Plagued by Pollen and Poles!

After two long weeks, we're back on the blog! (miss us??)

We have officially hit the ground running (sprinting, really) here at All Decked Out, and we have been busy nearly every day installing new gardens all over the city, all while fighting the good fight-seasonal allergies!

As you may be able to guess, one of the most exciting and equally daunting parts of Spring installations is that you never can tell exactly what to expect-especially in a city as old and storied as New York. 

Last week, during a backyard installation on the Upper West Side, we encountered the remnants of a chain-link fence installed at least 80-100 years prior. While digging a large hole for a new Cherry tree, we struck concrete and metal. Unable to stray from the original design of the garden, we spent the next THREE HOURS with a sledgehammer and pick steadily chipping away at the antique foundation.

Above: Diego, Gui, and Jessica posing in a pollen fog of victory with the enemy pole

After all our hard work, not only were we finally able to pull the (3ft long!) metal pole and it's concrete base out of the ground, but the Cherry tree looked perfect in it's corner spot :). A job well worth the work!

Sunshine is here, and Tulips are too....

 ...But with all this heat, they'll soon bid us adieu!

It's the first hot day of 2012, and the city is alive with color! As ladies lunch in billowing sundresses and hipsters lounge in their neon-hued denim, millions of tulips are standing tall all over Manhattan.

Unfortunately, however, these beautiful little additions of color to city-life won't be holding their own for long. It may be common sense to assume that warm weather and sunshine brings more flowers rather than less, but in the case of Tulips, that's not true.

Tulips, like the "All Temples of Beauty" bulbs pictured above from this morning, prefer cooler weather and less sunlight. That's why these early risers are always the first spots of color you see in the Spring.

All this sunshine and the heat from a day like today are like hitting the fast forward button on the life span of a Tulip, which is why they seem extra full and marvelous. In the same token, that fast forward button will stay on all day today, and by as early as tomorrow those same tulips will begin to wilt and die.

In the end, as sad as it may be that the last day of a flowering Tulip's life is it's most beautiful, the same heat and sun that are scaring away these Springtime plants are what will bring us even more beautiful summertime plants in the months to come!