Author Archives: Denise

Venice Garden & Home Tour 2011

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Denise

Buy tickets and a map at the Las Doradas Children’s Center, apply the lime-green wrist band, and we’re off on the VGHT 2011 (Last year’s post here.) Under overcast skies, thirty houses, covering several miles. Bikes would be the preferred … Continue reading →

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, garden travel, garden visit, MB Maher, succulents | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Echium gentianoides ‘Tajinaste’

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Denise

Last time I wrote about this echium was for a March Bloom Day post, cursing myself for having transplanted it while it was just beginning to show flower buds. I am now relieved to report it has made a full … Continue reading →

Posted in Plant Portraits | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Missing Boxwood

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Denise

House on the corner. Famous in the neighborhood for at one time housing local band the Cold War Kids and their legendary late-night poker parties. Bare, packed earth, a memory of lawn haunting the hardscrabble front yard. A single boxwood … Continue reading →

Posted in design | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Wispy Spring Annuals

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Denise

Along with the linaria I mentioned recently, some of the other wispy spring annuals I’ve been experimenting with in pots are this Anagallis. A. monelii, the Blue Pimpernel. And a little nemesia with long spurs, N. cheiranthus ‘Shooting Stars.’ The … Continue reading →

Posted in Plant Portraits, pots and containers | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Porch Steps Up

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Denise

As garden space shrinks, the focus becomes ever more minute, with no strip of soil too narrow to remain unexploited. For example, I’m really starting to work the back porch. Every inch, as in the crevice between porch and brick … Continue reading →

Posted in design, succulents | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Warming Up

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Denise

Edging into the high 80’s the next couple days here at the coast, about a mile from the Pacific, in the 90’s for the inland cities like Pasadena. The castor bean plant and Salvia canariensis are reveling in the heat, … Continue reading →

Posted in Plant Portraits | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Sudden Mediterranean Plant Collapse Disorder

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Denise

I made that name up. But it’s true, collapse and then a swift death does come suddenly to mediterranean plants in lusty health mid-summer. Which is why I’m ecstatic that this one cutting of Coronilla valentina subsp. glauca ‘Variegata’ has … Continue reading →

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, Plant Portraits, shop talk | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Armchair Spelunking

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Denise

I’m a little excited this morning. Some clues… What do all these images have to do with each other? Explorers, cave paintings, spiritual communion with rocks… Ralph Fiennes as Count Laszlo Almasy, The English Patient; Anne-Louise Lambert as Miranda, Picnic … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema Botanica | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Urbane Nasturtiums

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Denise

I’ve been transplanting a few self-sown nasturtiums and tucked a couple in with some eucomis bulbs to spill out of an ancient cast-iron sewer pipe that somehow made its way here years ago. I wonder which previous car’s shocks had … Continue reading →

Posted in Plant Portraits | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Pelargonium ‘Splendide’

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Denise

From Robin Parer’s nursery Geraniaceae “A scandent shrub; leaves are pinnate, grey and hairy; a truly splendid hybrid with red upper petals, a dark center and almost white lower petals; do not leave outside in rain and prune very carefully.”

Posted in Plant Portraits | Tagged , , | 8 Comments