Author Archives: Denise
oversharing 6/4/20
This post is not about plants, though there are some nice palm trees in the photos by MB Maher. I can tend to overshare sometimes (I got my surgical staples out today!), and this is such a time, so feel … Continue reading
Posted in journal, MB Maher
5 Comments
garden recovery
I knew I was going to have emergency abdominal surgery for a very large but benign cyst just a few days before it was scheduled, so of course I spent those few days in a frenzy of moving pots and … Continue reading
Posted in journal, plant nurseries, pots and containers
5 Comments
tree ballet performance for one
In a view from the garden office, lying on the pink divan found at the Long Beach flea market (remember those?), which we keep covered in a painter’s tarp, this clear blustery day is orchestrating a magnificent performance out of … Continue reading
Posted in journal, MB Maher
4 Comments
so I brought home another New Zealander
Yesterday’s nursery jaunt included Roger’s Garden in Newport Beach, where I found the New Zealander of the title, Cassinia fulvida, and Village Nursery in Huntington Beach. Driving empty freeways sounds like a great time, but it eerily underscores how aberrant … Continue reading
Posted in journal, plant nurseries, pots and containers
6 Comments
the dappled life
So you’re planting and planting your little garden and having the best time, but because your undisciplined and eclectic taste runs to every kind and type of green life, from ground hugging to tree size, inevitably you wake up one … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, design, journal, pots and containers
4 Comments
still plant shopping
With demoralizing chaos at the federal level continuing unabated, it’s incredibly reassuring to experience the pragmatic approaches deployed locally. Let’s just take for an example, oh, I dunno — shopping for plants, for instance. I’ve been shopping every couple weeks … Continue reading
the Glatstein garden by Dustin Gimbel
I knew for the past year or so that the Los Angeles Times would eventually publish an article on the Glatstein family’s Long Beach garden designed by ceramicist Dustin Gimbel a few years back. Even so, the March 31, 2020 … Continue reading
Posted in artists, design, garden visit, MB Maher, pots and containers, succulents
9 Comments
bloomday April 2020
I’ve decided I’ve got to cut back on baking — that’s just not sustainable for this unforeseeable, housebound future. So today I hope to tackle the creeping fig on the back wall, which has footage of overgrowth and is also … Continue reading
Posted in Bloom Day
3 Comments
saturday clippings 4/4/20
A quick tour around the back garden this early April morning. A tidal surge of spring growth is washing up on the gravel under the pergola. It’s a small-garden microcosm and abridged version of a long, undulating path with plants … Continue reading
Posted in garden visit, Plant Portraits
3 Comments
the blue garden
As of today, March 30, 2020, in Southern California we can still walk our neighborhoods, if not the parks, trails, and beaches, and that is no small comfort. Mitch’s base during this “safer at home” period has been Hollywood, and … Continue reading
Posted in driveby gardens, garden visit, MB Maher
6 Comments