Category Archives: design
Garden Show Road Trip 2011
Smashing two of my fingers in a car door just before leaving San Francisco hasn’t helped to speed up the process of posting a few measly photos from the show. Not quite the airtight excuse, since having two fingers turning … Continue reading
Blue Intentions
In small gardens, a few feet of ground mean everything. This is not whining, merely observation. (Gardens, unfortunately, never respond to whining, but only to cold, clear-eyed observation.) I had some blue intentions for spring for the main garden border … Continue reading
Posted in design, Plant Portraits
Tagged alkanet, Anchusa capensis 'Blue Angel', Annies Annuals, borage, Boraginaceae, bugloss, Haloragis erecta, Lobelia valida
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Habituation
Every so often I come across a word that tunnels straight into the murky recesses, boring into that dank station in the brain where rusty thoughts rumble around and bang like aimless cars in a railyard. Thoughts with otherwise no … Continue reading
A Smausian Water Garden
Looking into the future of newspapers, there’s nothing but thick fog concealing possible total shipwreck. Looking to the past can seem like a golden age, especially for garden writers. In Los Angeles, we’re lucky to have the amazing Emily Green … Continue reading
Posted in design, garden visit
Tagged 52 Weeks in the California Garden, Emily Green, Los Angeles Times, Robert Smaus, Rockrose, water gardens
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Sky’s The Limit
It was recently calculated (but not by me) that my little back garden is all of 882 square feet. After 20 years of gardening here, methodically covering every inch of that 882 square feet, with moisture and light now robbed … Continue reading
Posted in design, Plant Portraits
Tagged Antigonon leptosus, asarina, Clematis cirrhosa, Cobaea scandens, Dicentra scandens, Dolichos lablab, Eccremocarpus scaber, Manettia cordifolia, Passiflora sanguinolenta, Pole beans Trionfo Violetto, Thunbergia alata, vines, Vitis vinifera 'Purpurea'
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Laughter in the Distance
Not a title to a pulpy romance novel but a snippet of Hinkley’s hilarious prose from his infamous Heronswood nursery catalogues. (The nursery was opened in 1987, bought by Burpee in 2000 and closed by them in 2006.) The catalogues … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, design, essay, Plant Portraits
Tagged Begonia grandis, Ceanothus thrysiflorus var. griseus 'Kurt Zadnik, Clematis recta, Dan Hinkley, Embothrium coccineum, Garden Cottage Nursery, Heronswood, Melianthus 'Purple Haze', Monrovia, Olearia 'Henry Travers', restios, Rhodocoma capensis, Roger Raiche, Roger's Gardens, Salvia verticillata 'Purple Rain', Stiga gigantea, Vita Sackville-West, Windcliff
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Where are the Women Designers?
In the aftermath of this year’s Chelsea show, the dearth of entries by women is discussed in this provocative article from the Telegraph. The article quotes a Sue Hayward, who wonders if the deficit can be due to the fact … Continue reading
Posted in design, shop talk
Tagged Artemisia pedemontana, BBC radio, Chelsea Flower Show 2010, garden design, Sue Hayward, The Telegraph
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More Notes on Venice Garden Tour
I caught up with MB Maher’s photo account of the Venice Garden & Home Tour held 5/1/10, and these are his photos of Stephen Glassman’s studio. Stephen Glassman pulled apart his stone, wire and bamboo sculpture exhibited at the The … Continue reading
More GC Open Days/Pasadena
More on the Pasadena gardens on the Garden Conservancy Open Days, April 25, 2010. This was my first tour of Pasadena gardens. I knew the gardens would be large, stately, formal. What I wasn’t prepared for was their scale. The … Continue reading
Timing is Everything
in garden design. Really enjoyed the cyber garden summit on regionalism held last week, and found myself nodding along with comments by West Coast writers, such as the Germinatrix and Garden Porn, about being led down the primrose path by … Continue reading
Posted in design, essay
Tagged aloes, English gardens, Mediterranean gardens, poppies
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