Category Archives: design
Fernando Caruncho’s Design Studio
Images from Architectural Digest of the design studio of the Spanish landscape architect who resolutely insists on being called a gardener. As with stripping down occupations to their mythic essence, Caruncho does the same for gardens, revealing anew the power … Continue reading
completion of the High Line September 21, 2014
“Before it was constructed, the New York Central Railroad had operated a rail freight line at grade, or street level, along Tenth Avenue, and men on horseback (“West Side cowboys”) had ridden ahead of the train with red flags or … Continue reading
Posted in design, garden travel, garden visit, photography
Tagged air rights, Friends of the High Line, Joel Sternfeld, Joshua David, landscape architecture, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, New York City, Piet Oudolf, Robert Hammond, The High Line Park, Transferable Development Right, urban planning
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terraced gardens and the Cow Horn agave
I love terraced gardens, with their multiple shifting perspectives from up, down, side to side. I can probably trace this appreciation to an aunt’s hilltop home in the harbor town of San Pedro, Calif. My dad’s sister had a house … Continue reading
beam me here
Actor Zachary Quinto, probably best known for playing the young Spock in the JJ Abrams’ Star Trek movies, on the evidence of his garden, seems to be a well-grounded young man. It’s not very often that a house for sale … Continue reading
a garden wedding
When someone who works in landscape design gets married, even the agaves are dressed for the occasion. Congratulations to Mary True and Cheryl Fippen on their recent wedding in Berkeley, California. Thank you both for your kind permission to use … Continue reading
streetside with grasses and succulents
Because of this house, I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon trying to source a flat of Sesleria autumnalis or Sesleria ‘Greenlee.’ No luck yet, but I will not be deterred.
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, design, driveby gardens, pots and containers, succulents
Tagged aeoniums, Agave 'Blue Glow', Agave attenuata, Asparagus densiflorus 'Myers', Bulbine frutescens, Dianella, Dymondia margaretae, Echeveria agavoides, Furcraea macdougalii, Ligularia tussilaginea, retaining walls, Senecio decaryi, Senecio vitalis, Sesleria autumnalis, Spanish style architecture, terraces, westringia
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backdrops for plants
Some interesting backdrops I found around town, some intentional, some borrowed, some just sheer serendipity. I’m wondering what came first here, the choice of color for the house and then the Lion’s Tail? Or did the Leonotis leonurus start the … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, design, driveby gardens, pots and containers, succulents
Tagged Agave americana 'Variegata', Agave bovicornuta, Agave vilmoriniana, color in the garden, garden walls, Kalanchoe tomentosa, Leonotis leonorus, Muehlenbeckia_complexa, retaining walls, terracing
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streetside; your own personal prairie
When my job canceled today, I knew exactly where I wanted to go before breakfast, before even the first cup of coffee. The local neighborhood prairie. It’s something you don’t see everyday in my coastal neighborhood in Los Angeles County, … Continue reading
supergraphic Deborah Sussman
When I visited Los Angeles’ Grand Park for the first time, I didn’t know that environmental designer Deborah Sussman, who passed away last week at age 83, was the force behind those shocking pink chairs and benches, a color Ms. … Continue reading
Posted in artists, design, garden visit
Tagged 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, California, Charles & Ray Eames, Deborah Sussman, Design Boom, environmental design, Frances Anderton, Grand Park, KCRW's Design & Architecture, Los Angeles, Pacific Standard Time at LACMA, photographer Jim Simmons, Sussman/Prejza & Co, World Landscape Architecture, WUHO Gallery
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got flowers?
Some photos of Portland, Oregon gardens visited mid July that welcome flowers to varying degrees. Procreation is messy (to paraphrase a former secretary of defense), and zero emphasis on flowers and their disheveled aftermath is the answer for some gardens. … Continue reading