My last post has me thinking more about the backgrounds that plants grow against. I was getting excited that the San Miguel Island buckwheats(Eriogonum grande var. rubescens) that I’d grown from seed were coming in to bloom. But standing back… Read More »background check
Two posts ago I mentioned the Crack Garden, a winner in this year’s ASLA awards program that made me think in a new way about dealing with too much concrete. Ryan over at Dry Stone Garden has some different thoughts… Read More »reclaimed from concrete
Today I want to talk about a couple things that seem inevitable: Garden plants will die; and, concrete hardscape will develop cracks. Strategy 1: You could try avoidance, developing ways to get around those facts. You may have heard of… Read More »avoid, or embrace the inevitable?
I showed the almost-complete version of this front porch screen earlier, but that was before we applied the final stain to the wood. Here it is in the really final version. As long as we were staining wood, we got… Read More »screening with wood, screening with plants
We began this project to redo our front porch surround last year. It’s not totally finished, but it’s at a point I thought I’d share it with you. The house originally came with an enclosure around the little front porch/patio… Read More »our front porch project
I still haven’t gotten around to doing something about the color of the my little detached studio behind the house. Colors of residential neighborhoods and garden walls usually tend towards pretty neutral shades. Here are a couple combinations of walls… Read More »dramatic wall colors and plants
Linda brought by my desk the 2009 Spring catalog of the Princeton Architectural Press. She really like the photo on the cover, a planting by Andrea Cochran, a San Francisco-based landscape architect and the subject of a new book, Andrea… Read More »just about to be published
One of the easiest ways to reuse broken concrete is to stack up the pieces to make a low garden wall. My house came with an expanse of dangerously uneven, cracked concrete that needed to be removed. One option would… Read More »recycling concrete
Some of my garden shots have had some perforated concrete pavers shown in them. In case you’re wondering what it is, it’s called Turfstone, and is one of several products out there that are designed to allow you to have… Read More »turfstone