Benjamin and Alexander – my reluctant plant sale companions

It’s a sunny, 72-degree Sunday in Southern California and I needed to persuade my children to join me for a plant-shopping adventure. How to do it? My destination was the Huntington Botanical Garden’s fall plant sale in Pasadena, only 48 miles away to the east. Living here requires superhuman strategies such as figuring out which of about 200 different freeway routes one can take – and whether the route one chooses is indeed the best (what I really mean is whether the route one chooses allows me to drive more than 30 mph).

Somehow, the promise of shopping at an Apple store, the Gap, and lunch on Pasadena’s hip Colorado Blvd. was adequate enticement. Luckily, we have the essentials for surviving LA’s freeways: snacks, sunglasses, a portable DVD player, iPod, Game Boy (plus NPR and Garrison Keillor for mom).

Then….my children indulged me with 30 minutes at the end of this expedition to swing through the plant sale. I wasn’t too worried about showing up late on a Sunday. In my previous existence, in Seattle, arriving at a plant sale on a Sunday afternoon would only be for the uninitiated. By then, the very BEST plants have all been snatched up by early-bird fanatics on Saturday. I learned years ago about the wisdom of volunteering at plants sales such as Master Gardeners or Northwest Horticultural Society in order to be there in time for first-dibs.

But now, honestly, my “garden” has so far to go that I can’t indulge in panicking about whether or not I’m going to miss out on rare specimens. To put a positive spin on the situation, this garden has incredible potential. We’ve already lived here a year during which I was only able to get my patio containers planted and spend about $500 paying a great worker named Nelson to wheelbarrow away layers and layers of softball-sized red lava rock “mulch” that covered our infertile soil.

While I’m trying to pick out the remaining pieces of lava rock imbedded in the planting beds, and fantasizing about a lavish – dare I say Abundant – garden that will grow here some day (and arguing with the boys who would rather have me yield space to a much-desired trampoline), I’ll be satisfied with a few pots of this and that. Today, I bought a fabulous variegated blue sage (Salvia guaranitica ‘Omaha’), a Euphorbia lambii (Zones 9-11), a silvery spiked cactus-like creature from the Andes named Abromeitiella lorentziana, another cool crassula (‘Coralita’) that I planted in an old green enamel tea kettle previously punctured on the bottom, and two aromatic mint plants — a peppermint (Mentha x piperita ‘Swiss Ricola’) and a spearmint (Mentha spicata var. ‘Mint the Best’).

Here’s what I had in mind for the mints:

A backyard still-life with spearmint and two vintage watering cans (garden bench designed by Jean Zaputil)

The retro-era galvanized watering cans were given to me by my nongardening friend Stacey Winnick. Stacey is a vintage textiles dealer in New York. She’s the type of loyal, longtime friend willing to take me to the New York Botanic Garden to see the Chihuly exhibit a year ago, even though she’s not really into horticulture.  Stacey’s excellent eye for design saw these cool watering cans at a tag sale or an antique show and she snagged them and later gave them to me. Both cans have traveled home to the West Coast in carry-on bags (on two different trips). When I saw the July 07 issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine, featuring a fantastic just-cut arrangement of flowers spilling out of a rustic watering can, I called Stacey and told her how truly savvy she was – she knew there was something special about those castoff containers!

These cans have been on display in the backyard, but it took a chance encounter to inspire their upgrade into eye-catching containers.  A few weeks ago, I interviewed Bonnie Manion, a San Diego area gardener and antique/collectibles dealer, about her organic vegetable garden. The story will appear in the summer 08 issue of  “Nature’s Garden,” a Better Homes & Gardens publication. Whether scouring her many domestic sources or traveling to the French flea markets, Bonnie is always on the lookout for interesting salvage, antiques and collectibles for the garden. Her company is called “Mon Petit Chou” and you can find her garden bed frames, gates, baskets, vintage containers and more at Chicweed, Cedros Design District, 240 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach, California (858) 205-8083.

In looking through the photos that will accompany the story, I noticed bright green leaves of spearmint spilling out of an old watering can. Assuming they were cut herbs, I asked Bonnie how long the mint lasts in water. Oh, she said, that’s a leaky watering can, so I use it as a container and just plant the mint inside. Yeah. Great idea. After  finishing our phone call, I ran outdoors and filled both of Stacey’s watering cans with water. I knew they were weathered and a bit wobbly (the bottoms of each are now convex, as if they were partially filled with water when temperatures hit freezing, which turned to ice, popping out the base). Once filled, the cans both seeped water from the lower edge. Instant drainage!

Home from the plant sale, with my two new mint plants in hand, I planted up Stacey’s watering cans, inspired by Bonnie’s craftiness. I’ll have even more enjoyment from this cheerful composition knowing that I can pinch off bunches of mint for lemonade or ice tea.

