Speaking of cut flowers, I often think that the most beautiful part of what’s in the vase isn’t necessarily the blooms. Photographer Lee Friedlander, whose work often exhibits a droll-to-bratty iconoclastic bent, did a book just a few years ago… Read More »all stems
In the past I’ve occasionally cut flowers from the garden, only to have them wilt immediately and disintegrate into a pile of organic matter on top of a table I wanted to look nice for company. Last weekend I was… Read More »sage as a cut flower
Earlier today John and I headed over to Balboa Park to the plant sale that was being held to benefit the local Master Gardener program. We got there 20 minutes before the door opened and there were already dozens of… Read More »near pandemonium
There are plenty of names for shades of blue: azure, cerulean, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, sky, and navy. And then there’s even the special synthetic intense ultramarine shade that artist Yves Klein patented under the name “International Klein blue.” A visit… Read More »true blue sages
I’ve been reading parts of The Afterlife of Gardens, by John Dixon Hunt, a book on gardens that comes at the subject from an interestingly different take. Where most books on gardens discuss the design aspects of gardens, and many… Read More »gardens as virtual reality
In talking about visiting places virtually it’s easy to get caught up in our totally cool advanced state of technology and forget that this sort of visit-by-proxy has been going on for ages. Homer’s Odyssey gave listeners accounts–albeit mythical–of distant… Read More »virtual vacations: then
Don’t you love it when you talk about two separate things and then something happens that forces an unexpected convergence of the two? Earlier I was doing some Google Street View sightseeing of celebrity gardens. And I’ve posted a few… Read More »virtual vacations: now
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) is the subject of an exhibition at L.A.’s Getty Museum running through August 31. A German entomologist and painter of the natural world, Merian produced a number of amazingly detailed and wonderful illustrations for her books.… Read More »some stunning 17th century botanical illustrations
A topic that’s making its rounds these days is the practice of guerrilla gardening. It can take different forms, but what’s being talked about most are “seed bombing” and stealthily taking over neglected public spaces. Richard Reynolds in London has… Read More »guerrilla gardening
Earlier I posted a couple of my tourist pictures of Idaho’s Shoshone Falls, the “Niagara of the West.” I’ve just begun to scan and print the negatives of the large-format work from the trip. Here are three from the falls:… Read More »niagaras of the east and west