Christmas poinsettias are all I need

 

Poinsettias are the quintessential Christmas flower! No flower evokes the true beauty of Christmas quite like the poinsettia.

 

Of course, the traditional vibrant red variety is a holiday classic, but my favorites are the white ones and the varieties that have just a hint of blush on their leaves and petals.

Armstrong Garden Center is my favorite place to find the prettiest color choices and the healthiest looking plants. 

One of my favorite yearly holiday traditions is stopping in to pick up my most preferred ones because I know they will add such holiday charm to my home.

And poinsettias are super easy to take care of, while offering an instant pop of holiday color! It’s fun to add one or two here or there among the Christmas decorations, but I love at least 5 or 6 of my favorite varieties grouped together to form an easy arrangement on their own!

They do SO WELL in a group! Put them down as ones “who work well with others!!” It’s true, the more the merrier!!

 

They can easily be placed in a favorite cachepot or basket, but my favorite way to hide the nursery pot is to just leave it in its brown paper sleeve, trim it down and add a pretty ribbon.

 

No muss, no fuss! That way your display has an understated cottage-farmhouse look, and it’s so easy and quick too.

I hope you’ve enjoyed viewing all the ways I love to arrange poinsettias here in my breakfast room.

 

And as a bonus, here are the names of my favorite poinsettia varieties, all available right now at Armstrong Garden Center!

 

In case you haven’t heard, I started a new Instagram page in October and named it Claudia Fabiana Home. My former page is still up, but after getting a new phone, I was no longer able to log into this account, so the new profile was born!

 

I hope you’ll follow along with me on Instagram for all the latest projects and décor I will be sharing in 2025.

 

 

 

ciao fabiana

 

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You can check out some of my favorites here at “Tablescaping Essentials” 

 

 

 

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5 favorite new garden books

With the addition of my new potager garden that I designed and installed in January, I have a lovely variety of garden books to share with you. 

These are brand-new books that have proved to be great sources of information and inspiration for me in my own garden.

 

There are six new raised beds surrounded by gravel and filled with edible delights! I did reserve one of those beds for cut flowers, some of which, like Calendula and Pansies, are also perfect for decorating a salad with their pretty blooms.

 

Check out my video of the potager garden from last month:

And this NEW VIDEO.

Now here are the books that helped me in a big way while planning and planting my new veg garden…

 

1. The First-Time Gardener: Raised Bed Gardening

Raised bed gardening has never been more popular, but it can also be intimidating, especially for beginner gardeners. 

The First-Time Gardener: Raised Bed Gardening by CaliKim is the perfect guide for newbie growers, offering advice on everything from selecting the best raised bed for the available space and filling it with healthy soil, to planting plans and plant-care tips.

Why is raised bed gardening booming in popularity? 

The benefits are numerous. No matter your yard size, raised beds are the perfect fit. They allow for a controlled growing environment, filled with fertile soil. 

Raised beds help gardeners with less-than-ideal soils, there’s little to no weeding involved, they’re accessible, and they can be as large or as petite as you’d like. 

This book helps with learning how to select the best raised bed for your space, what to fill it with, and tips for staking and trellising plants to save space and improve yields. 

Also included are  DIY plans for building quick and simple beds, info on soil, mulch, watering and fertilizing, tips to maximize production, and much more.

 

 

2. The First-Time Gardener: Container Food Gardening

Container gardens can take up as much or as little room as you’d like. They’re portable, so you can locate them wherever conditions are optimal for plant growth.

 

And you can grow just about any veggie in pots, as long as you have the right container, the right soil blend, and the right care tips.

 

In this book, author Pam Farley of BrownThumbMama.com lines the path to container food gardening success in clear, simple steps.

 

Find a dozen fully illustrated planting plans for themed container food gardens, including a Smoothie Greens Garden, a Spring Stir-Fry Garden, a Spaghetti Sauce Garden, a Salad Greens Garden, and many others in this fun book.

No room? No problem. Lousy soil? Nothing to worry about. Not enough time? Think again. Growing food in containers is fun, easy, and perfect for beginners.

 

3. Sustainable Homestead

If you’re like most homesteaders, the dream is to make the most of your land by working with it, not against it. 

From capturing water and building strong soil to helping your animals live their best lives, The Sustainable Homestead is about making your homestead stronger by achieving synergy between what can seem like different parts.

In this book, new and veteran homesteaders alike can find detailed information to use this year, this month, even this week! 

Angela has spent more than a decade building and strengthening her small acreage homestead and shares the lessons through chapters covering site selection, soil, growing, animals, the role of the homesteader, and much more.

 

4. The Elegant and Edible Garden

Stylish and celebratory, The Elegant and Edible Garden takes food growing to a higher plane, presenting a vision for creating a garden space where food and flowers grow side by side. 

You’ll flatten the learning curve for designing a beautiful, edible garden by sharing common-sense tips and inspiration and ideas from Linda’s own personal experience of starting a garden from scratch, while still allowing your style and personality to shine. 

“This is a book about capturing the romance, the artistry, and the experiential nature of a garden and garden living." 

