Category Archives: garden visit

garden notes 12/30/13

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Denise

Over the holidays, daytime temps have been hovering around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Considering my sister-in-law’s flight into Los Angeles from Cody, Wyoming, was delayed by storms for four days, it seems churlish to complain about the warm weather. I’ll just … Continue reading →

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, garden visit, journal, Occasional Daily Weather Report | Tagged Agave desmettiana 'Variegata', Agave guadalajarana 'Leon', Cussonia gamtoosensis, Cussonia paniculata, Cyrus Pringle, Dymondia margaretae, Echeveria agavoides, RHS Award of Garden Merit, South African mountain cabbage trees | 3 Comments

history of my garden, part VIII

Posted on December 10, 2013 by Denise

I decided last year that I needed to break up the big border that covers most of the back garden and carve a narrow, oblique path through part of it. Nothing formal and really just an access path, curving probably … Continue reading →

Posted in garden visit, journal, Plant Portraits, succulents | Tagged Coprosma 'Plum Hussy', Crassula perforata, dry-laid bricks, Dymondia margaretae, Echeveria agavoides, Geranium maderense 'Alba', Magnolia liliflora 'Nigra', paths, Paving, Plectranthus neochilus, Salvia canariensis var. candissima | 3 Comments

November garden dispatches

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Denise

We all have our favorite months in the garden. Our sentiments aside, the November garden continues sending out dispatches, oblivious to any seasonal bias. dispatches from plectranthus tillandsias and cryptbergias urgent communications from Echeveria gigantea Candy-corn-colored Morse code from Mina … Continue reading →

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, garden visit, Plant Portraits, pots and containers, succulents | Tagged aeoniums, Agave 'Blue Flame', Agave 'Mr. Ripple', Agave desmettiana 'Joe Hoak', Agave geminiflora, Agave lophantha 'Quadricolor', Corokia virgata 'Sunsplash', Echeveria gigantea, Mina lobata | 7 Comments

So Cal Hort’s “Coffee in the Nash Garden”

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Denise

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 →

Posted in climate, design, garden visit | Tagged Donivee Nash garden, Erigeron karvinskianus, garden designer Judy Horton, Los Angeles Aqueduct, mediterranean plants, salvias, Southern California Horticultural Society, The Garden Conservancy Open Days program, William Mulholland | 2 Comments

Fall Planting Festival at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden 11/2/13

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Denise

“California is defined by its Mediterranean climate. It is the smallest floristic province in North America, but has the greatest diversity of plants north of Mexico. It includes such characteristic vegetation as chaparral, coastal sage scrub, oak woodland and grassland. … Continue reading →

Posted in garden visit, plant nurseries | Tagged California native plants, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, RSABG Fall Planting Festival 2013 | 4 Comments

lost in Florence

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Denise

Zadie Smith’s essay “Love in the Gardens,” describing complicated family relations against the backdrop of visits to two gardens, the Boboli in Florence accompanied by her father, and the Borghese garden in Rome after her father had died, gave me … Continue reading →

Posted in garden travel, garden visit | Tagged Boboli gardens, Florence, Italy, The Duomo, The New York Review of Books 11/7/13, Uffizi Gallery, Zadie Smith's "Love in the Gardens" | 4 Comments

Stanford’s New Guinea Sculpture Garden

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Denise

More updates from the Bay Area, this one from occasional AGO photographer and contributor MB Maher. I’ll let him tell this adventure in his own words: “Shirley Watts messaged me to keep my Wednesday evening open. And per her instructions, … Continue reading →

Posted in artists, garden visit, MB Maher, photography | Tagged MB Maher, Robert Pogue Harrison, Shirley Watts, Stanford University, The New Guinea Sculpture Garden at Stanford | 4 Comments

in the news

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Denise

Since the government shutdown, I’ve been checking in with The New York Times at an increasingly feverish pace, several times a day, (and doing little else, it seems), so it was in real time that the story on James Golden … Continue reading →

Posted in artists, clippings, design, garden travel, garden visit, MB Maher | Tagged Cindy McNatt, dirt du jour, Dustin Gimbel, James Golden, MB Maher, Michael Tortorello, non-secateur, Orange County Register, The Garden Conservancy Open Days, The New York Times, View From Federal Twist | 8 Comments

Cevan Forristt

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Denise

My timid approach to incorporating a bit of the exotic in the garden got me thinking about gardens that boldly embrace the exotic, gardens that become a country wholly unlike the one in which they nominally reside. There’s always a … Continue reading →

Posted in artists, design, garden ornament, garden visit, MB Maher, pots and containers | Tagged Bay Area gardens, Cevan Forristt, Hortisexuals, ornament, stone, The Christian Science Monitor | 13 Comments

Clianthus formosus

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Denise

I stopped in at the Sherman Gardens recently to check in on the succulent garden, which I visited a couple years ago and wrote about here. Although that garden looks the same as the day I visited, there was a … Continue reading →

Posted in garden visit, Plant Portraits | Tagged >Australian National Botanic Gardens, Australian plants, British navigator William Dampier, Chiltern Seeds, Clianthus formosus, Fabaceae family, Kew, Sherman Library & Gardens, Sturt's Desert Pea, Swainsona formosa, The Royal Botanic Gardens | 12 Comments