Ep. 463: Flowering Outdoors with Margot Shaw

0:01Welcome to How to Decorate from Ballard Designs, a weekly podcast all about the trials and triumphs of decorating and redecorating your home. I'm Caroline. I'm on the marketing team. And I'm Taryn, and I'm a product designer. I'm Liz. I head up the creative team. We're your hosts. Join the expert team at Ballard Designs for tips, tricks, and tales from interior designers, stylists, and other talents in the design world. Plus, we'll answer your decorating dilemmas at the end of each episode. We love answering your questions, so don't forget to email us at podcast at ballardesigns.net. Now on with the show.

0:33Today, we have one of our favorite guests back here on the podcast. She's been on twice before. You know and love her. She is an author. She is a garden enthusiast, an entertaining expert, and she is the founder and editor-in-chief of Flower Magazine, Miss Margo Shaw. Margo, you have a new book. So we're here to talk about it, Flowering Outdoors, Gardens, and Parties. And you've had a previous book, Living Floral, which I know is a bestseller. So we're thrilled to have you back to get to preview the new book and share it with our audience. I'm thrilled to be had back and share it with your audience.

1:10I love this podcast. It is maybe my favorite podcast I ever do. Thank you. And I'm not sucking up. But no, it's just so much fun. And when it's over, I'm like, oh, do I have to leave? Well, you come back anytime. We'd love to have you. Well, thank you for inviting me this time to promote the new book. Yes. Liz and I got to read it. And it really just coupled with the gorgeous 70-degree day that we're having right now, it really put me in the mood for spring. I was already texting my husband. I told you this before we were recording that I was like, oh, we need to do this, this, and this. I can't wait.

1:51I was thinking maybe I need to host my book club. I don't know. All of the pictures and stories in the book of fabulous parties entertaining, there were great tips from things that were easy to accomplish and maybe things that were a little bit of a, you know, aspirational. Yeah. And we all have stretch goals. Yes. Stretch goals. Yeah. Good. Really put me in the spirit. Awesome. Stretch goals. Yes. Great term. Okay. And Liz, I know you enjoyed it, too. So it's exciting to get to chat with you about it and pick your brain. Thank you. This book is so chock full of tips for entertaining and exemplary gardens, like the most beautiful gardens and inspiring gardens, especially as things are just about to bloom here in Atlanta.

2:41We've got daffodils that I picked from my yard. Thank you for bringing those in. I know. The harbinger of spring. Well, we couldn't have the editor of Flower Magazine here without Fresh Flowers. You could. We could, but it wouldn't be as much fun. So tell me, what were some of the projects that really kind of stand out to you when you think about the book? Gosh, good question. I have, you know, favorites in different parts of the world and favorites in different parts of the book. So it's a tough question, but, you know, I just have to say they're all my children. But one of my favorites would have to be Grey Gardens.

3:28Oh, okay. Can I get an amen? Oh, my gosh. I'm feeling the agreement. Even just the name evokes visions in your— And it is such a historical and storied location. If anybody has not seen Grey Gardens, we're not friends yet. So go watch it and then we're going to be best friends. And we can talk. And then we can talk because Edie and little Edie, like their spirits just live on and on and on. And just to see how Liz Lang took that home and revived it and brought new life and new grandeur to it is just so amazing. It's a living monument to the Beals, but also Sally Quinn and Ben Bradley, who bought it and really saved it.

4:25You know, Washington Post, they really saved it. They rescued it. And they restored it to an extent. But it was always sort of a summer, you know, just sort of that more informal, not decorated mode that a certain generation and a certain type of person would have. They wouldn't get all caught up in, you know, bright colors. And, you know, it was just some wicker and chants. And from what Liz has told me. And pretty. And she loved it. She rented it. And that's how she found out when it sold. or was for sale. So she was queued up to, you know, buy it. And she wanted, she had such an affinity for the Beals and their initial life.

5:18And so she hired some great architects, Boris and Sheeran and Mark Sykes and Jonathan Adler helped her with the decor. But I love things like she has a round pool that she built because as a youngster in L.A., she remembered going to Bob Evans, the director's house, and seeing this dramatic circular pool and thinking, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. I must have one someday. And she does. Yeah. You know, those kinds of touches that just make it really, really interesting and referential. You know, not just a pretty house. You know, it's Liz's house, but it's also Sally's house. It's also Edie and Big Edie's house.

