie would have no shipments from this grower until the fall and there was a chance they might sell out before then, the grower suggested that he could bring them with him in a few days when he came to Dallas for an Arboretum event.

After picking them up, planting needed to happen ASAP. Waiting for September was not an option, because plants have a better chance of surviving our summers planted in the ground. They might look anemic right now, but next summer they should be about two feet wide by three feet tall. I forgot to mention that Autumn Sage is another native Texan that will attract hummingbirds and butterflies.