THE PARASOL EFFECT

Step aside, clunky umbrellas. The summer belongs to Ocean Master, one of TUUCI's classic Pagoda parasols. Elegant and feminine with an Old World Asian flair, the
Ocean Master is tech savvy too, with a self-tens ion ing canopy system powered by gas pistons. tuuci.com

SUSTAINABLE BEAUTY

Garden shows across the country are striving to elevate an ecoconscious approach to design that never compromises on style. At Seattle's Northwest Flower & Garden Show last February, New York designer Rebecca Cole's showcase rooftop garden, Sky's the Limit, embodied that theme. Says Cole: "My mission was to take the green movement and all those products and innovative, cool things happening in building, and put them in the context of beauty and design. I tried to push the envelope but be completely realistic." Cole's green grids — a varied pattern of cement pavers and cleverly planted sedum floor squares — joined living walls and artwork made of grasses, sedums and mosses. The combinations were creative and design-centered, bringing "wow" forward while making sustainability appear to be secondary. In Cole's creation, gorgeous bowls made from recycled hubcaps, cement furniture and rusted pots showed a variety of applications for repurposed and ecoconscious materials. Cole placed solar panels and a planted green roof atop a penthouse structure, which worked in harmony with the birch trees, bamboo and the living spaces of the main roof garden.

Stylized green is catching on. At the Southeastern Horticultural Society's Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta last winter, designers showcased how to create water-conscious designs and edible gardens in EcoB right, an area of the expo dedicated purely to green design. Exhibitors at the Philadelphia Flower Show this past Match also caught the wise-watering/conservation wave by designing showcase gardens using natives and creating a replica of a wellknown downtown building and its new green roof showing how the roof was constructed and how green initiatives can improve the urban environment. A n d this fall's Late Show Gardens in Sonoma, California, w i l l teach "fabulous design for this century" that is both sustainable and water smart.

ORCHID VESSELS

You know someone is excited about her product when she runs up to you as you're waiting in a parked rental car and hands you her "big new idea" through a lowered car-door window. Thaf s how I first saw the Eclipse and Solis orchid pots: While in Los Angeles scouting gardens with Kimberlee Keswick and Paul Robbins, Keswick showed me the new line she designed for their firm, eswickRobbins. Made of walnut and zebrano woods respectively, the Vessels, as they're called, have substantial weight and lustrous wood grain. "We were inspired by a request for a custom piece from one of our landscape clients who felt there was othing out there that was at once classic and contemporary. So, the design process began," says Keswick.

keswickrobbins.com — SARAH KINBAR