 

5. Tiny +Wild

Meadows don’t have to be big to make a difference and the perks of creating one, even on a small scale, are many. Tiny but mighty meadows help mitigate climate change, foster biodiversity, sequester carbon, and calm the senses. 

With as little as a few square feet of space, you can create a beautiful, naturalistic planting that supports a diversity of plants, pollinators, and a plethora of other living things, not to mention its visual appeal to human eyes. 

Author and landscape designer Graham Laird Gardner helps you find inspiration in natural spaces so you can successfully site, design, plant, and care for your own small-scale meadow.

Whether you live in the city or in suburbia, perfect places for mini-meadows are everywhere: a small corner of the yard, flanking the front walk, around your mailbox, that little area between the house and driveway, tucked next to the front stoop, in the center of your vegetable garden and so many other places.

The plant lists and charts in Tiny + Wild share the best plants to include in your micro prairie, and Graham offers plenty of practical advice on planting your meadow from seed, transplants, or mature plants, depending on your budget, the site, and your timeline. 

Plus, learn how to care for your wildflower planting, including tips for watering, plant care, and weed management. Discover how small spaces can make a big difference in Tiny & Wild.

 

"The Elegant and Edible Garden" is a vision of the very best things a garden can offer: food, beauty, connection, and a place to breathe.

 

It's a book about designing a garden that is distinctly yours, using edibles as ornamentals, with lots of pictures for inspiration and emulation. If I did it, so can you.

 

Shopping Links:

 

1. The First-Time Gardener: Raised Bed Gardening

2. The First-Time Gardener: Container Food Gardening

3. Sustainable Homestead

4. The Elegant and Edible Garden

5. Tiny +Wild

ciao! fabiana

 

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5 favorite new gardening books

Gardening is a self-taught hobby for me. My interest and earliest memories come from my father, who always had a small vegetable garden in the backyard.

 

My most vivid memory of my father’s touch in the garden is when he decided to take the dozens of small lilac seedlings that lined one side of the yard, and plant them straight across the other side of our front yard, creating a living fence between us and our next-door neighbors the LeFleurs.

 

Those lilac shrubs grew quickly over the years and filled my springs and summers with the sweetest scent. I was surrounded by all the purple and green loveliness that embodies lilacs, and I’ll never forget it!

The spirit of my childhood lilacs was reawakened with the discovery of tis most beautiful book, simply called Lilacs.

 

From cover to cover, it’s filled with amazing tips, growing methods and best of all glorious pictures. 

Lilacs by Naomi Slade and Georgianna Lane. 

Other similar lovely books include:

• Hydrangeas

• Peonies

• Dahlias

 

Here's a peek at one of the pictures from the Lilac book...

A new portion of my garden that I created in early 2020 has come to be known as the Cottage Garden. It’s where I grow so many of my favorite old-fashioned flowers, mixed in with all kinds of herbs, kale, an apple tree, a lemon tree and even several tomato plants.

 

Have you ever heard of growing tomatoes together with sunflowers? The sunflowers grow tall and strong and become the perfect stake to hold tomatoes up, and best of all they’re the best companion plants.

I've grown all the sunflowers and tomatoes from seeds, so it's been a really fun process to see them grow so quickly.

That’s why you can never stop learning with gardening. There’s always so much to discover!

 

I’ve been delving into to a few other amazing gardening books over the past few months, and I want to share them all with you now:

 

•    Four-Season Food Gardening

•    The Elegant & Edible Garden

•    The Urban Garden

•    Containers in the Garden

 

Containers in the Garden by Claus Dalby has incredible inspiration. Claus is one of my favorites to follow on Instagram, so I was thrilled when I found out he had come out with a brand-new book!

 

He’s written over 30 gardening books and is considered to be the foremost gardening expert of Denmark. Not only does he create beautiful planted containers, he also has the most amazing gardens and makes gorgeous floral arrangements.

 

I really get inspired by all Claus’ seasonal and holiday displays too. Check him out here on Instagram and on YouTube.   

 

 

ciao! fabiana

 

 

For lots of fun extras, follow me on instagram!

 

 

 

You can check out some of my other favorite books here 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Please note that this post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase via one of these links, I may receive a small commission from your purchase. This commission does not add any cost to you but helps me to continue to share new products and companies with you. Thank you for always being so supportive!   

 

flowers from the garden

Happy Saturday! Is the weather warming up in your part of the world?  

 

Spring in my garden is beginning to unfold in all its splendor with lovely flowers starting to grow, bloom, and fill out the beds. That means I have a better selection of cut flowers to bring into the house and decorate my tables with.

 
The morning sun in the breakfast room is glorious this time of year, and it’s motivating me to start thinking about setting a pretty, garden-inspired Easter table.  

 

Of course, it'll be a small table, with just close family, and I’m thinking we'll have an informal and casual vibe.

Here are a few of my favorite looks for bringing garden flowers indoors and creating a focal point for the table. 

  

You’ll find me in the garden today planting some more of my favorite flowers like  Foxgloves, Canterbury Bells, Agapanthus, Delphinium and Queen Anne’s Lace. 

 

 

ciao! fabiana

 

 

 

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