Decorating the historic manor house in Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton, Maryland, in festive splendor has been going on for 42 years by local designers and garden clubs. I was honored to be asked to decorate a room this December and chose Butler’s Pantry, adjacent to the kitchen, where holiday food would normally be stored and glassware would be stored in glass-front cabinets. Working with my daughter Laura and my friend Gretchen, we decorated the pantry in two morning blitzes. Using many items we already had or borrowed from friends, we just needed to buy some fresh flowers to complete the room.
The Pantry had dark countertops with pull-out drawers and a sink area under a window that overlooked the topiary gardens. Glassware of all kinds was stored in the cabinets and made a great backdrop for my planned decorations. The existing green tile floor wasn’t as attractive, but we could dress it up with a floral rug. For my color scheme, I chose gray, shiny silver, sage green, white, and copper.
In keeping with the grey-sage green scheme, I made some lamb’s ear trees held with pearl pins on a Styrofoam base. Using artificial lamb ears made the process easier and I will be able to keep them year after year. Placing the trees on gray containers with legs elevated them to make them more prominent.
Since there was a lot going on with the counters, I decided to keep it simple for the two windows in the room and used simple branches of cupressus ‘Blue Ice’, which is a wonderful silver-blue conifer. I hung a square moss wreath decorated with painted “billy ball” spheres glued to the base of the wreath.
The sink area was the focal point and I covered the ugly pipes with a piece of gray flannel so it wouldn’t detract. The sink arrangement was silver painted eucalyptus, white lilies and a piece of white washed manzanita, very simple. I started with a twig tree with decorations for the sink area, but it wasn’t bold enough.
Fresh greens surrounded the sink arrangement and I placed fresh magnolia, stone pine, and some more Blue Ice cupressus along the countertops. Fake food, a bowl of nuts, sparkly trees, more lilies, a punch bowl full of Christmas balls, and real marzipan under a glass globe filled the counters.
Below is a short video of the room. Finally I swapped out the twig in the sink for an arrangement of manzanita, lilies and silver eucalyptus.
We finished it all off with star lights, silver painted eucalyptus trees, and antlers.
A Ladew Christmas sold out weeks in advance this year, but if you become a member you’ll get first dibs to all of their special events and get discounts on other events and classes. Gonna Ladew Membership to become a member. It’s a great Christmas gift!
