Giant alliums in full purple bloom. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

SO I GET HOME from visiting my sisters in Florida and there’s a message from my heart surgeon’s office saying it’s time to follow up on my aneurysm and I shrieked.

“What aneurysm? I thought I had that fixed nine years ago.” That one almost killed me.

“Oh, this is the new one, don’t you remember?” said the cheery nurse.

“No, I do not,” I said.

“We’re just keeping an eye on it,” she prodded. “Remember?”

How do I, meaning me, forget this? I do have a highly selective memory, though why I select to remember what I do I don’t know.

And how could I have forgotten the world’s hottest heart surgeon? I mean this guy gave me palpitations, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare and McDreamy all rolled into one tall, hot package.

It took me a couple of days to remember—but then I recalled him telling me he’d see me next year and my thinking, damn, do I have to wait that long?

I recall this: We planned to drive to the blood-letting place for the tests needed before the tests, then go to Costco to pick up refills of meds for My Prince. How cozy is this? Just the kind of day I imagined when we wed 36.9 years ago.

But still I recall nothing of that aneurysm, which should have spooked me into wandering around (in something floaty) considering death for 12 months, planning the funeral menu and certainly not blithely agreeing to have my hip replaced, although that doc was pretty hot too.

The Prince thinks maybe the surgeon didn’t tell me?

Best to believe that.

He ended up going to Costco without me as I had pre-hurricane prepping to do, then called me three times with three different queries: Which oil did you want again? Do you really need cashews? Then he said, Bulbs, they have bulbs.

Well now, this is a challenge. Talking him through bulbs. But it must be done as the availability of Costco bulbs is ephemeral, always a month too early and then gone forever, probably by the time I could get to the store, should I live. And they have the best deals on bulbs.

“Tulips?” he said.

“Of course,” I told him. “Pink and purple, please.”

He reads from the bags. “Van Eijk?”

“No, they’re red.” (Look at the pictures on the bags!)

“Queen of the Night?”

“That’s black, not black. Pink. Purple. Do they have mid-spring?”

“Mid-spring?” he said. I sense a rising note of hysteria. Why didn’t I go with him?

“Yes, they come early, mid and late,” I said, not getting into how in action this can depend on light and heat and so forth, just keep it simple. He’ll panic.

“The bags will be marked mid-spring,” I told him.

Timing is important in a small patch of garden like ours, where the tulips must be pulled after blooming to make way for summer. I want them done and out by early April. My main flower growing is before the Kwanzan cherry has blasted its way into the yard with a umbrella of pink blossoms so vast the sun can scarcely be called dappled.

He gets 25 deep purple bulbs called Ronaldo (kind of sexy-sounding) and 25 pale pink Synaeda Amor (let’s say that together) in a bag marked mid-spring. The timing and color are fine. I am not fussy.

Then he said, “They have alliums.”

“Hoo boy, alliums,” I murmured. I adore alliums. “How much?”

“Ummm, 36 for $12.95,” he read.

“What?”

“36 Purple Sensation alliums, $12.95.” I can see him standing there, reading glasses sliding down his skinny Irish nose, studying the bag, wanting to get it right. He’s a little afraid of me, I don’t know why. “Blooms late spring,” he began. “Height 30”, plant spacing . . . ”

TMI, I would say if I said such a thing. “Wait! Seriously?” I stop him, “36 alliums for $12.95? Six for $12.95 is more like it.”

You might not think this is worth all the italics but holy CRAP. Maybe they’re mismarked? Maybe he should get two bags? What would I do with 2 x 36 bulbs, whatever that is?

It would be like the birthday when my mom made a standing rib roast—two ribs—just for me and a second roast for the family. It was one of the stellar moments of my life. I like roast beef that much. Fried chicken being a close second (in case you want to send me your Popeye’s coupons).

That’s how much I love those fluffy purple balls, soaring up to nod around the tulips. Few spring flowers make me more ecstatic.

“Get one bag,” I said, breaking out the pinot gris. 2 x 36 would be enough to give one heart failure.

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” reports on Thursdays about her city garden plot, bulbs and The Prince.

Juno Beach, Florida. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

FLORIDA IS a weird place, in case you haven’t noticed. There’s a woman running for political office who claims that as a child she was abducted by aliens. People are frequently gnawed if not eaten by alligators. Fluffy little dogs are wheeled about in strollers. Mug shots are a popular feature in the Palm Beach Post. Toxic Algae.

