Some folks in my office organized an event where we’d bring in our excess fruits and veggies and do a big exchange for some of the other things people brought to share. My main time of having excess food in… Read More »our big food swap
Summer finally arrived last week. A humid mass of high pressure from Mexico hopped the border fence and gave us some hot days and tropical-looking morning clouds that lit up brilliantly as the sun rose. After almost four months with… Read More »summer at last
This was fun: I opened up the Museum of Modern Art gift catalog yesterday and saw this on page 2, the Andrea Air Purifier. Instead of filters or electric charges, Matthieu Lehanneur’s machine from 2007 uses a live plant. Once… Read More »scrub your air
This is why I enjoy growing native plants: On a quick hike through my nearby Tecolote Canyon Natural Park there were a few plants blooming away, hardly aware it’s midsummer and three months since the last real rain. And when… Read More »bloom day: natives at home and in the wild
In the spirit of the “haul video,” the art form in which a fashion-conscious usually young consumer describes his or her latest finds from the last shopping trip to the mall–a video in which the word “cute” has to appear… Read More »my haul
A little over a week ago we went up for a long weekend to visit Aunt Barbara in LA’s San Fernando Valley. The Theodore Payne Foundation, one of the Southland’s major sources of California native plants was only half a… Read More »but what would aunt barbara like?
I try to stop by Robert Irwin’s Central Garden at the Getty Center whenever I’m nearby. This early august day was bright but cool, a perfect day for a stroll through the garden to see what new things I’d find.… Read More »getty garden, light and shadow
Here’s a really interesting painting that I encountered Sunday while I was visiting the Getty Museum. It’s “The Tulip Folly,” by the 19th century French academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, who was having a big show in one of the galleries.… Read More »tulip mania paintings
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is currently featuring a series of installations and exhibitions looking at notions of food, culture and art. The program, EatLACMA, is co-curated by the collective that goes by the name of Fallen Fruit… Read More »art from potatoes
This is a post for the reader who might enjoy an occasional book on gardening and landscape architecture that isn’t designed to sit on your coffee table or nightstand. The British Library has recently unveiled EThOS, a portal to electronic… Read More »interesting, challenging reading