When Caroline Scheufele moved into an 18th-century villa in the rustic village of Prangins in Switzerland, she was immediately seduced by Lake Geneva, the body of water that is literally at the foot of her garden. “Living next to the lake is a magical experience — the sky lights up the garden and we never see the same shades of green in the trees,” says Scheufele, co-president and artistic director of Chopard, the 153-year-old Swiss firm owned by her family and renowned for its diamond-encrusted watches and luxury jewels dripping with precious and semi-precious stones.

While Scheufele doesn’t design her collections al fresco, she has found much inspiration within the 1,200 oak trees she planted to border her land. To celebrate Chopard’s 150th anniversary, she created a glittering menagerie of jewelry.  The collection includes dazzling flowers, of course!

To read more, see Veranda magazine, March-April 2013 issue.

For much of this past year, visitors to the New York Botanical Garden have been treated to a transcendent experience.  In a singularly ambitious exhibition, the NYBG re-created the Impressionist’s famous French garden in exquisite detail… filling the conservatory courtyard ponds with the same varieties of water lilies that Monet grew and immortalized in his paintings.

Changed out seasonally, the exhibit included all of Monet’s favorites: irises, poppies, nasturtiums, roses, delphinium, and foxgloves.

As seen in flowermag.com Winter 2012 issue.

In her forthcoming volume, “Flowers”, Carolyne Roehm describes being so devoted to tulips that some years she plants as many as 10,000 bulbs.  Gardening is her passion, and her photographs of its blowsy stars are reverant works of art.

The West grows the most Christmas trees, but, it has also helped to spawn the artificial tree revolution.  One thing remains the same:  The choice of tree is an emotional decision.  Do  you seek robust A-line perfection, or does a forlorn Charlie Brown pine tug at your heart?  Perhaps this fascinating article in the December  2012 issue of Sunset magazine will help you to decide.

West Coast business owners, Tom Norby of Trout Creek Tree Farm in Corbett, OR, and Thoms Harman of Balsam Hill in Redwood City, CA, share insight into their real and artificial tree companies.

Heather Pando of L.A. design studio, Little World Design, use botanicals in a whimsical fashion—a style translated to this wreath.  With her team—including Manuel Acosta, who put together this piece—she fashioned “blossoms” out of scallop shells and glued them to a manzanita frame that resembles driftwood. littleworlddesign.com

To get this wreath project kickstarted, Hank Jenkins of  SF Bay Area firm, Lushland, simply took a walk. “What’s here is what grabbed my attention in my own garden and on hikes.” Despite the fresh take on materials, he keeps the color palette traditional with green eucalyptus pods and red pincushions (leucospermum).

Zenaida Sengo of Flora Grubb Gardens and Susie Nadler of Cutting Garden in San Francisco, created this colorful holiday wreath of  kumquats, dried palm stems, red leucadendron, green citrus leaves.

As seen in December 2012 issue of Sunset magazine.

These handmade creations are more than textured eye-catching pieces of garden art.  Known as bug hotels, they offer shelter and even food for beetles, solitary bees, and spiders! Beetles and Spiders nestle down between pieces of wood, while birds take wool and yarn for their nests.

All these creatures are essential to the ecosystem, says Lisa Benjamin, founder of Urban Hedgegrow, a collective of artists in California and the United Kingdom who create these dwellings.  Items shown can be ordered from Urban Hedgerow.

In Natural Companions, acclaimed garden writer Ken Druse presents recipes for perfect plant pairings using diverse species that look great together and bloom at the same time.

Artist Ellen Hoverkamp contributes over 100 striking botanical photographs, created in collaboration with the author utilizing a large format, flatbed scanner as her camera. Filled with an incredible amount of horticultural guidance, useful plant recommendations, and gardening lore, this book is a must-have for gardeners and lovers of plants and flowers.

“During a walk through the vast grain fields adjacent to my friend’s house (on Oland, a large island off the east coast of Sweden), I was lucky enough to catch these poppies the moment before their petals closed as darkness set in… The image recalls the tranquil feeling of a summer night – the noise of hawks and swallows flying overhead, the wind, and the soft evening light as the drops below the horizon.”~Thomas Ljungberg

As seen in June 2012 issue of Garden Design magazine.

Exciting News!  bbrooks new website will be launched in the coming weeks!

Keep any eye out for our new look!

Paintings by Botticelli, Durer, Raphael and da Vinci are featured in Celia Fisher’s coffee table book, Flowers of the Renaissance.

Taking a closer look at the Renaissance garden as a whole, author Fisher examines roses, lilies, daffodils, daisies and tulips in order to observe varieties common in the Renaissance and their symbolism in paintings of the period.

As seen in Flower Magazine, Spring Issue.