Gossip in the Garden

After spending several days at Seattle’s Northwest Flower & Garden Show, with all the glorious display gardens and spring blooms around every corner, I was feeling pretty antsy for spring to finally arrive.  It’s been a whopper of a winter, and while I’m not complaining (after all, last night’s news said California is officially out of our seven-year drought!)  I must say, I’m feeling pretty starved for garden tours right now.  Name a gardener that… [read more]

I recently returned from a fantastic whirlwind week in Seattle, where my mother and I attended the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival. In between my presentations, including a riveting 'Container Wars' challenge (yes, that's me showing off my blue ribbon!!) I had plenty of time to wander through this year’s display gardens, the theme being ‘Gardens of the World’. I wanted to share with you three display gardens that felt were particularly stunning this year and takeaway ideas that… [read more]

  While most of us are still recovering from a punishing few weeks of winter weather, longing for the first days of spring,  I thought I'd share with you another 'Before-and-After.' As you may remember, in my last post I showed a transformation that involved removing my client's pool and replacing it with a beautiful and functional garden. Today I'll show you an entirely different scenario where the pool is actually a cherished part of the 'garden' (I use… [read more]

  Wow. I can’t believe my last blog post was seven months ago! I’ve thought about blogging so many times over the past year, but I just couldn’t seem to make it happen. This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of my father’s death, and despite my best intentions, the only thing I could manage this past year was to withdraw completely. All I wanted was to be with my mother and my family, seeking as much… [read more]

  Recently my good friend, Michelle Gervais (who was also the former garden editor of Fine Gardening magazine for many, many years) asked me to take a look at her new book ‘Design your Garden Toolkit.’ I jumped at the chance, knowing that her years of knowledge and down-to-earth approach would make for a fantastic book. But it’s so much more. Michelle makes learning about the fundamentals of garden design easy to comprehend (perfect for new gardeners out there).… [read more]

Where do I begin? It’s been so long since I’ve written but believe me, I’ve thought of you all so often and have so many things I want to share with you during the coming months. I needed to check out for a while so I could be with my family as we navigated the dark and murky waters of my father’s unexpected blood cancer diagnosis. As you may remember, we moved to Granite Bay almost… [read more]

I’m finally able to catch my breath after my big move, and now that the suffocating summer heat has passed and I can think and write clearly again!   It’s been a hot, hot summer with temperatures averaging in the 100’s for weeks on end (definitely not the norm, locals assure me, as they see me slowly begin to lose my mind.) And while some of the plants that I hauled all the way up here have melted away… [read more]

One of the smartest things I’ve ever done is to give myself a long, long time to say goodbye to my garden.  In just a few weeks I’ll be leaving it forever, and I can honestly say that my heart is at peace. I’ve given myself plenty of time to sit still and absorb as much as I can, filling my memory bank to the point of overflowing. I’ve given myself time to cry and mourn… [read more]

Last year, Allen Bush (a Garden Rant contributor) wrote an article about growing weary in the garden; one which resonated deep within my heart: ‘I thought of an interview with the writer Reynolds Price. Price...was asked what his greatest gift as a child had been. He said his favorite gift had come from his grandmother. She had told him a story. Reynolds Price’s grandmother compared life to a traffic light. She explained that the light stays green for… [read more]

Two days ago I flew to LA for the day to visit my daughter, and on a whim decided to visit the Getty Museum's Central Garden. While I've been there before in the spring and summer, I've never visited in the fall and was excited to see the seasonal changes. The Central Garden differs from many of the other public gardens I've written about in that it was specifically created to be a permanent piece of living art for the… [read more]