Fill in the blank: California coffeeberries are __________ versatile in the landscape important members of the ecosystem boring as dirt Coffeeberries, Frangula californica (aka Rhamnus californica) are common plants in California native plant gardens. The plants stay green and leafy… Read More »the humble coffeeberry
Sunday we went up to LA for a family birthday. While we were up there we stopped by Los Angeles Modern Auctions, which was having a preview for an upcoming sale that includes some really cool items by Ettore Sottsass,… Read More »long, winding path
After having lived without a cellphone for the last two centuries I finally took the leap. Not only did I get a cellphone, I got a smart phone. The iPhones have been all the rage for a while, but I… Read More »cellphone camera test
I drafted this post on a plane back to San Diego after having spent most of week in Philadelphia for a conference. This particular conference has the perverse habit of holding almost all of its meetings in February, almost always… Read More »other people’s winter
I’ve just returned from a week away and haven’t had a chance to inventory everything that’s blooming this month. Besides, you’ve seen a lot of it already. Here are a few snapshots from today of what’s new or what’s changed.… Read More »february bloom day
Last week saw some pretty fierce winds in Southern California. The damage at home was the toppling of a potted kalanchoe–no big issue there–and the falling over of a big staghorn fern we’ve been growing for the last couple of… Read More »remounting the big staghorn
Here’s a quick invite to anyone in the area to check out my piece in the current Juried Bienniel at the William D. Cannon Gallery in Carlsbad. The show runs through March 18. This is a still from a video… Read More »sun and smoke
Los Angeles artist Jennifer Steinkamp has been creating computer-generated botanical video installations for the last decade. A spectacular new work, Madame Curie, just opened at the downtown gallery of the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art. It fills a 4,500… Read More »cgi gardens
Thanks to She Who Would Not Want To Be Named for sending me a link to a really interesting story in yesterday’s New York Times: Plants have been engineered through the dark arts of gene splicing to detect TNT at… Read More »bomb-sniffing petunias?
We have new neighbors immediately behind the house next door. One of their first acts was to erect this gonzo back deck. The previous owner was a house-bound woman who for the last twenty years of her life lived mostly… Read More »hiding from the neighbors