Inspiration: Flowering Branches

via style chronicle

Since moving in almost a year ago, we’ve studiously ignored our outdoors, as if our neglect might coax a few maintenance-precluding high rises from the dirt.  Nope!  Turns out we still live in the suburbs.

Landscaping is one of those adult things that makes me raise both eyebrows: Seriously, I am in charge of actual earth an dhow it should look?  Everyone’s okay with this?

Enter the professionals.  We’re meeting with two landscape designers on Friday, and with their help we’ll hatch a master plan for the whole space. They’ve asked for a list of what we love, hate and wish we had on our property.  In that order:  massive trees, a cantankerous L-shaped gravel driveway, and bushes with flowering branches.  (What’s more fun than pie-in-the-sky lists?  Before we get all budget-y I’m going to throw in a driftwood arbor and a gym/sauna outhouse.  Just for giggles.)

Flowering branches add drama without adding bulk.  Their transparency keeps everything feeling light, and I bet they last longer than the supermarket tulips practicing synchronized wilting in various corners of my house.

While I populate my tabula rasa with landscaping ideas, take a gander at some of my favorite interiors featuring flowering branches.

via the city sage

via this is glamorous

via the brass petal