Faerieland, Moodscapes & Other Enchanting Photography from Ashley Lebedev

The Enchanting Photography of Ashley Lebedev

Based in the creative city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, photographer Ashley Lebedev does amazing portraits, landscapes and images that derive from, or are inspired by nature caught in another time long ago. A Grimm Brother's fairy tale.

The images are enchanting, innocent, mystical and will draw you in.  In a total online random moment, I first came across Ashley's work when I landed on the Facebook page for Alexandra Parker, new wife of Napster founder and Facebook President, Sean Parker, as I was caught in a moment viewing images of their enchanated performance art wedding in a Tolkien-esque, old growth forest.  On her Facebook page, of other stand-out photography, Alexandria gives a photo credit to Ashley Lebedev and her web site.
Lebedev's photography is worthy of national museum exhibits, if it hasn't already been exhibiting as such yet.

See more of Ashley Lebedev's work, known as Bottle Bell Photography at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebottlebellphotography/8654043178/in/photostream 

  

All Images © Ashley Lebedev | Bottle Bell ™ - New Faerieland! 

www.bottlebellphotography.com

 

Entertaining Outdoors: Throw a Winter Party

 

The Unforgettable Winter Theme Party

Hosting a winter party in colder or snowy outdoor temps has it's challenges, but can be a fun and forgettable event your guests will enjoy.  Read on for more winter party ideas...

Image From Martha Stewart Publications

Hosting the winter party is a great way to hold a community gathering too. Just be sure to ask your guests to dress warm with extra layers, hat, scarf and gloves to ensure comfort for several hours outside in a wintry landscape.

Your central guest element is a warm bonfire and ensuring you're adding wood to keep it burning for the duration of your event. Place chairs with pillows and blankets that guests can wrap them selves in at the fire.

If you've got a marquee, (synthetic or fabric cover supported by poles), gazebo or covered outdoor kitchen, you'll have a covered area to place a few tables to hold food and drink.

Outdoor entertaining tables can be as easy as getting two hardware store saw horses holding a plywood sheet hidden with a jazzy tablecloth.  Add or hang torches, hurricane lamps and strings of lights to create a warm ambiance as the evening night settles in.

 

 

 

 

For a touch of wintery decor, place antique sleds, skis or snowshoes around -they might even get used!

Serve cold drinks in buckets filled with snow.

Have warm drinks available at all times, such as Apple Cider or Hot Chocolate in coffee warmers and allow guests to add flavored marshmallows or alcohol if needed. Providing a hot cocoa bar with cocoas, toppers, whip cream and cookies makes an awesome area to converse and have fun mixing drinks at any age.

Gourmet dogs or sausages can be provided for guest to grill over the fire with buns to heat at the fire's edge. A tray of mustard's, sauces and relishes set out for guests to dress up their dogs or sausages is perfect.

Provide food warmers or iron pots with easy to eat wintery food: fondues, chili; baked beans with crusty french bread covered with napkins in baskets.  Pies of any kind are always a favorite wintery desert.

And don't forget the s'mores tray, arranging grahams, various marshmallows, and varied chocolates to let your guests toast over the fire in celebration of winter.

DIY: Winter Pruning In The Garden

Get bundled up, get the kids outside and try pruning your garden.

Take a day and connect with nature -disconnect from the TV, computer, couch or work and get outside in the winter garden.  Even if the winds are blowing, if you dress warm enough and put clothes on that you don't mind getting dirty, you'll be glad you got outside and in the garden and connected -not with your peeps online but your plants outside.  I know, because I did it today.

It was cold out with raging winds, requiring a hat, gloves and warm coat, but I got out and gardened.  I almost shed a few tears cleaning up plants that appeared to have died from recent freezing single digit temperatures; my dog noticed my sadness and came over to check on me.  Plants I've had for years in the high desert of Southern California that survived winter low temps of 11 degrees; plants that I dug up from my garden when I sold my house last spring carefully planting them into containers; plants that I moved three times, at great expense, to finally be with me in my new life in the Sierra Mountains region surviving temps in the 20's on a daily basis; seemed to have died out once we hit ten days of single digit temps. 

