Current Obsessions: On the Water

Ahead this weekend? A houseboat spa, a ceramics exhibit, an unexpected host gift, and more. Read on:

• “For so long, I thought gardening required some secret expertise I didn’t possess. An encyclopedic understanding of plant genera and soil composition, plus special tools and perfect timing. A personality that wears linen and remembers where she left her pruning shears. Instead, it has mostly required showing up. And trying. And when something dies, trying again,” writes Suleika Jaouad in an extraordinary entry on gardening while living with cancer.
• Remember the cool Japanese watering cans and buckets that Margot wrote about? They are now available in more colors, including two new Martha Stewart-approved hues.
• A thoughtful must-read for anyone interested in welcoming more native plants into their garden.
• Long live smokebush arrangements.
• Want to learn more about architecture that takes into account the birds, bees, and bats after reading Laura’s story on habitat masonry? Watch this video.
• Many of us at R/G enjoy collecting leaves, seed heads, rocks, and other little treasures on our walks (especially Margot), so this exhibit by artist Judith Belzer, Walking Project: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, is right up our alley.
• How clever!
• The making of the floral arrangements at Chez Panisse.
• Save the date for “Paula Greif Baskets & Buckets”, an exhibit of the ceramicist’s work, at Shaker Outpost in Chatham, New York—with an opening party July 18.
• “Most of life is more like our work-in-progress homes than we’re willing to admit.” Love this, courtesy of Kate Arends (of Wit and Delight).
• Going to a party? Bring some paper crowns (and other ideas).
• A downright dreamy—and slightly surrealist—summer table.
• File under We Want to Go to This: a build-a-lamp workshop at Happy Medium in NYC.