The Fall is a great time to consider planning renovations or additions to your garden. Fall in New Orleans is the second spring in the Big Easy. As the temperatures turn favorable for planting and the humidity starts to decline making our plants actually smile.
Here are a handful for gardening ideas that can entire you into the hall of Gardening Fame in your neighborhood.
1. Start by looking at all the plants and the condition have this summer and recent Gustav challenge. If you notice broken limbs, damaged leaves, fungus or insect damage then consider replacing.
2.Revisit your long term gardening plan. Maybe its time to remove those old hedges by adding some new hedges. There are new varieties of plants released every year with improvements as well as pest resistant.
3.Make sure you are feeding our plants as this will provide a return on your investment 10 fold. A solid feeding program throughout the year will make all your plants healthier as well as stronger. Healthier plants need less care.
4.Add colorful potted accent plants at entrance ways and focal points in the yard.
5.Plan your garden thinking about all 4 seasons. Fall-Winter-Spring-Summer with annual rotations for each season. Planning will give you something to look forward to in your yard and rather than be a follower..you will be the leader.
In the past years there had been a change in our wonderful New Orleans heritage; some call it the hurricanation, others call it evacucation; I call it stress. Our wonderfully lazy summer days are interrupted with a trip to a hotel room, sitting in traffic for hours and coming home to a house that is devoid of food, electricity and stinky. This event happens about once a year…the past few we have been lucky; which gave me the opportunity to really think about how I can make home away from home.
Scents play such an important part of our environments. I thought to myself, how can I make my hotel room and my car smell like home and how can I come home to a house that smells fresh and clean? In other words, how can reduce my stress and put a smile on my face during the fun of running away from weather.
My answer came to me…Seda France has this new fragrance Malaysian Bamboo. This candle comes in a nice pagoda box with a mint green and orange toile pattern making me feel rather decedent. The smell is fabulous; it is this fresh clean fragrance that fills the room with out being over powering. I keep a candle at my house and lit it the minute we got home and with in the hour I was feeling better about the terrible adventure I just had.
Sara's Favorite Scent
I thought to myself, that I need to get the room spray to use in the car and the hotel (that way I won’t have to worry about burning the building down….like we need any more challenges.) I think next time we take a evacucation I am going to be more prepared than ever.
I am not the only one with this brilliant idea. I got back to the shop and every customer that came in asked for the best smelling or the strongest fragrant candle we had. I immediately thought of my Seda France candle. Our most popular scents are the Japanese Quince and the French Tulip. The Japanese Quince comes in the same pagoda candle with a chocolate and blue toile pattern. It has the same fresh clean scent as the Malaysian Bamboo but it is much more powerful; great for larger rooms and parties.
The French Tulip, also in the pagoda box, has a blue and orange toile. Its fragrance is floral and fresh, nice and strong, it makes a statement.
There are so many more scents that Seda France makes. I have yet to find one I can not stand…and I am picky. I also like the fact that you can get them in these cute travel candle tins (perfect for trips) and the room sprays. I think the best part of these candles, is that you get what you pay for; gotta love Oprah for finding these. Once you light the candle you don’t have to leave it burning for long, let the wax liquefy on the top and blow it out, the scent will carry through a average size room well.
I guess life is always going to have storms and power outages, the best thing to do is find the small things that make you happy. Whether it is a yummy candle or a special treat don’t be afraid to indulge…being strong in tough times means you deserve it. I think I said it best in a letter to my Mom. “I admire the bugs in my garden, because whenever there is bad weather they protect themselves from harm and when the clouds clear and the sun come out, they go right back to their business. May we all learn to be bugs.”
