Category Archives: design
Old Lights Made New
In the angle of the eaves where the house intersects with the bath house, the space cried out for a light. A hanging light or three. I’ve had these three glass shades for many, many years, but every time I … Continue reading
L.A. Lawn
Emily Green, in the September 9, 2011, edition of The Los Angeles Times, discusses many of the hidden costs related to keepings lawns, including the health risks to those often hired to maintain them in Southern California, in her piece … Continue reading
1stdibs
In a piece in yesterday’s New York Times, Steven Kurutz introduces readers to the “marketplace for design and antiques” known as 1stdibs. And the next thing I knew, about three hours were somehow sucked out of my day. “Set of … Continue reading
Garden Puzzles
Working with a small garden can be a bit of a puzzle. This powder blue Agave potatorum, or ‘butterfly’ agave, was planted a couple years ago deep in the recesses of the gravel garden, much too out of the way … Continue reading
Dinner at Dustin’s
A word of advice. An invitation to dinner at Dustin’s should never be passed up. Yes, he is a wonderful cook (Salade Nicoise with salmon, chocolate ganache torte). But prowling around his garden to see what he’s been up to … Continue reading
Posted in design, garden visit, MB Maher
Tagged Annette Goliti Gutierrez, Dustin Gimbel, MB Maher, Potted, Reuben Munoz
5 Comments
Palms & Lawn
I’ve had a very interesting past couple of days. (Interesting in my usual narrow, horticultural sense of the word.) Thursday I finally made it to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to check out up close the new Eli … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, design, garden travel, MB Maher, succulents
Tagged Agave guiengola 'Creme Brulee', Anne Raver, Austin, drought, Eli Broad, Furcraea foetida 'Mediopicta', Getty Center, Jim Dugan, Kelly Griffin, LACMA, lawn replacement, Licuala peltata, Mark Simmons, Rancho Soledad Nursery, Ravenala madagascariensis, Renzo Piano, restoration ecologist, Richard Serra's Band, Robert Irwin, Texas, The New York Times
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Foreword to Piet Oudolf Landscapes in Landscapes
I didn’t dare take this beautiful book on the recent camping trip, so it sat waiting in a quiet house. A couple pages behind the cover’s brisk Helvetica type is this arresting foreword by Robert Hammond, co-founder of the High … Continue reading
Arguing With A Bad-Tempered Gardener
What an odd concept, to separate enjoyment of gardens from the process of garden-making. A garden magazine article a couple months ago introduced me to this astonishing notion, when it profiled the owner of a complex garden who spoke intelligently … Continue reading
Posted in design, essay
Tagged Andrea Cochrane, Anne Wareham, Charles Hawes, Veddw, Women in the Dirt
13 Comments
Devils in the Details
I’ve been pestering MB Maher to shake loose some more video work, and he keeps telling me the coffers are empty at the moment, that he’s hard at work on a new series on designers tentatively titled Field Studies. However, … Continue reading
Posted in Cinema Botanica, design, garden visit, MB Maher
Tagged MB Maher, Rancho Reubidoux, Reuben Munoz
11 Comments
Tropicalissimo Redux
Anybody remember “tropicalissimo”? In gardening, it references a word used maybe a decade ago for the then-shocking innovation of incorporating tropicals in summer borders and containers. A fairly mundane practice now. Somewhat counter-intuitively, I’ve found these plants, the alocasia, colocasias, … Continue reading