A few weeks ago, Johanna Silver (Sunset Magazine’s Garden Editor) reached out and asked if I would be interested in designing a garden for a forthcoming article, with the emphasis on using plants from Sunset’s new Western Garden Collection. Hmmmm….tough decision. Let me get this straight, I thought, design a garden for Sunset? Where I […]
I’m thrilled to be invited to help celebrate the release of Pam Penick’s second book, The Water Saving Garden, with a party that you’re all invited to attend (awesome prizes included!) As a follow-up to her first book Lawn Gone (and one of my personal favorites), The Water Saving Garden delves even deeper into the practical […]
Thanks to the El Nino weather pattern we’ve been experiencing here along the West Coast (lots of rain followed by unseasonably warm temperatures) my garden is exploding with blooms much earlier that it ever has before. I’m a bit worried that my poor plants are being tricked into thinking spring has arrived, only to be […]
January has been a busy month for me, full of exciting changes (including a new look for my website and blog.) And, in addition to my landscape design business, and writing for Horticulture magazine, I’ve also accepted the position of Seminar Manager for the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show. For the past few months, […]
Let me introduce you to the dynamic brother/sister team, Lexi and Austin Petelski, who own General Pumice Products. These young and dynamic gardeners own two California pumice mines and have offered to explain the differences between pumice and perlite. Those of you who love to plant succulents will especially appreciate pumice, as it not only helps absorb […]
As we ease into fall, I thought I’d share with you one of my favorite late-season perennial borders, located at the Bellevue Botanical Garden. Tucked away on the east side of Washington’s Puget Sound, this 36-acre horticultural gem is one that I will always regret not spending more time exploring. By the time I arrived, […]
It’s taken me several days to write this, as I just can’t seem to grasp that a year has already passed since I posted my glass pumpkin photo with the accompanying news of my cancer diagnosis. Some days it feels like it was a lifetime ago, while other days it feels like only moments have […]
While visiting Sonoma earlier this summer, I told my husband that I just had to see a nursery located in Sebastapol, just a few miles away. He groaned, assuming that once again he’d be stuck wandering alone through the aisles of yet another nursery while I quickly disappeared, only to return an hour later with a […]
It’s no secret that this past year has been a whopper for me. During most of my chemotherapy treatments I was able to continue writing and public speaking, but it became increasingly more difficult as time went on. After my surgeries (6 total!) I needed to hibernate for awhile and take a break from everything […]
Today my mother and I took a little field trip to Palo Alto’s Elizabeth Gamble Garden. Even though it’s still early spring here, with our unseasonably warm weather, we couldn’t wait to see what early surprises we might find. As was expected, there was plenty to see in this early-spring garden. Like the Easter-egg drifts […]
Here we are in the early days of February, and my zone 9 garden is filled with heavenly fragrance. There’s still a few leaves hanging on to deciduous branches for dear life, but with each gentle breeze the leaves quickly lose their grip, leaving behind one skeletal shrub after another. Thank heavens for the evergreen […]
This is the fourth night in a row where I’ve awoke at 3:00 in the morning, not feeling sick and nauseous as I typically do during this week of my cancer treatment, but wide awake and filled with gratitude and happiness. Night after night I’ve quietly laid here, letting my mind wander to where it […]
