Earlier this week, three staff members from Lauritzen Gardens delivered a bit of Nebraskas railroad heritage and a touch of holiday magic to the White House for this years display.

A Children's Winter Wonderland" is the theme of Christmas at the White House, which on Wednesday unveiled room after room of festive decor showcasing the spirit of the season

Executive Director Spencer Crews, Director of Buildings and Grounds Andy Leick and Maintenance Specialist Neal Gloede were included in the more than 100 volunteers who helped to deck the White House for the holidays.

They shared the gardens expertise with g-scale model railroad trains in both its model railroad garden and in its annual holiday poinsettia show,

Crews was contacted in May by Coleen Christian Burke, author of Christmas With The First Ladies, and a speaker at the 2012 Lauritzen Gardens Antique & Garden Show. Coleen Christian Burke has remained in close contact with 2012 show general chairman Brenda Christensen and Susie Zindel.

The garden and its train exhibits came up in their discussions regarding holiday decorating, and upon Christensen and Zindels suggestion, Christian Burke consulted with garden staff regarding the use of trains in the State Dining Room and, in October, received an invitation from Christian Burke to help design and install the two holiday-themed train displays at the White House.

The nostalgic train displays in the State Dining Room are nestled around two 14-foot-tall Christmas trees (decorated with whimsical and child-like elements in red, white and frosty blue) that flank a mantelpiece, above which hangs a famous portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

One display features a modern freight line with a diesel locomotive and the other features an old wood-sided boxcar line with a steam locomotive.

Nearly all of the cars, engines and cabooses used are representative of Union Pacific, transporting our regions rich railroad heritage to the nations capitol.

Unlike the gardens train exhibits, which feature buildings made of natural materials, the trains at the White House wind through a winter wonderland of realistic farmhouses, barns, churches, gazebos, and watertowers, reflective of our national landscape.

Link:
Lauritzen Gardens Shares Railroad Heritage With The White House

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BIG's concept includes a lawn between the Smithsonians historic Castle and Independence Avenue that curls upward at its corners.

To interest donors in a plan that includes HVAC upgrades and the repositioning of loading docks, it helps to throw in a few dramatic flourishes. Thats the lesson of the Smithsonian Institutions new master plan, made public today in Washington, D.C., by the Institutions secretary, Wayne Clough, and his architect of choice, Bjarke Ingels, of the Copenhagen- and New York-based Bjarke Ingels Group.

Much of the plan, which will take decades and at least $2 billion to implement (and is dependent on a mix of public and private funds), involves invisible infrastructure improvements, which, Clough said, are hard to get people to write checks for. You have to show them the big concept. That big, or BIG, concept includes a lawn between the Smithsonians historic Castle and Independence Avenue that curls upward at its corners.

The canted lawn is certainly photogenicit resembles a lawn proposed by Ingels for Brooklyn Bridge Park, as well as the lawn at Lincoln Center created by Diller Scofidio + Renfro as part of a $1 billion renovation of that complex (a close analogue to the Smithsonian project, involving improvement to the visitor experience and replacement of aging mechanicals).

Luckily, the peeled-up lawn is more than a gimmick. Two of the Smithsonians unitsthe Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (devoted to Asian Art) and the National Museum of African Artare nearly invisible, parts of a vast subterranean complex that are now entered through what appear to be gazebos. The new lawn, with its corner entry pavilions and strip of windows linking them, will make the two museums easier to see and enter.

The Smithsonian already has an overall master plan, but it believed its South Mall campus, along Independence Ave. SW, from 7th to 12th Streetthat is, from the Freer Gallery of Art to the Hirshhorn Museumneeded special attention. In 2013 it announced it had settled on BIG, which is working with the San Francisco-based landscape architecture firm Surfacedesign Inc. The process, guided by Clough, took on new urgency in 2011, when an earthquake rocked Washington. Clough, a civil engineer, was in his office in the Castle at the time. As seismic forces ground up century-old mortar, his office, he remembers, filled with dust. One expensive component of the master plan is a seismic upgrade, which will consist of base isolationessentially putting the Castle on a tray, so if another earthquake hits, the building wont even know its happening, Clough said. Digging for the tray will permit the creation of new underground facilities, including an auditorium, education spaces, and cafeteria. Above ground, flanking the canted lawn, Ingels promised both restoration of the romantic, meandering paths and more intuitive links between the buildings.

