Category Archives: design

friday clippings 4/24/15 (SoCal Spring Garden Show weekend)

Southern California’s Spring Garden Show started yesterday, 4/23/15, and continues through Sunday, 4/26/15. It’s always held in the enclosed “Home Store Wing” of the South Coast Plaza. This wing includes, among many other stores, Anthropologie, West Elm, Z Gallerie, Crate … Continue reading

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a Shirley Watts’ garden

Monday features two long-time friends (and family) of AGO. Oldest son Mitch took these photos of a Shirley Watts-designed garden a few years back and kindly agreed to let me share them here. The garden had a lot of formal, … Continue reading

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streetside; rainy day house & gardens

(alluding to Joni Mitchell’s Rainy Night House) I recently read that Taylor Swift wanted the part in a movie on Mitchell. I see Swift’s photo all over the Internet, but it wasn’t until Sunday that I finally heard one of … Continue reading

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, Bulbs, design, driveby gardens, garden ornament, pots and containers, succulents | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

san francisco door project

“Ah! There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” — Emma, Jane Austen I can be a bit of a homebody and go days without leaving the house. The best thing about some days is coming home to … Continue reading

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high style, close quarters

The Australian/Canadian hybrid blog Desire to Inspire is one of my favorite sources for dependable, daily inspiration. (Jo and Kim do take Sundays off.) DTI celebrates design front and center, sometimes minimal, sometimes maximal. I can never make up my … Continue reading

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“The Artful Garden” featuring Shirley Watts, Portland, Oregon 2/15/15

Detail of mural in the new reception hall at Rancho Los Alamitos. I don’t suppose there’s the smallest chance we’ll ever see a “bullet train” built that runs to Portland, Oregon, since the voter-approved Los Angeles-to-San Francisco high-speed train has … Continue reading

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thinning dyckias

If you asked me what I planned on doing when I woke up that morning a couple Saturdays ago, tackling the enormously overgrown clump of dyckias in the front garden was as remote a contender as washing the windows, which … Continue reading

Posted in design, journal, Occasional Daily Weather Report, pots and containers, succulents | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

a Mission Revival garden

I wasn’t exactly lost in Beverly Hills today, but traffic was terrible enough that I left the main arteries like San Vicente and dove into surrounding neighborhood streets, looking for a less congested way home. Around Sweetzer I found this … Continue reading

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blue fence

Double-sided, dog-eared redwood fence, you win. Smug, aren’t you? You know I can’t afford to replace you. Over the years I’ve stained you blue (twice), stenciled you in scrolls, but to no avail. There you stand, a blue, stenciled, dog-eared … Continue reading

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Culver City Cactus Tower

Yes, it’s true, I’ve been prowling craigslist, hoping to stumble upon dream listings like “free fence post cactus!” or “unwanted cactus, you dig and haul away.” I want to line the east fence with large containers of mature succulents, none … Continue reading

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