6:07You know, it has, she's kept the spirit of the Beals alive in there. Some of the wildness. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just without the raccoons. Yeah. No. I don't even think Liz has a cat. But anyway. Yeah. What, you know, you have beautiful gardens and outdoor spaces. and, of course, indoor spaces, but in every single issue. So what sort of makes you think, okay, well, this needs to go into the book versus, I mean, because any of these projects could also be in the book or in the issues as well. Yeah. Good question as well, because I think that's one of the things that makes us doing a book a simpler prospect because we have existing content.

6:59And, you know, we looked through to see, because Living Floral was entertaining and decorating, primarily interior, we wanted this to be more outdoor. So that narrowed the scope. We started looking at gardens and garden parties. And that's what's in the book. And then some new things that we produced. So it's a little bit of everything. But always with that sidebar from the experts of their personal pro tips, which I love. And then we're getting a lot of, you know, just stuff that you don't get, you know, if you don't have access to these artists and creatives and gardeners and designers. So they've just let us peek behind the curtain.

7:47Yeah. You know, I love a tabletop. I love a beautifully set table. And there was just so much in here. I felt like this would be my, if I was going to host a dinner party, this would be my first choice. This is the go-to. Yes. Okay. What can I draw an inspiration from? I love hearing that. Just so many pretty napkins and table centerpieces. And never forget your place cards. Yes. Or your menu. You know, it's interesting. I was just on a cruise, which I had never been on. And we were with 12 couples. And every night we would go into the restaurant. We had these tables reserved, but we didn't have place cards.

8:27And it was fun. And it was a fabulous trip, don't get me wrong. But I would have had place cards even for that, even on a ship, you know, because some of us ended up sitting next to the same people a couple of times. And we love those people. But it's just, you know, to have that thoughtful sort of, let's see who we want to sit next to who and be sometimes random and sometimes thoughtful. But it just makes everybody feel comfortable when they know they're assigned a seat. There's always a moment of panic. I find anytime you're hosting where if someone or if you're a guest where you go and you are, okay, where do I sit?

9:11And the seat that you have for a dinner party or even just going to a restaurant feels so important to the time you're going to have. So I always feel like it's just so much pressure. Do you want a pro tip about that? Yes. Yes. This is really divulging my strange motives and behavior. But if I go to a party and there are no place cards. Do you make them? Yes, I run to my car. No, no, no. I slip out to the powder room. Oh, great idea. You wait. And then I take my time. And by the time I get back, everybody's seated and there's an empty spot and it's mine. Love that idea. Oh, I'm doing that. You can use that.

10:06You don't have to credit me. I hate to be the first one to sit down. I'm never the first one. But if there's not an assigned seat, then I love to do that. And odds are, it's, you know, I need to go anyway.

10:21So. Oh, my gosh. I'm trying that. because yeah I know that's you don't know anyone's gonna sit then you don't want to go first oh my gosh I always get this like junior high feeling of like oh my gosh who am I gonna have lunch with and what table am I gonna sit at but no one wants to sit with me we all want to sit with you I love the randomness of being absent and then slipping and going oh there's a place okay Like, you know, just like, and it's really a way to abdicate any kind of choice. Yeah. Or worrying that nobody wants to sit by you. See, I'm always more concerned that, like, there's a good conversation going on at the other end of the table.

11:06Yeah. Yes, and I'm not a part of it. And I'm not a part of that. Yeah. I want to be part of that. And oftentimes it's where my husband is. And they always separate us. And I'm like, huh. Okay, do you, when you're setting a table, do you separate spouses? I do. You do? Okay. Every time. Yeah. How far apart? Like opposite ends or just? No, just not next to each other. Okay. You know, I just think it's more interesting and it's more fun. Yeah. You know, it's more fun. I love my husband and I love to go to parties with him, but I see him all the time. I don't want to sit next to him at a dinner party.