Doctoring, of all sorts, is an amusement. One fits visits to dermatologists, cardiologists, hypnotists and podiatrists in between hands of mah jongg and the Early Bird Special— which are now known as Happy Hour, I suppose because the Baby Boomers have arrived and they would never be caught dead at an Early Bird Special.

Speaking of which. When people die, as they do with great regularity, they leave fabulous wardrobes to thrift shops. Damn nice china too.

Bermuda shorts are acceptable funeral attire. I know this for a fact.

I’m flipping through the bathing suits at a candy-colored lingerie shop on Fort  Lauderdale’s Las Olas, once an exclusive shopping boulevard, now somewhat tarnished with an assemblage of gaudy boutiques and shopkeepers luring customers in from the sidewalks with packets of fancy hand creams and such.

Holding up a sweetly pink, minute bikini, cunningly ruffled along the décolletage, I waved it at the Prince, who was hovering, one foot in and the other out the doorway.

“Would you like to try it on?” the saleswoman asked.

“I thought this would be adorable on my daughter,” I said to her, aghast, thinking of 30-something Baby and her gym-hard rump and nonexistent tummy.

“Women wear these here,” she sniffed.

Indeedy do they do. The beach offers an outstanding array of bikini bodies, many of them extraordinarily curvaceous with ruffled skin, their cups overflowing and their bottoms billowing. This is not being critical, just honest.

Submerged in the warm turquoise ocean, watching them galumphing down the beach, I consider that beside them I appear most svelte, a condition I haven’t in fact enjoyed in a decade or so. Perhaps, I ask myself . . .

Nah, keep that tankini top on, honey.

Florida does, however, have considerable charms. To approach the point of today’s gardening piece, we’re here to celebrate my older sister’s 86th birthday. (She is considerably older than I am, the product of an earlier litter.)

She and her husband moved to Juno Beach from Manhattan about 30 years ago, flipping their one-bedroom condo on Central Park West for a spacious two-bedroom-plus-den corner unit with two large terraces on the Atlantic. The front terrace juts out so far that if you’re sitting, the pool and beach disappear. All you see is water. Like an ocean-liner balcony.

A few short years after they arrived, her husband passed away. “Lou’s in heaven and I’m in paradise,” she sighed, a remark she disavows, but I swear is true. And close to paradise it is.

The buildings—there are two—are surrounded by lush gardens punctuated by palm trees. There are squat palms, fat palms and coconut palms towering beside the pool. I thought the last were banned, as the nuts (fruits?) tend to fall on heads that no longer move swiftly enough to avoid them. Perhaps the beach boy (who appears to be pushing 70) shinnies up to shake them loose at night. Maybe I’ll ask, if I can summon the energy.

I find I am spending a great deal of time inert, alternately reading* and taking photos of endlessly fascinating cloud formations.

The palms preside over free-form puddles of prehistoric-looking plantings, gnarled and pointed and feathery—unidentifiable to Northern eyes. Even the grass is strange, a vehement emerald that pokes the palms of your feet with scratchy blades; much like Astroturf. The flower colors are ridiculous. Orange blazes beside hot pink, purple, lemony yellow, all arrayed against a background that shifts through a kaleidoscope of greens.

Little lizards scurry about, some mud brown, some poison green. Maybe they change with the backgrounds—I think I know this. They all have curlicued tails that twitch about behind them. Whatever it is they’re doing, they’re very busy at it, scurrying along self-importantly. Sometimes they abruptly stop, as it they suddenly remember they forgot their sunglasses, then continue on with much haste. Perhaps they’re headed for meetings or group functions, since they travel alone.

A vine covered with pink trumpet flowers scrambles across the sand. I don’t know what this is; I don’t know what anything is. I left my phone with the plant app at home on my desk. I can see it sitting there, right beside the Chinese back scratcher (can we still call them that?). Fat lot of good that vision does me.

I visited a friend in Los Angeles many years ago. She had several small straggly-looking garden plots surrounding a patio. Since she didn’t much care, and in fact found even the concept of gardening miraculous, I spent a morning moving this and that around until the composition pleased me. I amended nothing, trimmed nothing, bought nothing; I may have used a dinner fork as a tool. In a week it was all frolicking together, positively flourishing.

This could be a perfect place for me, I’m thinking as I watch the gardeners carelessly brutalize a sword-like thing, thwacking it back from the edges of a garden patch. I really don’t like any of the effort a Northern garden requires, I just enjoy the decorating.  In the tropics and semi-such you can pluck things up and jam them down and they grow.

