About

So why the growing obsession? I can’t yet answer the why, but I can trace the trajectory. It’s been a constant, loyal obsession since high school. In my early thirties, married and with two elementary school-age boys, I studied and became certified in horticulture. With that certificate, I did some uninspiring work with commercial indoor plants, and also quickly realized the boys’ college fund wasn’t fattening up as fast as needed, so I shifted to more lucrative work in a different field. Twenty years later, with all pressing financial needs addressed, the obsession is on again full time, and in some new guises — garden-based traveler, urban plant explorer, pop-up impresario. So this blog’s M.O. is pretty simple: All plants, all the time. Since 1989 my home has been in frost-free Long Beach, California, lot size about 5,750 square feet, about a mile from the Pacific Ocean, at a latitude that blesses it as one of the world’s Mediterranean climate regions. Notwithstanding recurrent drought, winter rainfall averages approximately 15 inches a year, but it’s usually much less. Summers are dry — oh, so dry. Unless otherwise specified, no financial relationship exists between AGO and the businesses mentioned within its posts.

Now let’s talk about plants!

Warm regards,

Denise/AGO