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A well-designed living room layout will help enhance the space by making it more functional for everyday use. To find out what types of elements constitute a top-notch living room layout, we polled three interior designers and asked them to weigh in.

When tapped to design a series of planters for our2024 Idea House in the Kiawah River community on Johns Island, South Carolina, plant pro Steph Green of Contained Creations in Richmond, Virginia, knew exactly what the waterfront property needed. “We wanted to create the most beautiful and biggest statement container gardens, but they needed to be durable and last a long time with minimal upkeep,” says Green. “That’s why picking evergreens or really tough perennials from the Southern Living Plant Collection was kind of the launching point for each individual design.”

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Lana Williams, owner of Oakland, California-based plant shop and design company The Tender Gardener, is known for her gorgeous step-by-step plant recipes for creating lush outdoor planters. In Lana’s latest book release, The Container Garden Recipe Book, she’s revealing fabulous floral and frond combos that will have you making plant and pot pairings like a pro. Here she shares a few seasonally appropriate tips on the types of statement plants and containers to use as we transition from late summer into fall.

Over the past few years, Pamela Anderson has had more time to contemplate life. That is, until things kicked into high gear again—but more on that later. At the start of the pandemic in 2020, she moved from France, sold her house in Malibu, and headed north to the small town on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where she was born and raised. She hunkered down with her two grown sons, Brandon and Dylan. She bought her grandmother’s old motel, renovated it, and set up her parents there. A lifelong cook, she perfected her baking skills. She reclaimed and expanded her grandfather’s garden on the same land where she had run barefoot as a self-described wild child. It’s the site of both her greatest childhood joys and harrowing traumas, which she describes candidly in her 2023 autobiography, Love, Pamela, and Netflix documentary, Pamela, A Love Story. Almost poetically, for Pamela has journaled and written poetry her whole life, she has reclaimed her true self and her youthful creativity on the exact spot where they were born. When I had the chance to sit with her and talk over Zoom recently, our conversation quickly moved beyond her new cookbook, I Love You (due out in October), to all aspects of life—and her ability to find the deepest of meanings in even the tiniest of seeds.

There are countless ornamental grasses to choose from, so narrowing down a list of my favorites is tough. However, the following assortment—categorized by their best season of interest—is a good start. Choosing at least one from each season will ensure that your grass-forward garden always has something spectacular going on.

From temperature extremes to shifting rainfall patterns, communities coast to coast are experiencing the increasing impacts of climate change. In many areas summers are hotter and drier, making gardeners more reliant on supplemental irrigation to grow the same plants that thrived for them in years past. Meanwhile, restrictions on watering in some regions make responding to drought more challenging. In the face of unpredictable rainfall and unprecedented temperature fluctuations, it’s more important than ever to invest in plants that can withstand waves of heat and drought.

You’ve measured your outdoor space, you’ve agreed on a style — contemporary, traditional, rustic or more — you’ve determined a budget, now it’s time to look for the perfect garden furniture set.

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