Bois Doré: Inspiring Architectural Design

With credit to its magnificent beauty (and Covid), the Newport community has turned into a beehive of real estate activity​; to express it very simply, “buy or build”. I’m now finding…

Hydrangeas: Newport’s Iconic Summer Flower

As of July 4th, summer is in full swing in our City by the Sea, and just like clockwork, an iconic flowering shrub, the hydrangea, comes into bloom. This presents…

July in the Garden

July is an important month at Parterre, when all the demanding garden work expended from March through June pays off…none more so than in the Green and White Garden. For…

Revisiting “Newport, A Lively Experiment”

I originally posted this blog on September 9, 2015​. Eleven years later, I still find Newport, A Lively Experiment one of the most compelling and captivating tomes I’ve ever read, and…

The Newport Flower Show 2026

The theme for this year’s Flower Show was “Pearls of Newport.” And can there be a more appropriate pearl than Rosecliff, this architecturally splendid Gilded Age mansion, where many a…

Containers, A Valuable Garden Detail

In honor of my dear friend, Margot Shaw, founder of Flower magazine and one of the headliners for the 2026 Newport Flower Show, I’m taking a page from her new…

Flowering Outdoors: Gardens and Parties

The Newport Flower Show will have a Star headliner this month, Margot Shaw, founder of Flower magazine, introducing her new book, Flowering Outdoors: Gardens and Parties. Don’t you love the…

Peony Magic

I’m so excited that the weather has finally turned and my glorious faves, peonies, are starting to show off! Appreciating how much we are all besotted with peonies, I chose…

A Notable Newport Estate, The Orchard Part 2

In a town of many old mansions, most have become house museums or condominiums or have been turned into dormitories and classrooms for a local university. Only a special few,…

A Notable Newport Estate, The Orchard. Part 1

Memorial Day reminds us that summer is just around the corner, when friends return from all parts of the country and houses are “opened for the season.” One of those…