Bringing nature indoors is so important when the temperature is freezing outside! Natural fragrances for your home are easy and inexpensive to create yourself. This Christmas we cut a concolor fir tree for our Christmas tree. The scent, amazingly, is of oranges and pine. I like to take the branches, especially the needles, and cut them up, add water to a small sauce pan, and simmer on the stove. It fills the whole house with such a festive fresh garden fragrance! Another variation is to take orange rind and pine from your yard and simmer in a bit of water as well. So while you wrap presents, bake, and get ready for your holiday - enjoy this relaxing garden fragrance from my home to yours. Happy Holidays! ...

To have a garden and tend it yourself is to have a unique understanding of the world - no two gardens have the same feeling. My husband and I dug our own gardens when we moved into our fixer upper when our second child was two. The first thing I did was plant a small garden by the back door to lift our spirits. We passed by the new plantings everyday and it encouraged us to make the rest of the yard look that beautiful. Right now I have pink peonies, lavender, hibiscus, sedum, and Russian sage. I try to plant fragrant plants on the chance that we might pick up on the fragrance while walking in the back door. This painting was done while in my yard. It shows some potted topiaries which I have a nice collection of. They are always interesting to grow. I have lavender...

Green and white is a combination that always works well in the garden and in interiors as well. The white offsets the natural quality of green and makes everything fresh. Something green this time of year, plants, cut greens are always fragrant and uplifting in your surroundings. White agapanthus has a tall stem and is also known as Lily of the Nile. They have a great spiked foliage and grow really well in pots in the summer time. I have my purple ones in my basement near a window to get it through the winter months here in New England...

It was Friday afternoons while my kids were taking swim lessons that I started the sketchbooks. I was at my happiest during those times because I knew my children were having a good time. I was a graphic designer specializing in packaging by profession and started a fascination with flowers while on a photoshoot in Boston. I was trying to add something to the set design when the photographers suggested I go across to the flower market and buy some flowers for the shoot. That was it, I’ve never been so overwhelmed with beauty my whole life! I was hooked. Since then I have been on an endless pursuit to document unusual floral specimens - for years I have been photographing, painting, and drawing flowers. After a while with those sketchbooks, while my children were at...