Gossip in the Garden

What does gardening mean to YOU?

Rebecca — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:20:58 +0000

. A few weeks ago my friend, and fellow Garden Designer Susan Morrison, took an intensive 5-week film class where her final assignment was to create a 5 minute film of her choice. Susan approached me with her idea – creating a documentary style of film where I explain what gardening means to me. . Sounds simple enough, [...]

Artefact Design and Salvage – it just doesn’t get any better than this!

Rebecca — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:23:56 +0000

. . Warning: This is not your mother’s typical garden shop….this has got to be one of the coolest, most inspiring places I’ve ever been! . This is Artefact Design and Salvage, located at the Cornerstone Gardens in Sonoma, California, and it’s just the thing to clear out the cobwebs of Winter and kick-start your imagination! . . . . . .. . . There’s not your [...]

Garden Designers Roundtable – Designing with Foliage

Rebecca — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:00:09 +0000

. What is the ‘Garden Designer’s Roundtable’? It began last December when a small group of us thought it would be fun, as professional landscape designers, to simultaneously write an article dedicated to the same topic (“Do Designers Practice what they Preach”), but each written with our own, distinctive ‘voice’. . It was an idea that was [...]

Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day – February 2010

Rebecca — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:36:45 +0000

. Wow – here we are again – another fabulous Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day! For those of you not familiar with what ‘Bloom Day’ is, it’s a wonderful tradition started by May Dreams Gardens. It’s an opportunity for Garden Bloggers everywhere to show you what’s going on in their own garden on the 15th of each month. [...]

Cherubs and Hearts – from my garden to yours…

Rebecca — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:10:38 +0000

. . I’ve always, always, always loved hearts. They’re the one thing I can draw perfectly. . While searching for some old photos the other day, I found my high school journal (vintage 1982) where I came upon a slightly gloomy poem I had scribbled down – fitting for a love-sick high school girl! Of course, I left off [...]

The ‘Mite-y’ Lemon…..

Rebecca — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:32:30 +0000

. Eureka lemon trees are notorious for producing freakishly shaped lemons – especially along the cooler coastal climate (like ours in the Bay Area). Personally, I like the occasional odd-ball that my tree kicks out – and so do kids. But if more and more of your lemons are turning out like this you may want [...]

Honest Scrap Award…okaaaay…here goes…

Rebecca — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:52:59 +0000

. . What is an Honest Scrap Award? Well, it’s not really an award, per se, but rather a “Tag – you’re IT” type of post where I tell anyone who’s interested 10 things about me that they normally wouldn’t get from reading my blog. In turn, I ‘tag’ 7 more lucky recipients with this award, and [...]

Meet Frankenstein… (aka: my ‘Washington Navel’ Orange Tree)

Rebecca — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:52:23 +0000

. It’s January here in Northern California and today I ate the first (of many) oranges off my ‘Washington Navel’ tree…. . I LOVE that first, sweet-with-a-faint-hint-of-sour-taste the season’s first orange gives me…I look forward to it all year, beginning in late Spring when my garden is literally blanketed with the scent of it’s heavenly blossoms…to the Fall [...]

My very favorite roses – and how I prune them…

Rebecca — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:59:24 +0000

. Roses, roses, roses…nothing says ‘Spring is right around the corner’ more than all the bare-root roses in stock right now at the nurseries! Especially when you see their hopeful, little leaves starting to emerge from their stark stems… . And now’s the time to buy them, as they’re MUCH cheaper when sold bare-root ($15) versus when they’re [...]

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – January 2010

Rebecca — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:01:14 +0000

. With most of the country being hit so hard this past month with unusually frigid weather I thought it might be a bit rude to talk about the blooms that are currently in my Northern Californian garden. Yes, I know that’s the whole purpose of the Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day event, (a wonderful monthly celebration [...]

Not your average Ginko tree….

Rebecca — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:25:16 +0000

. Seriously…what the heck ARE these things? . That was the question everyone was asking a few months ago while on a Sacramento ‘Garden Walk’. Interestingly, this tree wasn’t actually featured on the walk, but my Mother just happened to notice it and took these amazing photographs! . These growths are on an old, old Gingko tree. And upon further [...]

Garden Designer’s Roundtable: Celebrating Regional Diversity – Silicon Valley style!

Rebecca — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:00:19 +0000

. . I’ve been invited to join in a lively discussion among some of my fellow landscape designers around the country to talk about ’celebrating regional diversity’. . I LOVE this topic – embracing that which makes each of our regions unique and how we celebrate it through garden design. . My client base is in Northern California’s ‘Silicon Valley’ – [...]

I’m craving Cabin Fever….

Rebecca — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:31:27 +0000

. Living here in California can be exhausting for a gardener – specifically here in the Bay Area, where our average Winter temperatures only dip down into the 30’s. Our gardens are pretty much year-round here and always in some state of ‘workability’ in the Winter, always staring you in the face asking when you’re going [...]

Baby….it’s cold outside!

Rebecca — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:28:51 +0000

. I woke up this morning to a whopping 26 degrees. I can already hear those of you in other parts of the country laughing at my wimpy-ness, but please remember – I live in California!! The Bay Area, to be exact – Zone 8!!! I’m not accustomed to this weather…and more importantly, my PLANTS aren’t [...]

Prune my hydrangeas in December? No Way!!

Rebecca — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:13:36 +0000

. Pruning hydrangeas in Northern California is entirely different from the colder parts of the country. What you read in most gardening magazines doesn’t always apply here because our hydrangeas are looking pretty awesome right now! I mean really…who in their right mind would want to prune off these gorgeous blooms! The photo [...]