Category Archives: climate
impressions of Portland gardens (in the zone of filtered sunshine)
Since returning from touring gardens and nurseries in Portland last week, I’ve been haphazardly researching what makes the Pacific Northwest so full of great gardens and nurseries. Not expecting any definitive answer, just scrounging around for clues. Portland’s enviably soft … Continue reading
Posted in climate, garden travel, garden visit, Plant Portraits, pots and containers
Tagged 2014 Portland Garden Bloggers Fling, Cistus Nursery, Fatsia japonica 'Spider's Web', Joy Creek Nursery, Modern Jackass/This American Life, Oregon, Pomarius Nursery, Portland, Rhus typhina Tiger Eye Sumac, Solanum pyracanthum, Willamette Valley
12 Comments
What to do with your lawn when there’s a drought
Just lose the lawn and don’t look back. And if and when rainfall in California ever gets back to normal levels, which isn’t much anyway, you just might realize you want your lawn back about as much as you want … Continue reading
riad means garden
It’s February, so thoughts naturally turn to travel, escape, adventure. But I’m not going anywhere at the moment, so I look harder, stare longer, at local scenes, hoping to squeeze something new and startling out of familiar sights. But walking … Continue reading
Posted in climate, design, Occasional Daily Photo
Tagged Morocco, riad, Taroudant, travel
3 Comments
the new courthouse
Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse, Long Beach, California The old, crumbling, brutalist-era courthouse where I did a lot of jury duty time was finally, mercifully shuttered, its broken escalators never to confound us again, and the new courthouse went up a … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, climate, design, driveby gardens, succulents
Tagged AECOM, artemisia, Berkeley Sedge, Carex tumulicola, COR-TEN steel, FASLA, Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse, Hesperaloe parviflora, ipe wood, Joseph E. Brown, landscape architecture, LEED buildings, miscanthus, raised planters, Senecio mandraliscae, Superior Court of Los Angeles County
8 Comments
just another acacia
At plant nurseries, I’m often a hapless Mr. Magoo, peering and squinting at new shapes and wildly filling in the blanks with extravagant theories. For example, the twisted, contorted stems of this mystery tree, or shrub grown on standard, reminded … Continue reading
Posted in climate, Plant Portraits
Tagged Acacia merinthophora, Australian plants, drought tolerant plants, Zigzag Wattle
5 Comments
giving thanks for rain
a very polite and well-timed rain arrived after the Thanksgiving holiday, sometime after midnight. On Wednesday I brought in chairs that summered in the garden for holiday duty. The new rain gutters gurgled musically as they efficiently carried rain away … Continue reading
So Cal Hort’s “Coffee in the Nash Garden”
Potted dwarf pomegranate Southern California Horticultural Society sent out a “Coffee in the Garden” invitation to its members for a late October visit to Donivee Nash’s garden in Arcadia, redesigned by Judy Horton in 2009. Participation in hort. society events … Continue reading
chasing muhly grass
As far as seasons go, to me summer is rich, pungent, dense, where autumn is quicksilver, vaporous, light on its feet, with a tartness that is the perfect apertif to summer’s gluttony of sensation. The eaves are now dripping morning … Continue reading
Posted in climate, Occasional Daily Weather Report, Plant Portraits, succulents
Tagged Muhlenbergia capillaris, wildflowers
4 Comments
hillside with Schwentker Watts Design
I was in a wonderful garden the other night, but was caught flat-footed as far as having any photos to show for it. Although only 7:30ish, twilight doesn’t last long in this Los Angeles neighborhood but is quickly swallowed up … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, artists, climate, design, garden visit, MB Maher, pots and containers, succulents
Tagged Bocconia arborea, Cupressus macrocarpa 'Citriodora', Franco-Giacomo Carbone, Harvey Watts, James Schwentker, landscape architecture, Los Angeles, MB Maher, mediterranean climate, Schwentker Watts Design, Silverlake, The Los Angeles Times
5 Comments
warm thoughts on formal gardens
Have I mentioned how hot it’s been lately? It’s the kind of heat that gives a boho plant nut a deeper appreciation of the cool, austere lines of a formal garden. A garden built not on the scaffolding of flowers … Continue reading