It seems as easy as changing sheets. Or some such.

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” reports on things green from all sorts of places every Thursday.

* If you must know. Alexander McCall Smith, the 44 Scotland Street series. I dare you not to laugh.

THE CASED CRYSTAL of our grandparents’ era is a thing of wonder: often a wineglass or tumbler blown from clear glass, and then a layer of colored glass applied over it, which is then carved away in a pattern that exposes the clear crystal beneath.

Too bad it looks so formal and old-fashioned except in the fanciest settings (which, I guess, already look formal and old-fashioned).

Other than the Ritz Carlton, which deploys an army of heavy cobalt-blue water goblets across its restaurant tables, most establishments commercial and domestic have been rather understated about glassware in recent decades.

But hints of color are popping up. Some examples are full-on variants on the classic form, viz. the cased-crystal Lismore Pops Collection from Waterford. Others are whisper-quiet, subtle additions to tables formal and in-.

Here are some we found while noodling around online.

—Nancy McKeon

LEFT: There’s still plenty of outdoor entertaining to come, so why not try these DuraClear double old-fashioned glasses, one of each color, made from unbreakable polycarbonate and specially priced at 6 for $54.57. Not shown: Tall highballs are 6 for $62.97 for a limited time. Stemmed margarita glasses are also 6 for $62.97. All at Williams-Sonoma.

RIGHT: From designer Monique Lhuillier come these fresh and feminine Tate highball and old-fashioneds, made from soda-lime glass.In either size they’re 4 for $32 at Pottery Barn, from Lhuilllier’s collection of home accessories.

LEFT: From France’s Saint-Louis Crystal, the Bubbles footed coupe in dark blue is $258 apiece at Scully & Scully.

RIGHT: Moser’s Pebbles double old-fashioned glass also comes in smoky gray, topaz, light green, yelllow, rosy-brown, lavender, beryl (pale aqua) and clear. It’s $125 (it’s $110 in clear) at Scully & Scully.

William Yeoward continues to redefine luxury glassware. The Marina highball glass is $275, the Marina double old-fashioned $270. Both sizes are available in both colors. All at Bloomingdale’s.

LEFT: From Baccarat, the Vega water glass comes as a two-glass set in amber, blue, green, red and purple as well as clear, for $480 ($320 in clear), at Bloomingdale’s.

RIGHT: Vega also comes in a whisper of sapphire color, $250 apiece. At Bergdorf Goodman.

LEFT: From France come these colorful Duralex tumblers, designed in 1945, 6 for $36. At the Museum of Modern Art.

TOP RIGHT: Aino Aalto designed these stackable tumblers, now in translucent blue,  in 1932. They’re 2 for $22, also at the Museum of Modern Art.

BOTTOM RIGHT: From CB2 come these Marta double old-fashioned and tall coolers, shown here in a pale lilac; also available in pale smoke gray and clear, $3.50 and $3.95 apiece. Marta old-fashioneds also come in luster finishes, in green, gold or blue, $4.95 each.

Here’s Waterford’s best-selling Lismore pattern reimagined as Lismore “Pops.” A pair of double old-fashioneds is $175. The toasting flutes are 2 for $195. The coupe-shaped stemmed cocktail glasses are $195 for the pair. The colors are aqua, cobalt, emerald, hot pink and purple (also, not shown, deep red). All at Bloomingdales. com.

MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale, whether through a retailer, an online store or Amazon.com.

MY SWEET PRINCE leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Would you like to bait the ant traps with me?”

I had finished wrestling with the elephant ears, anchoring upright several monsters that had gone splat. Flopped on the back porch sofa, nosed into a Jack Reacher thriller, I was both riveted by the action and scoffing at the notion of Tom Cruise, movieland’s notion of the action hero, impersonating a 6-foot-5 250-pound ex-army cop single-handedly dispatching five college football players turned thugs. Bam bam bam. Cool.

“No, I would not like to bait ant traps,” I snipped.

This was the latest in his list of proposed family activities, which includes placing glue traps for our little house mice (Here’s how to free them), chasing the opossum and her joeys (which are what opossum youth are called) with ammonia, and shooing the raccoons away from his precious feeder fish with Klieg lights.  

I agree, we do have an ant infestation, as we do every summer. I agree, it’s unpleasant. But this is men’s work.

The latest solution was Baby’s concept (we women are the idea people). She’s an authority on bugs, having briefly worked in PR for a pest control firm in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she and her personal Prince Pete are now living, for some reason. She is also our go-to on scuba diving, grammar and editing, wine selection, restaurant service, and now real estate. Clearly, she was an English major. Which is neither here nor there.

