hello and welcome to a new edition of design for the times i'm your host richard christopher scary i'm very happy to have in studio someone that i've been working with for quite a while now she's been a trooper and she's always been with me on my radio program a at w h c r d b and flemington on my show modern design but today she took a field trip and she went out of her way to come down as a favor to me in studio and her name is sandy kasper welcome to our program thank you richard city owns a garden center that's so phenomenal so different so interesting that i felt that you guys had here about it her her garden center is called the garden gate and it's located on route thirty one what's the build one zero one one anchor building which is kind of deceiving because it's quite large and not only do they have wonderful planted very fair prices in fact i sort of shopped for the show and i found that the the big box stores prices in your prices are the same pretty much in their previous times were cheaper yeah but better stuff better quality i want to tell us sandy how you got started in the whole business now the garden gate is how much acreage is that there's only about three acres but there's so we can't expand upon it right i'd like to stack that we are beginning to and it's act three acres full of stuff and i saw that when i came to visit you today you were moving stuff around a little bit now we're getting ready for christmas right for the ages of yes and so our topic today happens to be seasonal decorating and went to talk a little bit about fall decorating which people are still doing and they're also refreshing because we've had an early fall that was very hot and very muggy and other things kind of sort of dissipated and we talk a little about thanksgiving and some ideas for the table and core in the morning interesting things and then we're going to talk about something that i don't think that people know it all that you do unless they come in and that is you have a wonderful wonderful collection of christmas decorations probably one of the best that i've seen you know north brunswick new jersey there's a company store called devries and they do a nice job with christmas also but i would say yours is probably not as well known and really just as nice and just as lovely and also maybe even a little bit more unexpected thank even some of the trees that you did this year i thought were a little bit and expected the one with the blue was a little bit and so on so tell us how you got into the business that you did you did you grow up in new jersey i've been in new jersey for  last fifty years probably because you've been here so i came up here think twenty three years ago wow we came up here and i have this garden center was available so i jumped on it so that the person before you have the garden center for a long time i don't think scratch so when it was not even green has a certain thing nothing to do you really built that i did you know my goodness so when you start with a garden center that's a blank slate what do you sort of do you just get a feel for buying how does it start how do you start cultivating a garden husband and i still and did you find like in the garden every year it got better and better it did it did you have to grow you go we've gone garden center tours and see what everybody else is doing get ideas sure we've got images to share today so what we put the first image up ok there we go so this is your sign from the highway and that's route thirty one is that north north or south where on the headed south south right south so the south about site next to the right just pas the high school exactly and there's the front of the lot and i did this the other day so it's still set up for fall i see you have some mums there in the front and some pumpkins and so on let's take a look at the next image ok i want to start talking about fall because even though many of us had done our full decorating right after labor day and i find you and i talked about this on the radio i find that moms don't last until thanksgiving right there or they would have a here are ok let's about what happened here it was too hot so they never set their buds to late so they never plumed usually they're bloomed out and done gone by now so explain that to me because obviously you're not growing the moms or you're purchasing them on the correct we don't have enough so so do you get the moms like for your season when do you physically get the moms in when do you buy them because that are getting third week in august ok so in the third week in august because august was awful hot rainy where this was the stuff not right in the garden home the home improvement stores people's mind wasn't on decorating for fall because it was eighty degrees right so i don't think people bought you know wanted to perishable item and i don't think people bought until later right  now you talk to be about and this we talked about last time that there are different early moms midterms and late months are there based upon color or look or type just when they bloom their blooming time is there a mom that's considered sort of a late mom there's a lot of them that are at the late the later ones but they even are you sleep on by now but they're looking good now yeah yeah a little less tell thanksgiving even like last week was peak right so everything is so far off so let's take a look at this picture because something that i found that was very attractive now cornstalks not everybody gets into court so much but for me i think they're wonderful because they give height and typically the deer don't go after the stalks is that correct or not correct if they have the corn on they well ok so i made a big mistake because i didn't check my corn stalk when i put it on my i put it on my mailbox post and when i came out they ripped all the corn down about that but typically they don't really go after the corn so it's not a palace at all right now but what what reminded me of your place here and look at the presents that's something that's not too expensive gives here is the beautiful bows and you have amazing ribbons we do and you have beautiful