Category Archives: Plant Portraits
Foliage Followup April 2012
Grasses and agaves, yes, of course, solidity and movement, so why not grasses and aloes? A youngish Aloe marlothii and the evergreen cold blue steel blades of Blue Oat Grass, Helicotrichon sempervirens. I can’t imagine keeping a plant in the … Continue reading
Bloom Day April 2012
April deserves a thorough Bloom Day post, but if I’m to get this in before midnight it’ll have to be brief. A big change here is that the poppies of Troy, Papaver setigerum, are over sooner than I’d like. I … Continue reading
Posted in Bloom Day, Bulbs, Plant Portraits
Tagged Albuca maxima, Digitalis 'Goldcrest', Dutch iris 'Eye of the Tiger', Geum magellanicum, Lotus jacobaeus, Papaver rupifragum, Papaver setigerum, Pelargonium 'Splendide', Salvia chiapensis, Salvia littae, Salvia macrophylla 'Upright Form, Scrophularia calliantha, Sideritis syriaca, Stipa gigantea, Thunbergia alata, Thunbergia gregorii, Tweedia caerulea
8 Comments
when the world gets too koyaanisqatsi
I heard this phrase a couple weeks back and thought it an instant classic, the perfect shorthand for those moments when life gets a little too fractured, too fragmented, too…out of balance or koyaanisqatsi, referring to that 1983 art house … Continue reading
Posted in garden visit, Plant Portraits
Tagged Centaurea clementei, Dustin Gimbel, Godfrey Reggio, koyaanisqatsi, sonchus species
4 Comments
friday’s clippings 4/6/12
I trust we’ve all safely arrived at the doorstep of this spring weekend relatively intact. My car is in the shop from a minor crash a few weeks back, my first since I can’t remember when, and the rental has … Continue reading
Posted in Bulbs, Cinema Botanica, clippings, creatures, journal, Plant Portraits, shop talk
Tagged Abbey Hotel, Allium schubertii, alliums, Bonhams, Chateau Marmont, Chelsea Hotel, Colony Collapse Disorder, Irish wolfhound, Jean Shrimpton, Rob Walls photographer, Rose 'Bouquet d'Or', Terence Stamp
3 Comments
hellebores in the rear-view mirror
To write that hellebores are a much-desired plant for winter gardens is stating the obvious. I grow nothing but H. argutifolius, the Corsican hellebore, and have become a repetitive bore in constantly blogging my adoration for it, but I do … Continue reading
Posted in Bulbs, design, Plant Portraits
Tagged caulescence, Helleborus argutifolius, Scilla peruviana
1 Comment
things to do in the Bay Area after a garden show
or any other preposition that fits your schedule — before the show, between visits to the show. Of course, you don’t have to wait until the next garden show in 2013 for a visit. Building REsources, discussed before here and … Continue reading
Posted in design, garden travel, garden visit, MB Maher, plant nurseries, Plant Portraits
Tagged Aloe castanea, Annie's Annuals & Perennials, Bay Area, Big Daddy's, Building REsources, Cornerstone Sonoma, Eupatorium sordidum, geum, Homoglad hybrids, MB Maher, Roger Raiche, Ruth Bancroft Garden, salvage, San Francisco, San Francisco Botanical Garden, sideritis, Suzanne Biaggi, The Dry Garden, Topher Delaney, UC Berkeley Botanical Garden
4 Comments
my favorite garden show
is the one taking place at any given moment in my own backyard. be it ever so humble and jumbled, chaotic, disheveled, contrary, exasperating, etc, etc. That the show blithely carries on while I’m away is always slightly infuriating. More … Continue reading
back in a few
While we’re away for a couple days for the San Francisco Flower & Garden show, Agave ‘Mr. Ripples’ will have to take over chin-scratching duties. Don’t wear him out, Joseph, okay? Good or bad, inspired or tired, garden shows are … Continue reading
garden obtainium
With surgical precision I pried this promising seedling up from the dry-laid bricks some months ago. I didn’t recognize its hirsute, corrugated leaf, so it had to be special, a salvia or verbascum possibly. By this time, all the volunteer … Continue reading