Returning to the subject at hand: Baby said, all you do is mix sugar and boric acid with water. The ants like sugar and will tramp through this solution with their itty-bitty feet and take home samples to their queen. And then they all die.

“What’s the proportion of this to that,” My Prince asked. “It’s all on the Internet,” she said, breezing out the door with our 65-pound grand-dog Tallula in tow. Lu is finally leaving after a 28-day vacation on the (used to be white) living room sofa while her parents, poor dears, suffered sunburn on the Jersey Shore and then in the Jamaica that has palm trees and rum. Some people have baby-trial visits to see if they’re ready, we have doggy-trial visits. No. Just no.  Also neither here nor there.

While I won’t mess with the traps, I will happily sit at my desk and conduct The Investigation. Interestingly, we find that some ants have a sweet tooth, others like fats and grease—just like people! You start with a sugar, jelly or honey solution, and if that doesn’t work you go to a fat, like peanut butter or butter. The choice, I suppose, depends on your tax bracket or neighborhood.

Suggestion? To shorten up the trial-and-error testing, I’m thinking maybe you could put a slab of steak and a slice of pie on the kitchen counter, and see which one your pests prefer.

Note that a boric acid mix is attractive only to pesky house ants like “the Argentine ant, the Pharaoh ant and the odorous house ant,” not your outdoor ants, says the particularly fascinating primer I consulted on SFGate. I’ve never smelled my ants, but now I’m curious.

For the sugar solution, add 8 teaspoons of sweet to 1 cup water and 1 teaspoon boric acid, wet wads of cotton with this and stick them in containers. The fatty death trap is 1 cup grease to 1 teaspoon boric acid; this can just be slathered onto or into containers.  

Since ants, as we know, are infinitely curious little buggers, said containers can be anything from bits of cardboard to little jars. You might need 20 to 30 of them set on windowsills, on counters, or wherever else you see them—but keep the traps away from kids and pets as boric acid can harm them as well.

Following instructions (as I rolled over to resume my reading), My Prince soaked cotton balls, stuck them in little boxes and lined them up along the kitchen baseboards and the windowsills—not having any pets or children currently in residence. While our kitchen is about 8 by 10 feet,  he’s following maximal instructions and the traps are laid cheek by jowl around the room.

It is said that you should see a fairly swift reduction in ants, though it can take a month of changing the bait every few days to kill off the colony. At which point, given it’s nearly fall, the ants will go off and hibernate anyway, so why bother.

Have you read Louise Penny? Her Inspector Gamache will have you wanting to visit Quebec.  A fine way to while away the months until ant season is upon us again.

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” encounters wildlife in the garden and, well, everywhere. She reports back with her sometimes astonishing observations every Thursday.

In case you think we were making this up. From the Wall Street Journal, August 25-26, 2018. / MyLittleBird photo.

FEELING A BIT embarrassed here. Over the weekend I read a story in the Wall Street Journal that South Korean men use “an average of 13.3 cosmetic products each month,” according to the country’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.

Me not so many, certainly not regularly. I totted them up:

Micellar water (cleanser), Aveeno exfoliator, serum, moisturizer, sometimes tinted moisturizer. I used the Skinmedica skincare system for about six months (and many, many dollars) with no positive results, so I’m back to basics.

LittleBird Janet sent me her list: cleanser, sometimes serum, sometimes Vitamin C something-or-other, moisturizer, eye cream, Retin A, “every blue moon” a face mask..

I didn’t ask LittleBird Kathy: too embarrassing—she has gorgeous skin and takes good care of it. But I don’t think even she cracks the South Korean 13.3-product ceiling.

I generally believe what I read in the Journal (except their editorials), and the story said that lots of Korean men learn about skincare while they’re serving in the military. Patrolling the North Korean DMZ under a brutal sun, alternating with brutal cold,  takes its toll.

So, absent military patrols, and maybe not being Crazy Rich or Asian, how many nostrums and potions do you use, on average, in a month? You can just give a number down in the Comments section. Or, if you think your list is amusing (or embarrassing, much better), feel free to list your poisons. There’s no prize for participating except to see how you measure up.

—Nancy McKeon

THE ONLY THING that keeps most of us from teetering around in those sexy Manolos and Louboutins are the sky-high heels, right? Okay, their sky-high price tags too.