seasonal ribbons pretty much all year round right we ha  pumpkins around here just sometimes just laying the different things on the ground has a nice look to it yes i want to take a look at the next image ok here's a beautiful thing that could be done outdoor and indoor and that's just very simple photos and very vote us with something kind of natural maybe some branches and so on do you have any branches in your store for either for decorating for christmas season i've been seeing a lot of the magazines and i tried  to take a look at the next image ok this is again set for fall and this is something that you could do today now again a lot of the moms in the early stuff are done but a lot of this has to do with just sort of creating a color right so gourds are gorgeous right because they have such unbelievable color and ten chander texture now i saw something the other day and i didn't know what it's called i don't know what the border pumpkin it looks like a pumpkin but it has like as maybe some other pumpkins maybe yeah but they they're both exactly but see i think creating like like if you went even to your garden center the next couple of days are so many gourds and interesting things i think you can take from this and there's not a lot left there from nature just some accents and doesn't that look like the epitome of fall also resent beautiful reason your space thank you and i think they could be used either outdoor indoor right oh yeah definitely ok let's take a look at the next shot windward texture they have a variety of colors in your you have that saturated dark green but a lot of different colors i mean you can even take them right now if you want to make it so you're having people over for sunday dinner and you're going to make a pot roast and apples and something very would you go with cabbage or kale that would be the next step let's talk about the difference between cabbage and kale so i know that one is more sort of compressed looking the cabbage is to me almost more like a rose or kind of rounded in yeah yeah yeah so i've seen the sort of whitish and i've seen green and then purple of those three colors are there other colors and they're all green until the cold makes them start changing you told me something see i'm taking all your good stuff  it sort of degrees kind of in a way or colors is not nice so i did see a lot of green and i thought maybe that's because we're behind in the season right but i love the purple because i think it's kind of vibrant how long if you were to go come to your center and  part in the january so you have some visual interest there a lot of times people ask me that they want something that's going to carry over like in their pots right any suggestions on something to do to get them to the spring so if there isn't snow there are some seasonal everybody the flowers are gone so we sell all the greens and they stick them in the pine the winter berry this is all different kinds all different green all the different and that's actually an upper those two i have those two anythings trending with that because i see people are getting a little bit more sophisticated and not always just looking for the evergreen recently where they're looking for i think more mixed greens now don't you think that makes one's hair popular another question i have about the with the eucalyptus trees are they not supposed to go outside they can it's just probably going to get cold and freeze and someone tell me that they can run actually if it rains that they can run i think that's if they're have you done anything or seen it whether it's this year or the past have you done anything that you really like or seen anything that you like i saw a wreath that was done that was sort of set in some sort of moss or something and it was just all miniature pumpkins that's all the  to see you know you do your buying probably kind of early on right probably january that it's not here is that year so you really have a heads up did you see anything when you were buying for the fall that you liked or was maybe different this year we had some really nice rates  yeah artificial gorgeous right of art but any sort of trends not that i know of let's take a look at the next image and see what we have here ok here's a couple of the trends that iconic so as a designer and one of them was white white  hats i found that people were using because we've come to the styles are a little bit more industrial now the colors kind of toned down a little bit right now in this example they have some sort of  drum there and they did white pumpkins for a change in my own yard i actually did i have a bridge on my property that iron and every time i put a white little white pumpkin because i saw a lot of white this year in fact i didn't do any red  pumpkins orange pumpkins at all do you see people going for more for white where they're looking for light and i think that's part of it being more modern and now the coming in all sizes it's a little once and the big ones and this to look just amazingly lovely but with the containers that are a little bit on the modern side and a combination but definitely i think definitely a trend door towards white the other thing i wanted to ask you was what about green or there's this color of pumpkin now i don't see them in magazines but you don't see them out a lot do now if you if you haven't gotten around to it a lot of my clients say to me they didn't get around to their seasonal decorating because it was so warm they're only thinking about it now they're starting then because it's approaching there's not much in the garden center so here's another example of that where that is just an artificial reef that looks like leaves on top and they just brought it looks like there's a little bit of the small mom's that they put in a wood container and a lantern you have wonderful stuff like that and a couple of pumpkins and it really does look like fall without i mean there are things that you can do today definitely before things are gone let's take a look at the next image ok these are a variety of something that i fell in love with five years ago and i always put and that is ornamental