Olivier and Clara Filippi have been gardening in the south of France for well over a quarter century. Theirs is a mediterranean climate, and their nursery, Pépinière Filippi, located near Montpellier, specializes in plants adapted to the dry-summer/wet-winter cycles that… Read More »the dry gardening handbook
Today’s Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day post features five plants I’ve raised from seed. I’d consider most of these in the “pretty easy” to “really easy” categories, both to germinate and to grow. Three of these came up from seed that… Read More »some bloom day blooms from seed
All around town, both roadside and trailside, the garland chrysanthemums have been blooming. The perky spawn of plants that have been grown for centuries in China and Japan for their tasty young green leaves, Chrysanthemum coronarium has come to be… Read More »the chrysanthemum problem
It’s hardly May, and I have my first tomatoes of the season already, this gorgeous pair on a seedling of the heirloom Cherokee Purple. Okay, I cheated a little. These are actually hothouse tomatoes. Some seed I planted in the… Read More »first tomatoes and artichokes
The native plant garden at San Diego’s Old Town State Historic Park occupies a gentle rise in the land on the north end of the park. The garden sits on the grounds of the Silvas-McCoy house, a modern reconstruction by… Read More »interpreting history through plants
In a world where color photographs are easy to come by it can be refreshing to stand back and look at images where the color has been simplified down to tones of black, white and gray. Edwin Hale Lincoln (1848–1938)… Read More »plants in black and white
Here’s an update on conditions, taken from the complete press release by the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden: Fire officials accompanied Botanic Garden President Dr. Edward Schneider through the Garden, allowing him to assess the buildings and grounds. “The good news… Read More »santa barbara botanic garden has burned
…and the winner in the category of Best Use of Barbecue Tongs in a Garden Setting goes to… This sight comes from the cactus section of one of my local hangouts, Walter Anderson Nursery. Jenny had commented that someone had… Read More »amusing…
Here’s a sculpture that sits outside the kitchen window. Made out of chunks of colored glass that have been mortared into a steel frame, it’s perky all day long. But when the light casts the perky shadows on the wall… Read More »a garden sun-catcher
On my last nursery trip I noticed a new horticultural ceanothus selection that I hadn’t encountered before. Ceanothus Tuxedo is striking because of its brown-black foliage, a leaf color I’ve never seen before on a ceanothus. In this photo you… Read More »some garden ceanothus