But what wouldn’t I give to have just one pair of shoes with that semi-subtle, statusy red-lacquered Louboutin sole? Well, I already know I wouldn’t give up more money than the monthly rent on my first three Manhattan apartments. And I know I don’t want to commit suicide by stiletto, not being as well balanced as I used to be.

As I poked around the online precincts of the high-priced footwear world, though, I noticed that the Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahniks et al. of that world were not as completely committed to skyscraper heel heights as I had thought. I sometimes found the same style in high heels and also in flats, or a high heel and a little kitten heel, low enough for most grown-up girls to navigate. They’ve even embraced the sneaker trend as comfort and physical reality start to rear their heads.

Take a look at what I found in the shoemakers’ fall 2018 collections. And there’s more out there. Parisian master Roger Vivier, for example, produces his classic styles in a wide range of heel heights, from ballerina on up.

Now we just have to get over the price tags. My very first apartment was a fifth-floor walkup in a Greenwich Village tenement, toilet down the hall. The rent was $59.03, and even back in the early 1970s that was pocket change. You obviously can’t buy a high-style shoe for that kind of money today . . . but you can’t buy much of anything else either.

—Nancy McKeon

Christian Louboutin’s “Anjalina,”  mixing punk and posh, is available as a pump with an 85mm heel, in several colors, for $845. There’s a 100mm heel in blue and fuchsia, also $845. The flat “Anjalina” comes in black suede and is $745.

Manolo Blahnik says that “Karenov,” made with black suede and gold leather scrolling, was inspired by the Baroque architecture of Sicily. It’s $895. Its flat companion, “Cantonof,” same materials, is $845. And the flat is substantial enough that you could make them extra comfy by wearing Stance No Show socks.

Manolo Blahnik “Mavinga” in calf with brogue detailing, high heel and mid. (Mavinga 50). Both versions are $845.

Valentino Garavani continues his wildly successful “Rockstud” collection with a high-heeled suede bootie (left, $1,245), a suede block heel version (right, $1,2450) and the style tic du jour, the “Rockstud Combat Boot” in black leather (center, $1,545).

Via Spiga’s Birgit mule in supple leather comes in five colors, $250. The similar Elisha slingback pump, with a kitten heel, also comes in five colors, $295.

From Jimmy Choo, “Romy” is available in a 60mm heel and a 100mm. It mixes leopard print with hits of blue, printed on ponyskin. Both versions are $850. “Romy” is also available in solid colors of suede with an 85mm heel, $650.

Roger Vivier invented the stiletto heel in 1954, but everyone knows him for his classic Pilgrim buckle on all sorts of heel heights. The “Belle Vivier Metal Buckle Pumps” with their “slanted geometric” heel hark back to 1965. They’re available in 17 colors, in patent, leather and suede for $725 (silk satin is $1,750). The almost-flat “Belle Vivier” is $650 and comes in five patent-leather colors. (There’s also the sporty “Ballerina VIv’ Gommette,” with an enameled buckle and a white rubber lug sole, $675.)

Manolo Blahnik’s “Pitita” hits the tippy-top with a 115mm heel. Black satin with a front strap, mesh insets and silver-embossed snakeskin swirls, $1,255. “Pititaflat” comes in dark red satin with a front strap, mesh side panel and gold-embossed snakeskin,  $1,225.

MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale, whether through a retailer, an online store or Amazon.com.

Skip’s “well decorated “ front yard. That’s “Conchita” on the right. / Photo here and below by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

FIVE BUCKS,” said the wiry guy with a scruffy beard and pirate’s bandana knotted about his head. Then he said it again, and again, expression hidden behind wrap-around shades. Then he smiled. “Just kidding.”

I was taking photos of his garden, one I’d somehow managed to avoid seeing, though it’s just around the corner from mine.  It—and he—materialized while I was dragging Tallula, the grand-dog, around for her afternoonsies.

There was this bower of blatantly fake yellow and orange flowers arched above a sign inked with a pattern of flip-flops that said “Hello Summer,” hanging on the wrought-iron gate. Beyond it was a good-god-what-is-this pile of . . . stuff.

The perpetrator’s name is Skip, which I learned about 10 minutes after meeting him. He’s a native of Washington DC, 60-something and renting this house from a buddy who’s living in Texas. Then he told me much more—though I didn’t have a notebook with me so some of the details are a bit fuzzy.  

Laid up a few years ago with the plague or something (see sentence about not having a notebook with me), he was inspired to renovate the patch of yard in front of the house and asked his friendly landlord, who said, “Sure, whatever you want to do.”