pepper and i don't think the deer like them for whatever reason and they don't seem to bother me and my place ornamental peppers that you had were gorgeous and not only were they gorgeous i see so much variety of them i took an example of this when i think this was at your place as well we have taken pictures of your front cords and this one has all different types of colors on it has read it is purple it has yellow but i've seen different shapes of them more round more like a candy corn i've seen like an eight plant averaging purple right i've seen her light yellow i've seen orange and i've seen a hybrid of colors they really vary are they different kinds of people as these mature they start to turn red so when i get them in probably all white and then as they mature purple one stay purple but yeah i saw a really vibrant are purple with purple a color you saw people looking for this year they like they like the purple one i saw people liking purple whites and green not so traditional i think the sickle look at the next image ok all right so now i want to transition we talk a little bit about some of the things that you can still do for fall let's talk about setting a thanksgiving table and some ideas because you're very talented and you never let on have talented you are you very talented here's an example usenet is that of not doing  flood going out and buying flowers that you can take a troth or something that you already have linear or something right that you see a lot of people want to do things that are linear this year and in this case they took something that they could just easily get from your place and that is they made the centerpiece out of pumpkins and gordie before isn't that amazing looking and i almost prefer that to flowers don't you think because it's a little bit unexpected like let me ask you a question about the chords in the pumpkins to someone said to me you can  take let's say you did this and this is your thanksgiving place and which i think is to me it's phenomenal right because it's all natural looking that after this day you say ok well i want to save these beautiful cords and maybe like make them into a wreath you could probably preserve and i'm sure you have to dry them out or is it just the shelf like the yeah so here are some of the things that are trending again we see a lot of why you know on this table and brown people aren't bracing brown again as this wonderful looks but the thing about it that strikes me so much is it's a little bit more casual it has some natural elements to it and i just  sure in your lifetime you've done it and you think you've seen people do with it or that you like getting to me the simplicity of just using boards or pumpkins or things that are a little bit unusual the naturals as much natural as possible yes ok let's take a look at the looks exactly like the pumpkin but it is full of more which is an amazing hour let's go to the next one ok here's my favorite so is it your i don't want to put words in your mouth if you are replacing your mom's now or you didn't get to do mom's this year because you ok let's take a look at the next image ok here is another table setting that i thought has your name on it it's very stylish but again instead of going with traditional flowers or hokey things that was used with natural elements that you can get this day at a garden cent now the trend of white i think will continue through the holidays because i even see a lot of white silver and gold and holiday decorations that you see that this year i did very much so but this is just a collection of different pumpkins in whites in i don't know i property in the front and i think this might have been a last year's picture last year i did orange this year i just sort of kind of impaled them on their do late in the season i think when it gets very cold i think that the cabbages in the front or kale in the front and they pulled them out like this but they didn't eat them they just left them because i guess our the two thousand probably harder if there was a bigger pumpkin they would have made a name with a ok let's take a look at the next one ok that's a display that i did last when i start to see it appear obviously it's there all year long now it's an invasive vine isn't it and i don't know that much about it but so i have i look for forage for and then now because now that the peak color is over you start to s you start the show itself if you notice what shows up when that starts to drop asleep yet then you notice so i notice today coming to studio i notice in the high tops of trees that there it is and i think it's that i think that bittersweet has a nice natural synergy  with the fall stuff so what else do we have here ok here's another setting for the thanksgiving holiday again very natural and using logic c n n and that's just that's spectacular too again not using formal flowers going to a garden center and using things that are natural did you find a lot of wood elements for accents when you were buying for the store to see what is again that was compared what's popular you know one of my favorite want to talk about your trees next because we're going to go into talking about christmas and all the christmas stuff that you have i love the in the front i love the the birch with the red that's just gorgeous to me in the pepper berry talk about some of your other trees that you have  read we did a retro tree this year gorgeous because my girls want to read share retro is hot and so we did that country we do a natural woodland we do a gnome tree because gnomes  grand your prices were very fair already today when i stuck a look at them but your christmas stuff is spectacular you have to chess the sec at this place it's called the garden gate and can you we're just running out of time can you give us the address of a larger one no one's ok route thirty one flemington new outstanding i'm in the garden centers all the time this is a place you have to see her family just a wonderful job in the space inside the main building look at the ribbons when you first come and look at those trees especially the tree in the front that classic tree with the pepper berries