Every so often, when visiting a noteworthy garden, I see a potting area I envy. Like this one, in Modesto, CA, which doubles as a dog grooming station.
This lovely one, shoe-horned into a garden in Charleston, SC, has a sink. And I thought it was a luxury to simply have a hose bib! Continue Reading →
I’m enraptured by anything that glistens. I enhance my living spaces, indoors and out, with prisms, rhinestones, crystals, globes, mirrors and more. As the sun shifts during the day, these objects flash and glitter. I become a child again, living entirely in the moment. Sometimes this happens in other gardens, too. Like this Aloe marlothii in Patrick Anderson’s garden, bright with mid-winter blooms and a perfectly placed golden orb. Continue Reading →
Of hundreds of articles I’ve written for the San Diego Union-Tribune, this one is my all-time favorite. Above: A wild poinsettia. (Photo by Bruce Leander, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.)
It was a Quasimodo of a plant.
Even so, Franz Fruehwirth was intrigued by the gangly poinsettia he saw growing in a sunny corner of the Paul Ecke Ranch in Encinitas, CA. The year was 1962 and, for 40 years, the Ecke family had dominated the poinsettia market nationwide. True, customers preferred traditional-looking plants, but that didn’t mean tastes wouldn’t change, given an appealing alternative.
The oddity had a grand name, Ecke’s Flaming Sphere, but its ball-like red topknot and tightly curled leaves suggested not a comet so much as a tarantula. It had been discovered in the mid-’50s, as a mutant shoot of a normal pointy-leaved plant.
Maybe, Fruehwirth mused as he went about his routine work of mating poinsettias, Flaming Sphere could light the flower market on fire. Continue Reading →
Several years ago, I met artist Diane Palley McDonald while doing an article about her studio’s makeover for the San Diego Union-Tribune. (The news angle was that it was on HGTV’s “Designer’s Challenge.”) When I saw Diane’s paintings, I wistfully told her how much I loved watercolors. She asked, “Well, then, why not paint your own?” I said I couldn’t possibly, never having done it, not to mention being too old to learn and too busy. She showed me paintings by her students—adults who’d never before taken a class and were convinced they had no artistic ability. They were amazing! Diane graciously invited me to attend a class, and I ended up taking a dozen. Since most of my subjects are garden-related, and you might want to paint your own flowers and plants, here’s what I learned.
I hadn’t been to Lani Freymiller’s garden for nearly a decade—not since I covered homes, gardens, architecture and interior design for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Would it be as incredible as I remembered? So few gardens stand the test of time. The occasion was a visit from Bay Area designer Rebecca Sweet, and we weren’t disappointed. If anything, Lani’s garden was better than ever.
Like all great gardens, Lani’s has a distinctive style—a rustic simplicity reminiscent of Provence. We visited in late autumn, and to compensate for a lack of floral color in the garden, Lani—an artist—emphasized the garden’s brilliant chartreuse foliage, and contrasted it with purple asters and yellow sunflowers. Continue Reading →