I had left the dangling plants for dead in those containers, so I could at least view them and their tattered remains in memory of their brighter, beaming days.  But today, I pruned and cleaned them up, in a funeral goodbye. And it was indeed sad as these were my "friends" for seasons in a place I was new to and did not know many people. I know however, that Spring will surprise me with life for an unknown amount of these plants.  And I will not know until then...

My own connection to gardens goes back many years.  Through my teens and twenties, I did garden design, pruning, clean up, and other services for garden owners in the Seattle area.  I held jobs in the summers working for tree pruning companies or landscape nurseries and learned great tips from the various "master gardeners" I worked under.

Eventually, I built up a client list in the Seattle area that included Mercer Island, various Seattle neighborhoods, and areas of the East Side. And through practice, I became quite good at mastering pruning of trees and shrubs.

Winter is the best season for pruning plants, shrubs and trees. The lack of leaves on many wintered plants allows you to see the lines of the plant and quickly determine it's structure as far as where to cut and improve it's growth patterns. The growth in spring will cover up any mistakes you might make, unless you do something pretty severe. Try to avoid that. Either case, you can prune your shrubs and trees yourself following the key pointers listed here.



Exceptions to Consider When Pruning in Winter:

1.)  If you have trees with heavy sap, minimize the stress on these sap-bleeding trees and wait to prune until after their leaves have fully developed.

2.)  For early-spring blooming shrubs, including Lilac, Forsythia, Rhododendron, and Hydrangeas, these plants bear flowers on wood formed the previous year. Thus with thier coming spring blooms, wait until they're finished blooming until late spring or early summer; unless you don't mind having a smaller display of blooms.


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Tips for Your Pruning Cutting Tools:

• Use sharp and proper cutting tools: tree and shrub pruners, pole pruners and saws.

• Sterilize your tools with alcohol and spray with W-2 oil when needed.  

Key Pruning Tips to Follow:

• First find and cut off all dead or injured wood.‬   

• Work carefully and don't hack: with the exception of topiary or formed hedges, don't hack your trees and shrubs into boxed shapes that promote unhealthy growth. 

• Remember to make your cuts after the point of a bloom or branch out. And avoid cutting against the trunk.  
  
  

• For large branches, make a cut into the under side of the branch, then cut from the top. This reduces rips and tears in the bark that can introduce disease into the main trunk of the tree.

• Finely cut away branches that are growing too close or remove one that's growing into the other.

• Remove branches that are crossing another or growing backwards in direction.

• Cut suckers -the twigs growing up from the ground or base of the plant.

• For taller trees, the first layer of structured branches should be six feet above ground.
• If you're cutting back height, give a natural rounded curve to the overall structure while cutting.

• Trim away branches that are growing directly straight up.  

• Step back, away and walk around the plant you're cutting to ensure you're making the right cuts.

• Remember, to open up the structure and create clean lines on more complex shrubs.

• Step back and get a good view of the overall shape -don't remove too much and don't tip ends: cut from within.

So give it a shot, take a few hours and get outside in the garden.  You'll be glad you did.

Shop Land & Garden for garden tools, garden ornament and outdoor furnishings: www.landngarden.com.

Tips for Fall to Winter Containers

Using the right plant in the right place, and keeping track of water requirements, you can have great results with container gardening across all four seasons, saving you time and money.  Follow these tips below for long lasting container ideas you can plant now, that will have impact year round.   