11:40Yeah. I'm not insecure in that way. What if the couples may not know one another? the couples made it i still think it's okay to separate yeah sometimes i worry that if they're they're only just meeting for the first time the other couples then they may want their partner just sort of as a you know security blanket security blanket so sometimes i i keep them together but yeah and you know what this is america you can do whatever you want i mean free You just go ahead and seat those couples together. That is fine. But it's a good point. You see your spouse and your partner all the time. May as well.

12:19And it depends, you know, I mean, what are you after with your dinner party or your luncheon or whatever? Do you want people to meet each other? Are you trying to kind of network, make connections? Then definitely separate. But if not, I mean, just whatever you want. Honestly, my table is not that big where there's really only so many, like maybe two. So it's probably not an issue. Sweet of you to think of it. No, really. Consider it. Okay. Yes. There were so many beautiful parties. But I also really loved at the end of the book the focus on creating a beautiful garden. because obviously there's a lot that goes into maintaining and planting, but there are also some common themes that you've highlighted in terms of ornamentation, architecture.

13:14And I loved going through those because it was a great reminder, like almost like a little checklist. Oh, okay. I need some great planters are important. So walk our audience through the end of that, the back half of the book and sort of what the thought process was there. Well, the thought process for me was I'm not a gardener. My husband gardens and I studied design and art history and then discovered flower arranging and event design and things like that and the art form that that is. So, but a garden is like any interior project. You need the same elements, scale, proportion, composition, interest, detail, focal points, places to sit, places to lie down, places, you know, to have a picnic, places to put your drink.

14:16You know, if you want to live outdoors, if you want to have a beautiful flowering outdoor life, then it needs to be comfortable and pretty. I was on this other podcast, sorry. And the guy said, he was talking about our show house in Nashville, and he said it was just pretty. And he said, I've always said pretty plus pretty equals pretty. And that's what y 'all did. Everything. And I was like, I'm so glad to hear that because beauty matters to me so much. So a garden doesn't have to be elaborate. I want it to be inviting. I know the house you used to live in was so soft and cottagey and sort of a craftsman situation, but with trellises of antique roses and big blousy hydrangeas.

15:01And I love that. Doesn't have to be perfect. Better if it's not. And I'm that way about interiors as well. I don't want them to be overwrought. I don't want a garden to be overwrought so that you don't even want to put your toe in it. Right. So that's kind of my philosophy. And my husband's a gardener. So I just cut what he grows and arrange it. And it's a wonderful relationship in that way. Yeah. There was a section about sculpture, too, that I, you know, there's so many things. I think it's easy. I'm not a gardener either, but I admire them and I aspire to be. but I'm not going to be out there doing all the many tasks.

15:48And I wish I'd maybe one day. Maybe I'll get there one day. No, we all have different gifts. You know, we really do. I got over the fact that I wasn't a gardener pretty quick, especially with this magazine, because, you know, everybody assumes I'm a gardener. I am so not a gardener, and I'm okay with that. I love to promote beauty and beautiful gardens and gardening and great gardeners. I am happy to do that. That is my joy. And so, you know, lean into your strengths. Okay, but where's the line between a gardener and an enthusiast? Like, I'll put things in the ground, but does that make me a gardener?

16:29Yeah. Are you gardening? Well, not right now. No. But I dream of it. There's a difference in a garden designer and a gardener. And you can call yourself anything you want. But then if you try to enlist clients, you best have some letters after your name or a lot of experience or whatever. But for your personal use, if you are digging in the dirt, you're a gardener. Oh, yeah. All right. I've got a gardener. It's like, you know, there are certain people who their hobby, their free time, they want to be out pruning and digging. Yes. That's a legit gardener. That is. But, I mean, if you like it, then call yourself whatever you want.

17:16But I'm just saying, if you like it, if you take joy in digging in the dirt and arranging and doing a border and, you know, or even a container garden, whatever, you're a gardener. I mean. Thanks, Margo. Yeah. Yes. I dub thee a gardener. You mentioned gray gardens, but there are also a couple of international projects. So talk to us about sort of the geographics of the book, because obviously, flowers based in Birmingham, there's some southeastern gardens, there's a lot in the northeast, and then some abroad. California. California, yeah. um francis schultz's garden in california which is um anyway um she's this wonderful entertainer and gardener and arranger so um i loved her book the bee cottage oh yeah oh yeah such a yeah got great taste great style and um one of my favorite people i just will take a trip out west with her in a car.