At the Hirshhorn, a plan by Diller Scofidio + Renfro for a balloon-like conference space inside the donut was shelved last year, and Ingels proposal for that building, designed by Gordon Bunshaft, is modest: It calls for taking down the wall that separates the building from the Mall, and tweaking the courtyard with a new fountain and ramp. It also calls for the creation of underground spaces for contemporary sculptures too big for the existing galleries. But, oddly, the plan largely sidesteps the Smithsonians Arts and Industries building, a handsome masonry structure adjacent to the Castle. That building was recently renovated, but is unoccupied; Clough said Congress will have to decide what to do with it. But critics of government waste are likely to wonder: why build new facilities when a prominent building sits empty?

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Smithsonian Unveils BIG's Master Plan

The Joy of Gazebos
Description.

By: Dick Sizemore

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The Joy of Gazebos - Video

Over a decade or so beginning in the mid-1980s, I traveled a lot to see famous gardens, most of them in England. The touring was designed to acquaint myself with gardens regarded as important and necessary for a garden writer to know.

The only tangible reminder of those days is a box full of slides, which I dont look at much because I know that when I do, gardens I once found genuinely thrilling now seem dated or pedestrian. There is magic, still, in some of the images: not so much in plant combinations, alas, but with garden elements clean, broad stone steps of just the right proportion, or the filigreed silhouette of an iron gate.

The late Washington landscape designer Michael Bartlett was keenly aware of the elevating qualities of fine elements; he liked to create garden rooms that were distinct but flowed from one to the next. In a way, his gardens belonged to an earlier age, developed with and for patrons rather than clients. He crafted spaces that were ambitiously architectural but still restrained and elegant. I doubt he would have been a big fan of todays hairy, ecologically driven horticulture. He hated ornamental grasses, said his wife, Rose Bartlett.

Gardens come and go, along with our perceptions of them, but Michael Bartlett has left one useful legacy. Twice a year, he and Rose would go on garden sojourns, and over a span of 30 years they visited perhaps a thousand gardens in 21 countries. They were always taking pictures of the garden bling they noticed, whether benches or dovecotes, and in time amassed approximately 10,000 slides.

He was still pondering them as he grew ill with a brain tumor. He died in 2008 at the age of 55. Six years later, the fruits of all that work have ripened with the publication of the Bartlett Book of Garden Elements, co-authored by Rose Bartlett.

The reader will find about a thousand photos of such elements as paving, bridges, fences, benches, fountains and gazebos, demonstrating that design comes in many forms.

Many of the elements are not to my taste, to be sure; I find iron benches as tough on the eye as on the lower back, and if I never see another turquoise Japanese bridge framed by weeping willows over a pond with water lilies, I will somehow cope with the loss. But there are things to covet in these pages: a sturdy but elegant wooden gate between brick piers, with open trellis work; square red bricks in a running bond pattern; the lovely clipped Linden Allee at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Herding these elements into likes and dislikes is fun, but the greater value is in understanding the breadth of design options when we put gardens together.

The Bartletts began their garden odyssey together in the 1970s. Michael would design and attend to the construction of his clients gardens. Rose would devise planting schemes for herb gardens and the like.

The images were used for slide talks and to show clients, but more important, the photo library became the vehicle for the couple to visit as many gardens as they could, rain or shine.

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A new compendium of garden elements

WOODSTOCK-

A lot of residents are searching for their recycling boxes after high winds blasted the region Monday.

Residents across the county are also busy picking up shingles and downed branches in their yards after winds reaching up to 100 km per hour caused chaos across the county.

Mature trees were toppled by the high winds and trampolines and gazebos blown away, while fences were crumpled by the storm that left a big mess across the county.

Hydro One is reporting numerous power outages across the county, around the Woodstock area, and south of Norwich in the Otterville region, part of 750 outages across the province

Hydro One communications officer Nancy Shaddick said crews are hoping to restore power to the county by tonight, but some locations may be without power until tomorrow.

The power outages forced the closure of Hickson Public School and East Oxford Public School.

Melissa Abercrombie, the countys manager of roads and facilities, said three stop signs were blown down by high winds, which were quickly replaced by temporary signs, with permanent ones installed as soon as possible.

