Imagination is...

Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination encircles the world.” On this 17th day of 26 acts of kindness, today’s image of a Unicorn, part of the ‘Imaginary Worlds’ display at the +Atlanta Botanical Garden is to honor Jessica Rekos. Jessica was a Girl Scout and was excited to start selling cookies in January. She loved horses and orcas, she even kept a journal of "whale research." Jessica also took horseback riding lessons and had won a blue ribbon at her one and only show.  

Jessica loved animals that jumped high and free – a simple lesson to learn from this young spirited girl. Take your own leap of faith today. Imagine kindness encircling the world for Jessica on this December 5th day.

The FB & Event Page for 26 days of Kindness for Newtown, CT. As this anonymous quote reminds us, “The Unicorn - The beautiful white horse with the magical horn that heals.”

Image by Ann Bilowz ©  

If you like this blog, hope you check in for your daily share's worth of inspiration, design, and garden tips; always original, not cookie cutter and copied. Just like our design work, we strive for unique! Like our Facebook follow on Twitter or subscribe to the blog to receive posts daily via email or a feed. Either way, we hope you follow the postings somewhere in cyberspace and share it with your gardening friends. Contact me direct at Annie You can follow with visuals on Pinterest and find us on LinkedIn and Houzz, too.

Magical Moments & Places

If you are lucky enough to visit the +Atlanta Botanical Garden, you might recognize this magical work of art above. This particular figure, known as ‘Earth Goddess’ is part of the ‘Imaginary Worlds’ display. She is truly in a league of her own for being particularly inviting for all ages, young and old. Plus you don’t have to be an industry buff to appreciate its beauty. This display of art captures so much - movement, life, flowing and breathing that makes this Goddess truly feel alive. 

Yes, today’s image kicks off day 5 of 26 Days of Kindness. On this Saturday, we honor Ana Marquez-Greene. She loved to sing, dance- especially to a fast beat and was going to start piano lessons. She also loved Disney, especially Princess Tiana from ‘The Princess and the Frog’. This image reminds me of just that - something very magical and fairytale-like. But there is always a caveat - what I love most about this particular piece of garden art is how alive it feels to the visitor. It is full of plants intertwined with many other design elements but its most moving feature is the water flowing from her hand. It reminds me of all the kindness and good deeds that are being done today in memory of Ana and all the acts of kindness performed earlier this week.   

John O’ Donohue once said, “If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.”

Love isn’t a fairy tale if you give it away. Give your love and kindness  to someone who might need a magical moment to lift them up in honor of Ana Marquez-Greene. Again, the event and FB page if you want to help heal the wounds of Newtown, CT.

© Image by Ann Bilowz (Earth Goddess at Atlanta Botanical Garden)
If you like this blog, hope you check in for your daily share's worth of inspiration, design, and garden tips; always original, not cookie cutter and copied. Just like our design work, we strive for unique! Like our Facebook follow on Twitter or subscribe to the blog to receive posts daily via email or a feed. Either way, we hope you follow the postings somewhere in cyberspace and share it with your gardening friends. Contact me direct at Annie You can follow with visuals on Pinterest and find us on LinkedIn and Houzz, too.

Summer Garden Withdrawal

Why is it some of us dislike the changing colors of fall? Do you sense it's more to do with summer withdrawal than fear of winter storms? For those of us truly attached to the outdoors, fall inevitably deems itself a ‘mixed emotion’ season despite the substitute activities of apple picking, leaf peeping, pumpkins and cider donuts.

Ask yourself what it is you truly miss about summer. For me, just like the young girl in this image I captured at the +Atlanta Botanical Garden, it’s simply being able to discover the garden.

So what’s the best way to engage for an all year-round garden experience? Getting a family membership to a nearby botanical garden certainly helps and one we definitely promote. But here's one the design industry needs to bring to the forefront. Landscape architecture is more than designing for simple observation and beauty. Engaging design is meant to be discovered, explored, and best, to be engaged with.

If you've made it this far, here’s the Thursday challenge - engage your children in the garden for one  main reason. It pays off in dividends later down the road. For those in need of formulas, here's the basic math equation. Just the other day, a client mentioned wanting to plant bulbs with her son. These are words we love to hear most… that there’s youthful engagement and discovery in the garden including bulb plantings that shall blossom when the snow melts. While this may only be applicable to those of us living in these less than friendly climates, this is one of those subconscious lessons that remains forever implanted.

Engage now as a child in the garden and it inevitably wears off on you later down the road. Introducing gardens at a young age increases a child’s awareness of the great outdoors. And there’s nothing more invigorating than discovering a summer garden, someone else’s or your own. Teaching children that you can plant in the fall what will blossom in the spring is bigger than a lesson on horticulture or beauty. It’s about hopefulness, which as adults we need in big doses, especially during the changing colors of fall that lead to winter and an elongated quietness in nature.  

As L. Frank Baum pointed out about imagination and children discovering what is around them, “The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization.”  As Baum stated best, “Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities.” While all those inventions may seem passé, engaging our children in the garden pays off later down the road, wherever his or her road shall lead. The Thursday challenge: plant some fall bulbs and watch them pop in the spring.

Image by Ann Bilowz ©

If you like this blog, hope you check in for your daily share's worth of inspiration, design, and garden tips; always original, not cookie cutter and copied. Just like our design work, we strive for unique! Like our Facebook follow on Twitter or subscribe to the blog to receive posts daily via email or a feed. Either way, we hope you follow the postings somewhere in cyberspace and share it with your gardening friends. Contact me direct at Annie You can follow with visuals on Pinterest and find us on LinkedIn and Houzz, too.