18:21She's just really, really fun. So talented. And so this was actually her return engagement in one of my books. She was in Living Floral as well. Bee Cottage was in Living Floral. This is the ranch out west. So that was fun. But I think one of the international projects that I just was so grateful to include and to have access to was India Hicks and her father David's garden in England. And we actually were able to secure the services of Clive Nichols, who is a world-renowned garden photographer. So you have this iconic photographer, but also interior designer in David Hicks, And then his daughter, India, who has the most incredible style and vision and also heart.

19:21She's a major international philanthropist. So to be able to highlight her life in that garden was just really, really special for me. I'm friends with India. She's a really cool girl. You know, she's just that. She has a heart as big as all outdoors. And then to hear her talking about her father in that garden and her life in that garden was just really special. Yeah. Well, you know, the English cottage and sort of English gardens has such a, you can perfectly envision that, right? And so I love it. Actually, I don't know if you've gotten to that chapter, but David Hicks did not want any flowers.

20:06So this is like the one chapter in flowering outdoors is like, well, we flowered it with pleached hornbeams. You know, we flowered it with a row of terracotta pots and shrubs. We flowered it in a different way. You know, so we look at the term flower as verb, not always blues everywhere. So that was an interesting project for us for the book. Yeah. Now that's a great way to think of that too, because we're kind of always talking about decorating your outdoors with the same principles that you use indoors. and kind of adding collections of flower pots seems like the perfect way to create a focal point, especially if you don't have things blooming or you don't have a grand sculpture to draw people's eye across.

21:04Repetition. Yeah. There was one project, and now I can't remember what it was, but someone had sort of a terrace and they had these trees in these white sort of lotus pots and there probably were 15 of them and i was thinking to your point the i always think about buying lamps as you have to buy two right never buy one because you might you could separate them but you might want to put them and create a more focus and that's sort of the same maybe you take the same approach with planters like you should always buy at least two maybe more and you can kind of create more more architecture right with the planter where i don't usually think of planters as architectural.

21:48But they are. They are. Yeah. And they certainly, you certainly demonstrate that in the book. Well, good. I'm so glad. Well, they really are. And they are as important as what you put in them. Yeah. And I think about this book, per se, where there's all kinds of different planners. And, you know, it's just personal taste. It really is. And you can have modern containers in a really kind of classical English cottage garden, and it can work. You know? Yeah. You just have to do what you like. I think it's important to do what you like, not what somebody else likes. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I'm trying to find these planners.

22:32I'm going to find it while you ask. Was it at Grey Gardens? No, you were totally great. I'm totally... This one. That's Grey Gardens? Yeah. Those are Indians. She had those commissioned. They're so amazing. Aren't they incredible? They're so pretty and just, you know, there's something so sculptural about it, even though it's all greenery because of the just row of hedges, the row of hydrangeas. And then they alternate with those little round boxwoods. Yeah, like it just is really striking. I loved it. But I'm just carried away with Deborah Nevins was her landscape architect. And she did a beautiful job there.

23:15And she actually, that whole part of the garden was inspired by a blue door gate, like a sort of temple door that they found in India, I think. um and so you know when you when you have a point of departure whether it's in the garden or in the house it's just so fun and personal to i love that door and then build an entire garden room around it yeah thematically visually you know color wise in every way it's just fun yeah and it gives you starting point. Like when I was in design school 50 years ago, but you learned to start a room on the floor, you know, but that was when everybody had Persian, you know, rugs and orientals.

24:04And so you just assumed that's where you were going to start. But now you can start a room or a garden with a color or a shrub or a container, a container, a planter that you love, a Chinese Chippendale planter. That can inform your entire plant selection. Everything. It's just fun. Just have fun. And then it really celebrates that thing that you love and makes your hearts give a beat. That's great. Yes. And it recaps the same. I just love hearing your feedback on the book because it sounds like you're getting it. So thank you. Okay. Let's talk about your garden because you talk about your husband being the gardener, but I imagine you had, you know, requests or input on the design.