County Road 37 also had to be closed due to hydro lines collapsing onto the road.

Hydro One was unable to attend, she said.

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High winds downs trees, hydro lines; power outages close schools

Note: David Sim is the dad and blogger behind the parenting blog, Lifes Tiny Miracles. LEGO Singapore provided the toys he discusses in this story.

Like most six year-olds, mine is becoming increasingly independent. She is able to follow instructions (and often gives them, too!) and do most general tasks on her own, with minimal adult supervision. Recently, I noticed that my conversations with her have been more of the pragmatic sort, which can be categorized primarily into two categories: 1. Instructional i.e. those Go take your shower. Go to bed. Practise your piano Do this, dont do that talk. And 2. Inquiry i.e. How was your day? What happened in school today? How are you feeling?

Gradually missing and less frequently used, sadly, is a third category: Imaginative talk. This category of conversations is the type that builds relationships, stirs imagination and gives us a glimpse of the creativity each child has. These are the conversations that begin with What do you think if or How about if

That is where storytelling comes in.

1. Imbues values: Create scenarios for children to explore and develop their sense of compassion, integrity, responsibility and empathy.

2. Develops resilience: Imagine challenging circumstances and explore ways to overcome them.

3. Develops cultural awareness: With stories, the world is literally their oyster. Bring children to settings (countries) far away; introduce characters from different cultures and customs. Imagine them being part of their local celebrations and festivities.

4. Develops competent communication skills: Make children tell the stories. String those sentences together. Use the right verbs, adjectives and adverbs etc. When the children are more adept at weaving their own stories, you can even challenge them to do it in their mother tongue, too!

5. Develops confidence: If your kids cant speak confidently to you, Im not sure if they can talk confidently to others when their turn comes to do Show & Tells in school. So start spontaneous storytelling a part of your family routine.

6. Builds relationships: Stories have been known to bond generations and pass on traditions. Inject some humor, mystery and adventure into the stories to make your parent-child bonding time truly fun, unique and yours to remember.

Excerpt from:
Tell tale times with LEGO toys

Reg Curnock, left, and Andy Castle with produce from his Kestrel Crescent allotment Buy this photo

First published in News

REGS veg proved a big draw at the Leys Community Markets first weekly event on Saturday in Greater Leys, Oxford.

For years Reg Curnock sold the vegetables he grew on his Kestrel Crescent allotment at the monthly market, but said the shift to a weekly event helped him sell more produce. The Brambling Way resident, 78, said: I normally get about 20, but on Saturday I got about 50.

It was really good, there were a lot more people than there normally are. We had 30 stalls and gazebos and the Strawberry Fayre Majorettes.

The Leys Community Market, which began in December 2012, used to run on the last Saturday of each month but now runs every Saturday from 10am to 1pm at The Barn in Nightingale Avenue.

To get involved email leyscommunity market@yahoo.com

Our top stories

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Reaping rewards of weekly market

Tis the season to join Sparkle in the Park ORGANISERS of the annual Sparkle in the Park are getting ready for this years event.

As well as the usual jam jar lanterns and decorations, visitors to the event at Lodmoor Country Park in Weymouth this year will be able to listen to local musicians the Brass Button Duo, who will be entertaining the crowds with jolly, seasonal music. Young and old can make jam jar lanterns from 3.30pm to 4.30pm at the Sparkle on Sunday, November 30.

Materials will be provided and children must be accompanied.

Workshop gazebos will be set up beside the childrens Galleon Play Area near the Green Gym station three in the park.

A specially-decorated train will also be running at the Rio Grande Miniature Railway, and hot and cold drinks will be on sale at the station.

There will be a candlelit Woodland Walk at 4.30pm.

Dinah Ellis, of the Friends of Lodmoor Country Park, which organises the event, said: This is the fifth Sparkle in the Park that the Friends of Lodmoor Country Park have organised, but the first to have musical accompaniment.

We are very grateful to Jennie and Louise of Brass Buttons Duo for offering to play at this event.

Last year well over 100 people came sparkling in the park, starting their run-up to Christmas with a family-friendly get-together and an exciting walk in the dark.

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Organisers gearing up for Weymouths Sparkle in the Park

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