Categories

monday clippings 4/29/13

I was living large with orange marmalade on my bagel this morning, after trying it on some excellent shortbread Sunday afternoon. I first tasted then bought the marmalade from the Arlington Garden in Pasadena yesterday, where it’s made from their Washington Navel orange trees. (The shortbread was said to be Ina Garten’s recipe.) The Arlington [...]

tuesday clippings 3/26/13

Nothing too thematic, just some odds and ends.

To prove I left the plant sale tables briefly and did a lap in the show room at the recent Orange County CSSA show, here’s a Dyckia ‘Brittle Star’ hybrid that won an award. My own big clump of dyckia is starting to throw up [...]

clippings 2/26/13

Work has piled up, so there’s little time for much else. But something I can always squeeze in while under deadlines are small breaks to read catalogue descriptions of plants. And with impeccable timing, a great Australian plant nursery catalogue was introduced recently by Studio G, so I’m actually looking forward to two more days [...]

which way to the garden?

Ever click on a house tour article that opens with a photo like this, hoping to see a few more photos of the landscape? If the article is about a house for sale on the island of Barbados, I’m betting on getting lucky.

Hoping, at a minimum, that maybe the photographer got [...]

sunday clippings 12/16/12

I was skimming through the design archives of the Wall Street Journal online yesterday, a wonderful trove of good reading, and recognized the pressed leaves of Macleaya cordata, the plume poppy, used by the shoe designer Christian Louboutin to decorate the walls of his “shoe archive” in France. Mr. Louboutin was mischievously photographed here in [...]

friday clippings 12/7/12

The tulips are planted, and now the vegetable bin in the fridge is once again restored to its rightful purpose of chilling vegetables. I went beyond the required six weeks of prechilling this year, but overchilling is not the problem that underchilling is. I think this year is a new record, 12 pots in total, [...]

porpoising (sunday clippings 11/18/12)

Surfacing briefly, like the porpoises I watched slicing the surface of the ocean on the ferry boat crossing to Catalina Island Friday.

A visit mostly all business*, the pleasure coming mainly from the 30-minute walk to the conference room at a resort not far out of town where I would be working in the [...]

monday clippings 9/24/12

It may technically be autumn, but the high temps and torpor of summer persist. I’m feeling a bit muzzled by the heat, but stuff is still getting done. Agave parrasana ‘Fireball’ was moved to a larger pot this weekend.

As was Agave ‘Dragon Toes’

And this little New Zealand Tree Daisy [...]

friday clippings 8/17/12

August is not a month to be trifled with. Spring comes so early here, with winter more a brief, rainy intermission than a season, that by August I really need to 1) loosen compacted clay soil that refuses to absorb another drop of moisture 2) add some compost/manure 3) water thoroughly 4) mulch again. Yes, [...]

Friday clippings 6/29/12

Lobelia tupa from Chile is blooming for the first time in my garden, thereby making everything right again with the world. Long time coming, Ms. Tupa. The color on the lobelia is deeper than salmon but slightly less intense than tomato red. Pure and unmuddied. Don’t crowd her and give her lots of compost. 4 [...]