Harmony in the Garden Blog

Sloping gardens are tricky to transform for various reasons – poor drainage and water run-off, soil erosion, and difficulty in maneuvering around, just to name a few.   I recently visited this garden to see how it’s fared one year later, and WOW – it’s amazing!    I usually tell my clients to wait until the second or …

You may remember my Rain Garden’s before-and-after (if not, click here.)  In that post, I mentioned my goal was not only to transform this section of my garden into a Rain Garden but to also have it serve double-duty as a Pollinator Garden.  Since the rain in my area pretty much comes to a complete …

What do you do when a beloved tree gives up the ghost?  Or when several trees need to be removed to make way for a new home or garden?  Or when you come home from vacation to find a giant oak tree fell over, seemingly out of the blue (yes, that happened to me TWICE …

When designing gardens, I never forget to focus on what I call the 4 C’s:  corners, cracks, crannies, and crevices.  When looking at a garden, my philosophy is this:  any bare spot is a planting opportunity.  And, I mean ANY bare spot.  A little nook where two stones don’t quite meet up, or a gap …

While spending the day at the San Diego Botanic Garden, my favorite moment was walking around the corner and discovering I was in the middle of a party with life-sized Succulent People. Pat Hammer (who was also the Botanic Garden’s Director of Operations,) is the genius behind these incredible works of art.  She even made …