By Madoline Markham Koonce
If you were to describe the dead of winter in Birmingham in a word, it could easily be “grey.” It’s often dreary, frigid and colorless, which also means it’s all the more glorious when “the hills remember green again” (to borrow singer songwriter Andrew Peterson’s words). Luckily for us, as we prepare to see all the shades of vibrant hues appear around us soon, Flower Magazine editor Margot Shaw has released a new book celebrating the color of gardens, garden parties and floral design.
Flowering Outdoors: Gardens & Parties, Shaw’s second book, officially entered the world on Feruary 17 from publisher Rizzoli and is filled to the brim with natural beauty.
As interior designer and gardener Bunny Williams notes in the book’s foreword, its pages will show you how to both live in and entertain in a garden. “You get to wander from one garden to another,” she writes, “always with a place to rest and take in the beauty.”
If you’re not familiar with Shaw, a longtime Birmingham resident, she started Flower 18 years ago to speak to her own passion for all things floral. The national magazine has grown to feature homes, gardens, entertaining and lifestyle.
While Shaw’s magazine covers all things flowers (interiors, art, textiles, books, fashion, travel, you name it), Flowering Outdoors hones in on flowers al fresco in particular. “My desire is for readers to view behind the curtain, or over the garden gate in this case, of some really interesting and talented folks we’ve come across through Flower,” she says. “I see the book as a resource as well, focusing on and encouraging a beautiful outdoor life with bite-size chapters that inspire and gently instruct.”
As a self-proclaimed “devotee of beautiful things that make up a beautiful life,” Shaw’s focus in selecting gardens and garden parties for the book was, put simply, what she finds pretty. “Implicit in this plot is the intrinsic soul-growing, life-giving nature of beauty…It doesn’t matter to me how grand, clever, elaborate or even thoughtful a garden may be,” she says. “If it’s not a joy to behold visually, then it won’t make the cut.”
The first section of the book profiles different tastemakers and their garden parties, transporting the reader from an East Hampton, New York, pool “tent” to a mah-jongg garden party in Nashville to an intimate dinner party in a cathedral-likeallée of olive trees in California. And of course, flowers abound on the tables and in the gardens around it at each destination.
“Flowers, in beds, planters, pots or vases, add a note of intention, rhythm, festivity to a party outdoors,” Shaw says. “They are lipstick for the garden, and if they’re fragrant, even better, just not near the food.”
Flipping through pages of pretty—showcasing a colorful Palm Beach loggia luncheon, a girls garden party on Blackberry Farm in the mountains of Tennessee and designer Heather Chadduck’s intimate dinner party at her pool house right here in Birmingham, among other featured events—is sure to inspire anyone who reads the book to create outdoor living spaces and plan a party as soon as it’s warm enough to set an al fresco table.
Each party featured comes with entertaining or garden tips from the host behind it too. There are many in the book, but Shaw’s top tip for outdoor entertaining is simple: “Lovely and welcoming comfort,” she says.
No matter the specifics of the party, what unites them all is the goodness of being outdoors. “There’s a freedom to being in nature, a sense of context saying, ‘Here we are in the garden, part of the landscape…’ that invites a drop of the shoulders, an ease of conversation and an experience of something a little beyond the everyday,” Shaw says.
The second section of the book focuses on a set of gardens themselves, not photographed during a party but that could certainly host quite a pretty one. A set of visual feasts of garden bounty takes readers from Normandy, France, along the east coast of the U.S. and over to Oxfordshire, England. Along with inspirational images you’ll find tips on gardening too, as well as a letter section on garden elements and arrangements.
“I continue to be encouraged and impressed by the extent to which people go to create and enhance lovely gardens and gatherings in them, many who may not be specifically trained in those areas, but have an appreciation for natural beauty and want to be surrounded by it,” Shaw says. “I take cues from them all.”
While the book covers gardens all over the country and world that are sure to inspire, Shaw also notes what a perfect place her own city of Birmingham is to host a garden party and encourages its local readers to replicate or translate elements they see in the book to their own aesthetic, taking note of the tips throughout its pages. “I’d like for. Birminghamians to know, if they don’t already, what a widely admired and wonderful flower and garden city we are, with lots of real talent in the floral, garden, and party design space,” she says.
In particular, some of her favorite shops and other resources for readers to get creative in their own gardens and garden parties are Shoppe, Leaf & Petal, A’Mano, Table Matters, Alkmy, General, Architectural Heritage, Details, Elegant Earth and Summer Classics.
As Bunny Williams notes in the book, “…I never tire of looking at inspirational images of gardens and tablescapes, which encourage me to be more creative.” There’s no telling just how Birmingham’s green hills will be filled with new layers of garden beauty and creativity inspired by all the images and words in Shaw’s new book.
You can purchase Flowering Outdoors at major bookstores, on Amazon, and at A’Mano in Mountain Brook Village (and hopefully some other local emporiums as well, Margot said a few weeks before the book released).