24:53And I was curious because, you know, there's a lot of discussion in here about the way they're executed. Do you put your garden together in a sort of, I'm going to do this space and then I'm going to do this space, or did you do a master plan and sort of think through it holistically? What was sort of your approach. You're just not really believing that I'm not a gardener, are you? But you've got outdoor spaces. I don't mean like just the beds, but the programming, shall we say. So I wanted something. We've been in that house 32 years and it has shape shifted over the years, but it's a cottage and it's a cottage garden.

25:38It's a sort of woodland, loose, informal garden. The rooms are loose. The rooms are inviting and the beds. I just like for beds to make sense. I like for you to be able to see things in a bed. And so I have sort of said, move that over to the right, honey. But that's really, you know, plant selection and things like that. Gates is the one who does all the research on that to figure out what's going to grow where. And so we've used a lot of natives. And we have camellias, which are the state flower. We have them, and they bloom, well, we have Sasanquas that bloom in late August and through September and October.

26:24Then we have Japonicas that are blooming now. And then we have some gardenias, which I can't wait for those but you know we just we have a lot of evergreen we have a lot of we have boxwoods that were there when we bought the house marching across the front and I love those and he wants to rip them up and that's where I have some influence I'm like absolutely not but what about like you know yeah the outdoor spaces paths and there's so much to the gardens that's not just the plant matter, you know? Yeah, well, the way that you navigate the space, are you talking about mine or personally? Well, yeah.

27:11I think ours is very much, you just, it's approachable. You walk into a space and you're not covered up, but you're enveloped. we have a gazebo that Gates bought from a place called Elegant Earth and installed it on Christmas Eve. And I woke up Christmas morning and there it was. Wow. But so how did y 'all go about planning it, though? Has it was it sort of did it sort of happen like, OK, we're going to do these beds and then later we're going to do these? I can't remember. It's been 30 years. No. Well, I will say, like our house, it doesn't have a master plan. Okay. Okay? We have invited a couple of garden designers and landscape architects into the story.

28:00And so you have a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But it's really my husband. It's his love. He grew up on the lane where we live, and his mother was a master gardener in Birmingham. I don't know if you know this, but we have two GCA clubs. We're all flowers all the time, all gardens all the time in Birmingham. And so Gates grew up with that. And so he, and I did not, my mother knew who to call. So, you know, just as important to have that in your toolbox. But Gates's mother was a big gardener. And so he was around that and he absorbed all that. and I will come along and say like I did when we first got there the garden was done and so we began to soften it okay okay okay I put in a cutting bed not really a cutting bed a border around the fence we had a wrought iron fence around the pool and I put in a border to soften it Um, and then I just went, okay, it's yours.

29:10Everything's yours. And then I'm like, we need some big olive jars in the corners of the pool. We, this Lady Banksha, you know, the vines are obscuring everything. Let's cut that back and let's put some beautiful Panora Newman planters on those columns. You know, let's do a triage across the top so that we don't see our neighbors in their pool. You know, that kind of thing. I mean, it's four acres, but we still have neighbors right there. So it's just about how do you live? How do you want to live? It's pretty. It's not a show garden by any means. And that's not who we are. And there's nothing wrong with a show garden.

29:51It's great, but that's just not who we are. Yeah. So you sort of have been adding or subtracting. Absolutely. Just like the house. As the need arrives. Yeah. As the mood strikes. and what's in bloom and what's looking pretty this year. So we are going to have some firelight hydrangeas because that was our flower of the year. So we're going to have some of those. So it's just ever-growing, ever-changing. We're not rigid, I'll say that. And I think it helps. One of my favorite projects was, talking, you were talking about the pools and enjoying the outdoor spaces was the one in Texas where she had this one, where she took the, she built a courtyard on the front of her house and sort of redid the wall.

30:50Yeah, Courtney. Yes. And I just loved how furnished and decorated and fun that space is because it looks like a living room. I mean, it is, it actually looks like some Ballard sofas that she reupholstered. I don't know if it is, but we probably did. I don't know if we call those out. But anyway, it almost is like an indoor sofa that she had done in a fabric. Performance fabric, yeah. Yeah. And it just, it, gosh, it looks like it should be like you want to have a party there. Well, I think she does. Yeah. I mean, she really entertains a lot. And she's a designer, but she's also, you know, she just has this space that she decided, we're going to use this space.