Category Archives: design
So Cal Hort’s “Coffee in the Nash Garden”
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
the colors of Bilbergia nutans
The first bloom of the common Queen’s Tears bromeliad, Bilbergia nutans, is just so very startling when it arrives, especially if you’ve only seen it in photos before. Like drop-your-coffee-cup startling. As though David Hockney was in the garden overnight … Continue reading
Posted in design, plant nurseries, Plant Portraits
Tagged Bilbergia nutans, bromeliads, Euphorbia mauritanica, Euphorbia rigida, Gomphrena 'Fireworks', Huntington Botanical Gardens, Lavandula multifida, Lavandula pinnata var. buchii, Pelargonium crispum 'Variegatum', Tanacetum vulgare 'Isla Gold', Western Hills Nursery and Garden
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prowling the plant nurseries in fall
A startling sight at a local nursery this week was Dalea frutescens in roaring, five-alarm bloom, a Texas native that endures extreme heat and drought, then explodes with flowers in fall. Imagine this Black Dalea with muhly grass, Muhlenbergia capillaris, … Continue reading
Posted in design, Plant Portraits
Tagged Dalea frutescens, fall gardens, guerilla gardening, Muhlenbergia capillaris
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in the news
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
Natural Discourse: Culture & Cultivation 10/10/13
What to make of this impulse to create gardens? Most of my ruminations are done leaning on a shovel, or moving a pot inches to the left and wondering why in the world it matters. One of the few constants … Continue reading
Posted in artists, creatures, design, photography, science
Tagged Adolf Portmann, Alice Miceli, Cevan Forristt, David Rothenberg's "Survival of the Beautiful", Flora Grubb, Hannah Arendt, Margaret Morton, Marion Brenner, Mary Jo McConnell, Natural Discourse; Culture & Cultivation, Richard Turner, Robert Pogue Harrison, Roger Hangarter, Saxon Holt, Shirley Watts, The Chernobyl Project
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tithonia for Clarice Cliff
I’m still cutting buckets of tithonia from the community garden plot and filling every vase in the house, even those I usually leave empty, like this museum reissue of a Clarice Cliff vase, the 20th century British ceramic artist famous … Continue reading
Posted in artists, cut flowers, design
Tagged Bloomsbury, ceramics, Clarice Cliff, Tithonia rotundifolia
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shrub
What occupies my thoughts on the garden for next year this hot Sunday is nothing more earth shakingly consequential than planning the beginning of a smallish spine of shrubs to snake through bays of herbaceous stuff. Ozothamnus ‘Sussex Silver’ moved … Continue reading
Posted in design, Plant Portraits
Tagged Australian plants, Ozothamnus hookeri 'Sussex Silver', shrubs
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a diamond in the rough
I need to get my hands into some crete this weekend. From A Merry Mishap, instructions and template included at the link.
Cevan Forristt
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
elephant season
A few tropicals in pots can be a fine sendoff to summer. Here about a mile from the ocean, the big-leaved tropicals like colocasia, the “elephant ears,” bide their time until the temperatures start to really feel uncomfortable. By the … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, design, journal, pots and containers, shop talk, succulents
Tagged Agave celsii var. albicans 'UCB', Colocasia 'Blue Hawaii', Colocasia 'Diamond Head', Colocasia 'Mojito', Cussonia gamtoosensis, elephant ears, garden plans, Kalanchoe beharensis, Nepeta 'Walker's Low', Pseuderanthemum carruthersii var. atropurpureum 'Rubrum', tropical plants
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