I’m not sure this is exactly the “whatever you want to do” he had in mind.

A towering row of sunflowers marches along behind the front fence,  multicolored zinnias pick up where they end. “Miracle-Gro,” he said, unasked.  “Twice a year.”

Behind those flowers, more zinnias and cosmos thread about the plot. These are interspersed with plastic tulips, multicolored pinwheels, stuffed pink bunnies in tutus suspended from a tree, plastic leis, a rainbow flag and a plastic pixie village alongside a winding trail of exceptionally unnatural-looking reddish-orange mulch. Among other things.

“I don’t like guns,” he added,  nodding toward a “ban assault weapons” sign.

I’m eyeing a short mannequin with pointed breasts, the kind that used to be achieved with one of those bras with circular stitching around the circumference, at a time when conical boobs were desirable—bullet bras, they were called, a style Madonna brought back.*

The dummy is dolled up with a purple net schmata on her head, purple and silver beads around her neck and a purple sequined dress overlaid with purple netting. She’s holding maracas and also wearing sunglasses, as am I, come to think of it.

“Her name’s Conchita,” Skip told me. “I bought her online for 40 bucks.” Which is apparently a big deal in this wonderland of dollar-store purchases.

She came naked, so he clothed her and set her up with two cans of Corona, or maybe it was Dos Equis, for Cinco de Mayo.

“I’m gay,” he told me. “I decorate for all of the holidays.”  The evening after he set up Conchita he went out, and when he came home she was gone.

“I called the police,” he said.

“Agggh?” I said, encouragingly.

“They came right away and took a report.”

Oh, to be a fly on a fake flower, I thought.

“I found her the next day, behind a bush, with her head pulled off,” he said, swiveling her head on its stalk of neck, “See? She’s like ‘The Exorcist.’ ”

“How do the neighbors like your yard?” I said, gracefully moving the conversation along while eyeing the adjacent plot, a soothing assortment of ferns and hostas.  

“They love it! The kids especially,” he said. “I do something different for every holiday.”

There was some other major feature here before Conchita, but it dissolved, or deflated or something. Whatever.

My memory drifted to an inflatable Santa that once sat on the roof of the porch of the house next to mine. He went up one Christmas and was never taken down, just gradually wheezing air, the head dropping, then a shoulder, then just a great fat belly remained, and then he disappeared.

He might still be there, melted into a plastic puddle, if the house had not been renovated and sold for close to a million and a half last fall. Poof! Another blow to inventive taste.

Thanks be to the Skips of the neighborhood for holding that line.

*Breastward Ho! Would be a great book title, don’t you think?

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” reports in on things botanical (and/or weird) every Thursday.

I LOVE IT WHEN Caroline Forsling and Ubah Hassan arrive in my home, which they do on a pretty regular basis. They’re catalogue models, Caroline for J.Jill and Ubah for Talbots (that girl is all leg!).

The women have different personalities, as seen in these catalogues: Caroline is friendly, often serene; Ubah is rarely not grinning, sometimes laughing out loud. Maybe I spend too much time alone, but I find both of them comforting, like old friends come to call when the postman drops them off.

Looking at their latest pictures reminded me of two other friendly presences, Chico’s An Hayward and Magali Amadei. There are tons of other regulars who drop by my living room periodically, but these four are the ones who stand out. And yes, I do sometimes buy clothing from those catalogues, but I can’t swear it’s because Caroline or Ubah showed them to me.

I was watching a video clip the other day of designer Karl Lagerfeld. He was saying that models are worth what they get paid because they really sell the clothes and, paraphrasing here, that “modeling is not a job you can do for 20 years.”

Tell that to An Hayward. The pixie-blonde Belgian, now 47 and living in Florida with her husband and son, is about to hit the two-decade mark. She has been modeling for Chico’s since 1999. And Swedish-born Caroline, now in her 40s and living in New York, was a kinda hippie-looking Sports Illustrated swimsuit model back in 1998 (she then went by Louise, her middle name).

Like Caroline, the Somali-born Canadian Ubah and Magali, who is French, hit the Paris runways early on in their careers. The catwalk commands a lot of money, for sure. But it can also interrupt real life.

Maybe catalogue gigs are not the most glamorous modeling work—a lot less makeup(!) and minus the exaggerated styling that sometimes inspires (and sometimes inspires laughs).  But all of the “girls” get a warm welcome in my house.

