It’s high spring in Southern California and time for the annual garden tours. The California Native Plant Society offers one, as do a lot of neighborhoods, including my own. Rather than ponying up the fees and filling up the gas… Read More »virtual garden tour
I’ve been looking at WORDSWITHOUTPICTURES, an interesting online journal and discussion space hosted by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. True to its name, the site is a big pile of words without a single picture, an action that’s… Read More »words without pictures
Last fall I was at the local metal supply shop where they were having a special on sheets of stamped stainless steel. About that time I was thinking of rebuilding the gates to the back yard. The stainless sheets were… Read More »garden gates
A box showed up last week. Inside was a plant I’d bid on on eBay, Darlingtonia californica, the cobra lily, a plant for the new bog garden. It was a nice little division, packed in sphagnum and still wet from… Read More »how to scare adults and small children
If you’re in San Diego, I invite you to attend The Photographer’s Eye: A Way of Seeing, one of the current shows at the Museum of Photographic Arts. It’s got one of my works from my Going series as part… Read More »shameless self-promotion
After three weeks of days in the 60s the last two have pushed into the 80s. It’s the kind of intensely sunny spring weather that makes people productive or delirious. Next door they’re playing basketball and downing beers, and here… Read More »bad day for ferns
Imagine opening your mailbox and getting one of those seed catalogs with no pictures and names you’ve never heard of before–something like the J.L. Hudson, Seedsman listings, for instance, which just hit my house a couple days ago. With a… Read More »online plant databases compared: PlantFiles vs. Hortiplex
The quote in the title is from a statement by Charles Waldheim about the work of landscape designer Piet Oudolf in a January 31 article in the New York Times, “A landscape in winter, dying heroically.” (I ran across this… Read More »"away from the soft pornography of the flower"
The garden is always changing. As plants mature and others come into bloom, I’m always seeing combinations of plants and interesting relationships between them. Here are a couple plant combinations in the yard that I’m particularly happy with. This is… Read More »april plant combinations
Last summer John and I were at the farmer’s market in Ocean Beach, a funky, alternative neighborhood of San Diego. We were looking over some of the offerings at a stall when someone behind me starts laughing and shouts out… Read More »winner of an ugly contest