For the past year, we've been keeping a big secret. It involves air plants, acrylic and Ryan Benoit Design. Believe us, it's been tough to contain the excitement! And tough not to post any photos as we were testing this prototype design. But now the moment...
Ryan and I can be reclusive when we wanna be — movie nights, bay scallops to go — but I wouldn’t call us homebodies. For one thing, we spend more time in the yard than we do under our actual roof. (So what’s the word...
Here’s the thing about our houseplants: We mostly keep them outside. We don’t have a lot of room indoors, so we’ll hang tropical plants from the north-facing eave outside our one-story home. It also helps that temperatures here don’t get that far below 50 in...
Despite what the song says, you should absolutely go chasing waterfalls when you travel. And during our recent trip to Portland, Oregon, there were over 90 cascades in the Columbia River Gorge to choose from. There’s the famed Multnomah Falls, the state’s tallest at 620...
I was back in Brooklyn and Manhattan earlier this month, which is my favorite month to be in/live in/visit the city. It was a quick trip, during which Ryan was back in California working on a top-secret project that will be unveiled soon. In between...
No matter how much we fawn over our intergalactic passion flowers and the sultry party dresses of our fuchsias, our hearts will always somersault at the sight of a romantically formed garden rose. That’s why our recent trip to Portland’s International Rose Test Garden was like...
Earlier this month we decided to redo our flower beds/“stadium garden," where we normally rotate blooming annuals and perennials. After storing the tuber of our Impatiens flanaganae, which enjoyed a powerful summer bloom, and saying goodbye to our last dahlias, we realized our garden bed could use...
What colors do you associate most with fall? Here in our subtropical climate, we don’t get the level of fluorescent foliage we did growing up in the Northeast and Midatlantic — like the neon New England landscapes I saw last week while visiting friends in...
Something to love about living in/near a busy city: Those moments when you find — amid the concrete hustle and bustle, the glaring hither and thither — a pocket of inspired, fertile serenity. You know, a nook that not only brings you closer to nature...
We’re very much into the whole “buy experiences rather than things” thing. So when Ryan suggested we celebrate my birthday by going to Portland, I said, “Put a bird on it!” and by “bird” I mean me, and by “it” I mean the City of...