—Nancy McKeon

LEFT: When the mood to feel like a Flemish floral still-life becomes overwhelming—though it clearly doesn’t overwhelm Caroline Forsling—there’s this: from J.Jill’s Wearever line, a  3/4-Sleeve Easy Top, $69 or $79, depending on size, in this Black All-Over Bouquet pattern (in solid colors it’s $59 or $69, according to size). Rayon with a touch of spandex, at J.Jill.

CENTER: Here Caroline is wearing a style from the J.Jill Sleep Collection, the Ultrasoft Peplum Tank. A cotton-modal rayon combo, the knitted top is $24.99 or $29.99, depending on size. The top can be paired with the Ultrasoft Full-Leg Crops in Soft Coral Heather or Soft Aqua Heather, $24.99 or $34.99. All at J.Jill.

RIGHT: It would be hard to get any easier or breezier than this Asymmetric Poncho in an exploded woven gingham pattern in cotton and rayon. It’s $79 at J.Jill.

LEFT: This Diamond-Print Boat-Neck Dress worn by Caroline from the J.Jill Wearever collection can probably go anywhere, at any time. Reduced from $109 to the current $69.99, the knit pullover is a combo of rayon and spandex and promises to be virtually wrinkle-free (find your passport!). At J.Jill.

CENTER: J.Jill’s Soft Mixed-Plaid Tunic is $89 or $99, depending on size, at J.Jill. The plaids are mixed: large-scale on the front and sleeves, smaller-scale on the back, made of woven rayon. The way Caroline wears it, the tunic could be for work or play.

RIGHT: Caroline wears this Layered Linen Maxi effortlessly. But the dress only looks simple. It’s actually woven linen layers attached by a partial cotton-knit lining. The top has a slightly crinkled texture and crosses over in back to make it look wrapped. The bottom is woven linen. It’s currently available only in white for misses’ and petite sizes ($89.99, down from $129), and in both navy and white in tall ($89.99) and women’s ($109.99) sizes.

I guess modeling for the popularly priced Haband catalogue, above, is one of the gigs Caroline Forsling does when J.Jill isn’t taking up her time.

I can just hear Ubah saying, See, I may be a fancy model, but I get along with all the other girls! This shot focuses on the tops, all at Talbots.

LEFT: Ubah wears the Single-Button Ponte Knit Blazer in Bright Apple (also in black, indigo and a pale gray heather). A take on the traditional blazer, this one has a collar-lapel combo that stays forward. The lining is a foulard print, so raking back the cuffs offers contrast. It’s $149 or $169, depending on size.

SECOND FROM LEFT: Talbots’ classic V-Neck Boyfriend Cardigan comes back for fall in five new colors. It’s $79.50 or $89.50, depending on size.

SECOND FROM RIGHT: Gingham just keeps getting bigger. Here the Embroidered-Sleeve Check Top is cotton and $89.50 or $99, depending on size.

RIGHT: The Tencel Denim Shirt has a nice pale wash, and the Tencel gives it a graceful drape. It’s $79.50 or $89.50, depending on size.

LEFT: The Perfect Shirt in cotton/spandex (now $27.99 or $29.99, depending on size) is paired with the Refined Ponte Pencil Skirt, also with a bit of stretch. The skirt also comes in Bright Apple and Indigo. It’s $89.50 or $99, depending on size.

CENTER: Ubah models a Sheath Dress, part of the Talbots Textured Houndstooth Collection in cotton with “a touch a spandex.” $149 or $169, depending on size.

RIGHT: The Jacket from the same cotton-spandex Houndstooth Collection is $179 or $199, depending on size.

Friendly faces also inhabit the Chico’s catalogues, namely pixie-blonde Belgian An Hayward and glamorous brunette Magali Amadei, born in Nice, France. I’ve seen Magali in the Gump’s San Francisco catalogue in recent years, and the Travelsmith catalogue that just landed on my doorstep this week boasted An on the cover.

FAR LEFT AND FAR RIGHT: Magali and her whipped-up hair have lent an easy glamour to the Chico’s catalogue.

ON THE STOOL: The pants An wears are Chico’s Brigitte Gingham Slim Ankle Pant, which are pull-ons in rayon, cotton and spandex for stretch. They’re $99 at Chico’s. She pairs it with Chico’s Basic Denim Jacket, $99, also a stretchy combo of poly, cotton and spandex.

CENTER: A few seasons ago, Chico’s featured An and Magali in a dark-blue dinner-dress face-off, just for fun.