1.) Right Plant - Right Place Choose plants that look good year round, are low maintenance and require less and/or similar water requirements. Look for perennials, ornamental grasses, groundcovers and evergreens. Select plants that offer varied color foliage and texture. Evergreens and conifer plants that are dwarf varieties work great for the coldest of climates.  A mix of cactus and succulents with trailing or upright Rosemary works for a desert climate. For oncoming snow climates, try a 1.5 to 3 foot evergreen conifer mixed with winter hardy perennial plants and groundcovers such as ivy, dwarf heavenly bamboo or black ribbon grass.  Or a combintation with white cabbage, ivy, Silverleaf Cinneraria, black violet pansies and moss.

2.) Containers and Soil Containers for your plant selection should be 1/3 to a 1/2 larger than the rootball of your largest plant to allow enough space for soil and root growth for plants.  First step, sprinkle 1/2 to 1 inch of gravel as a first layer in the bottom of the container -this has always worked for us; and ENSURE there are at least 3 drain holes to let water drain out the bottom. Soil should match up with your plants requirements: use a moisture retaining soil if moisture loving plants; use a soil mixed with sand if you have cactus or succulent varieties for a desert climate; otherwise use general garden soil for most settings.

3.) Arranging Your Plants Containers are most dramatic when you group plants in odd numbers using 3 to 5 plants of varying sizes. Working with plants with interesting color and texture creates the biggest statement.  While arranging, think of creating a pyramid or triangle effect, top down with a taller plant at one side of container, a lower plant below it and a plant that trails over the container's edges as the third candidate.   Add a pyramid wire trellis to a large square or round garden container and allow a diverse climate evergreen vine, such as jasmine, to grow into it with a few trailing plants down the edges of the container.

4.) Potting Techniques When potting plants, don't be afraid to scratch at the rootballs to open up roots and allow them to expand in the container. Rootbound plants, particularly evergreens, won't mind being cut into and torn a bit to remove dead bound up roots. During potting, be sure the top soil level of plants meet together at the same level. Never bury a plant too deep or too high. You can pack soil under the plant while you are arranging them for level and placement.   Be sure to pack the soil in well around and between your plants. And allow for and inch of space or more, between the top level of your plants and the top edge of the container, to shelter plants and provide room to hold water during watering. Once planted and even, optionally place a layer of light gravel, ornamental bark, moss or sphagnum moss to cover the soil and keep nutrients in.

5.) Fertilizing and Watering Use a generous amount of Fish Fertilizer, Start-Up or Vitamin B-1 right after planting and water well. This is a key secret of most nursery growers. Once plants are established even the use of Miracle Grow will feed the soil which gets depleted over time since the plants are remaining in the same container for a long period.  Monitoring the watering of your containers is important; spend $12 and get a plant moisture meter which gives you an accurate reading.  Otherwise, allow containers to dry for a day or two before watering after initial planting. Then, allow containers to dry fairly well before watering again, but at the time of watering, do deep watering: fill the containers with water until well saturated, and after the water settles, fill it again. Then wait a week before repeating this intense watering. Deep watering tends to work once a week, increasing to two to three times a week in very hot, summer conditions. Decreasing in winter or rain exposed conditions two a few times a month -just put your finger in the soil, if it feels moist, don't water at all. If dry, water.

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Last Minute Fall Decorating: Halloween

Quick Ideas to Spruce Your Halloween Entrance

Check out our fun, last minute ideas for your Halloween porch, garden or entryway.  These ideas are easy enough to pull off quickly and just in time for those delightful or not so delightful, treat or treaters. 

Have a safe and happy Halloween!   

Make an easy to assemble garden scarecrow or porch dummy laying on a swing - intriguing! Hang bats from templates cut from black craft store cardboard with an ensemble of pumps - fun!

Wrap orange and black mesh wire around your porch lights, or twist and hang rolls of black and orange crepe paper ribbon. Create ghosts from thrift store sheets over staked garden shovels. Duck tape newspaper "heads" onto handles. Stacked Pumpkin Scarecrow stands on metal farm trough. Add two hardware store dust brooms and a small hat!

Try a simple display of pumpkins atop greens in black painted urns - elegant! Go for a fall theme of mums, color foliage and a front door wreath to keep the mood -festive!

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