Category Archives: agaves, woody lilies
studies in orange
(Agave “Mr. Ripple’ gets his portrait included because, as Van Gogh wrote, “there is no orange without blue.”)
cochineal
“Under the seams runs the pain.” ― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red I’ve been going over my notes the past couple months from Dr. Alejandro de Ávila’s remarkable lecture “Blood on a Fountain,” which he gave this past January at … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, artists, creatures, design, garden travel, garden visit, science, succulents
Tagged Amy Stewart, cochineal, Dactylopius coccus, Dr. Alejandro de Avila, dyes, Helen Quinn, Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca, Monte Alban, Montezuma cypress, opuntia, Opuntia ficus-indica, Stenocereus marginatus, Taxodium mucronatum, The Drunken Botanist, The Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca, UCBG "Natural Discourse", University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley
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March evening/April morning
Walking off Easter dinner, what caught my eye last evening was a petite bloom on the melianthus, the first I’ve seen on this cultivar ‘Purple Haze.’ I’m really starting to believe now it is the holy grail, a dwarf melianthus, … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, garden travel, plant nurseries, pots and containers, succulents
Tagged Agave gypsophila, Argemone munita, Buck & Yvonne Hemenway annual garden tour/plant sale, Dustin Gimbel Second Nature Garden Design, Gasteria 'Little Warty', Linaria 'Licilia Peach', Papaver setigerum, Pilocereus azureus
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tuesday clippings 3/26/13
Nothing too thematic, just some odds and ends. To prove I left the plant sale tables briefly and did a lap in the show room at the recent Orange County CSSA show, here’s a Dyckia ‘Brittle Star’ hybrid that won … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, clippings, Occasional Daily Photo, plant crushes, Plant Portraits
Tagged Agave americana var. striata, Dyckia 'Brittle Star', Geranium maderense 'Alba', Isoplexis isabelliana, Melianthus 'Purple Haze', pittosporum, poppies, Prostranthera ovalifolia 'Variegata, tillandsias
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what Dustin Gimbel does with gazanias
The humble gazania, that kaleidoscopic daisy from South Africa overused in years past as the go-to municipal ground cover, is undergoing a minor local revival. I included a few for this summer in my full-sun back garden, the LA Times … Continue reading
day trip to Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden
It’s pushing the concept of a day trip to its limit when it takes five hours each way, there and back, but the DBG was having their spring plant sale and, dammit, I needed to go. So the math worked … Continue reading
when agaves become homebodies
I’m sure these images have been kicking around design blogs for some time, but if they have I’ve missed them. (Found here at Miluccia, via the magazine Ideat.) It’s easy to become numbed by the tsunami of photos of interiors … Continue reading
Jardin Majorelle, Morocco
What I know about Yves Saint Laurent, the fashion designer, as opposed to his enormous, well-known cultural celebrity, is limited to sewing up some of his “rich peasant” and stunning Russian collection designs off of Vogue patterns in high school. … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, artists, design, garden travel, garden visit, MB Maher, Plant Portraits, succulents
Tagged bleu Majorelle, Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent, general director Jardin Majorelle, Hugh Johnson, Hugh Johnson's The Principles of Gardening, Jacques Majorelle, Jardin Majorelle, Madison Cox, Marrakesh, Morocco, Robert Pogue Harrison, Suzy Menkes, The Principles of Gardening
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beauty’s best bargain
for me will always be plants. 401ks and SEPs may crash and burn, but I’ll always be able to live on the cheap surrounded by some of the most gorgeous patterns and shapes on earth. Some of the results from … Continue reading
exploring a coastal garden with Lili Singer
This Pacific Palisades garden was the final garden we visited 1/24/13 with Lili Singer via the LA County Arboretum Thursday Garden Talk series. Despite being firmly in the grasp of winter this January morning, or as firm a grasp on … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, design, driveby gardens, garden ornament, garden travel, garden visit, MB Maher, pots and containers, succulents
Tagged Big Daddy's Antiques, Daniel Hinkley, Fleur Nooyen and Associates, formal gardens, garden designer Fleur Nooyen, garden designer Joel Lichtenwalter, garden designer Richard Hayden, garden designer Ryan Gates, Graptopetalum paraguayense, Grow Outdoor Design, Hayden Landscape Design, Irving Gill, Leucadendron ‘Wilson’s Wonder’, Lili Singer, Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, Mediterranean gardens, Solandra maxima
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