The Lafayette 148 catalogue, online and in the mail, is clearly more uptown and more upscale. Perhaps embodying that, the models, while lovely, are more reserved than their Talbots/J.Jill/Chico’s counterparts. They look elegant, but they don’t look as if they’re having a lot of fun.

LEFT:  The Izzie Blouse, with slashed sleeves in matte silk, comes in Black, Cloud (shown) and Ink. It’s $448 and is paired with the Manhattan Slim Pant in Italian stretch wool, $328, available in Black, Nickel, Smoke and Ink.

RIGHT: The unlined, oversize Hemingway Jacket, in wool crepe, is $898 in Cloud and Black. It’s also paired with the Manhattan Slim Pant (see above). Underneath the jacket, the sleek top is Lafayette 148’s Metropolitan Shine Diagonal Rib Sweater, in Cloud and Black, $448.

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Above and on the front, a little Capitol Hill front yard that is chockablock with seasonal color. The crape myrtle trees along the right side form a living fence. / Photos by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

THERE’S A LITTLE row house in Washington DC’s Capitol Hill neighborhood that I pass almost daily in my tromp back and forth to the market or for coffee or a cookie or some such procrastination.

It appears firmly set apart from the adjacent property, even though they’re in fact divided by nothing more than  a surveyor’s measure. It’s an effect worth examining, particularly if you don’t like your neighbors—or wish to protect your turf from the clomping hooves of the postal persons, trampling a path through your front yard.

The trick is in shaping the patch of garden. This one is maybe eight feet square (measuring with my size 8 feet plus a smidge) and sits well above the sidewalk, bordered by a concrete walk on the left side, leading to the front porch steps. On the right, from the porch to where the garden meets the street, is a graceful curve of crape myrtles.*

At the top, butting up against the porch railing, is a watermelon-pink crape myrtle, which has reached a fine height and healthy girth.  Smooshed in front of it is a smaller tree, tending toward cerise. On the downward slope of the property line, a third tree is more purple than pink and lower to the ground. The trio forms a candy-colored froth of flowers, and an impenetrable screen between the houses.**

A fine, big old boxwood, as healthy a one as I’ve ever seen, is directly in front of the house. Trimmed to the height of the porch rail, it allows one to sit with one’s martini in privacy— yet snoop over its tightly budded crown at passersby.

Just above the sidewalk, a stone retaining wall drips with creeping phlox, purple-flowering in spring, thick and green the rest of the year.

Such trees and perennials create the garden’s frame; within it the plants change with the seasons.

Now, in mid-August, red coleus provides a high-frilled backdrop for scattered plops of yellow marigolds, sprigs of purple sage, a couple of pinkish geraniums and a clump or two of basil. So densely packed are the plants, no staking is necessary.

Along the front, a sweet-potato vine frolics over the edge of the garden wall, onto the walkway and ruffles down the steps to the sidewalk. Some might say it’s a little excessive, but I say go big or go home.

Soon enough, the garden will move into fall mode, with pansies and ornamental cabbages replacing the summer annuals. Perhaps a chrysanthemum will crowd its way in. Underneath, spring bulbs will rest, poking up as the winter begins its gradual return to summer, a gaiety of crocus, grape hyacinth and tulips springing up behind that front flounce of purple phlox.

(Don’t worry about under-planting bulbs in the garden, by the way. They wriggle around whatever’s above them, figuring their way up to the light.)

It’s such a neat little plot, so manageable, tamed yet effervescent, always brimming with color and life, even as most gardens hunker down beneath a wintry shroud.

You’ll notice that none of the plants and flowers and bulbs used here is exotic. Even if you can hardly tell garden shears from hedge clippers, you can probably identify most of them; people with the need to impress can bandy about the Latin names, like tagetes erecta instead of marigold.

As with cooking, one can double or triple and so forth the recipe, adding more bushes and trees to semi-encircle the plot, leaving the center for flowers and shrubs—and maybe a  fountain. Perhaps a sculpture?

Of course, one doubles and triples the expense and the labor as the garden grows. The brain can also blow up with the expanded possibilities, which is why this concise space has such appeal. If a plant goes belly-up, replacing it is hardly an ordeal.

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

*Though slow to leaf out and flower, among the last trees to do so each year (which can be a tad depressing when you’re longing for full-blown summer), crape myrtles have a bark that is interesting, and the lengthy, constant floral display once they get going is eye-popping.

** The first crape myrtle seems squeezed too tightly against the front porch, and some year soon it may require a pretty severe pruning, if not a painful (and painfully expensive) extraction.

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” finds garden inspiration wherever she goes.