August in Chanticleer’s cutting garden

What a treat to join a small dinner group that gathered together before the Southern California Horticultural Society meeting on Thursday to spend time with the charming and talented Bill Thomas, executive director of Chanticleer, a pleasure garden, located in Wayne, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.

Bill and I first met in 2002, when he was on the board of Garden Writers Association and I was a newbie helping to organize the group’s national symposium in Seattle. He is a gifted leader and veteran public garden administrator. Much of Bill’s career involved several positions at the venerable Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. His articles appear in national gardening magazines and he is a popular speaker.

About a year later, in 2003, I learned that Bill had left Longwood to join Chanticleer, a 35-acre estate garden now open to the public, on the grounds once inhabited by the Rosengartens, a Main Line Philadelphia family whose ownership of the property dates to 1913.

If you’re intrigued by how deftly-placed elements of design add up to an exciting garden, Chanticleer is the perfect subject for study.

Lime-colored eucomis surrounded by deep purple oxalis

“Our goal is to be one of the most beautiful gardens in the world,” Bill told the SCHS audience at Los Angeles’s Griffith Park on October 11th. “Chanticleer is visually exciting. When you walk through our gates, your hassles are gone and you escape from the real world.”
And what a dream-like escape it is. In late August 2006, on a humid day when you could practically see the thick air molecules (which play a hazy, somewhat Impressionistic trick on the eye), I spent one joyous afternoon and evening at Chanticleer.

The “ruins” at Chanticleer, constructed with stone from an original estate house

In contrast to a place like Longwood, which last year celebrated its centennial, Chanticleer is a young garden. It opened to the public in 1993, after the death in 1990 of its patron Adolph Rosengarten Jr.

Even today, its beds, borders, display features and strolling gardens are evolving in the hands of a team of seven horticulturists (lucky ones!) who design, plant, tend to and continually evaluate Chanticleer’s appearance. These men and women employ theatrical tricks to overwhelm the visitor, such as planting 150,000 daffodils in two ribbons that flow through an orchard of flowering crab apples, and filling containers and enormous hanging baskets with stunning combinations (the garden is open April to October, welcoming approximately 33,000 visitors each season).

Burgundy, gold, silver — colorful foliage

An explosion of color and texture comes in large part from the foliage combinations of hardy and non-hardy exotic plants and Pennsylvania natives mixed together. “We are plant geeks and plant sluts,” Bill confides, with a knowing laugh. This is no joke: There are 5,814 plant accessions, representing 3,784 taxa growing at Chanticleer.

This dazzling, almost metallic, composition greets visitors to Chanticleer’s entry garden

The entry garden, also called the “tropical teacup garden” for a circa 1920s cup-and-saucer-shaped cast concrete Italian fountain at its center, is Chanticleer’s seasonal showcase for agaves, cannas, bananas, dichondra and other tender exotics often found in our Southern California landscapes. The collection includes many tropical plants that spend the cold months over-wintering in Chanticleer’s restrooms.

Asparagus, reinterpreted as an edible hedge

The area once devoted to the estate’s vegetable garden has been expanded as its cutting garden, vegetables and herbs included. A 210-foot-long asparagus “hedge” (!) is its stunning element, both ornamental and edible.

The horticulturists here are also artisans and craftspeople who spend the winter months at Chanticleer fashioning hand-wrought chairs, gates, railings, bridges and other decorative objects in the wood-shop and metal shop. Their handiwork appears along the pathways and over each knoll.

A welcoming respite in dark purple

Two Adirondack chairs, painted to match the exact powder-blue shade of nearby hydrangea blooms, are posed together in conversation; elsewhere, a pair of deep purple wood seats, the back slats cut into wavy patterns, consort quietly while awaiting human occupants. Bill says he much prefers chairs to benches: “Chairs can be moved around; they talk to one another. Or, they are grouped together as if at a party.”

Just to make those of us in the audience feel a little better about the fact that our gardens do not look like Chanticleer, Bill insisted he and his colleagues have “California envy.” He is so kind. Because anyone who is fortunate enough to escape down the rabbit’s hole to this wonderland, even for a few hours, will forever see gardens with newly informed and inspired eyes.

In a Q&A about Chanticleer, Bill Thomas puts this garden’s purpose into a few simple but powerful words: “If every garden is a pleasure garden, what a wonderful world this is.”

This has been a week of small, delicious indulgences as I’ve explored the architectural legacy and horticultural richness of my “new” world.

For most of the past 13 months I feel as if I’ve either been up to my ears in unpacking boxes OR traveling for photo-shoots OR chained to my keyboard to write Stylish Sheds. But a “break” in the schedule has allowed me to explore a bit . . .

Autumn in Southern California is indeed the most glorious of seasons, with cool, sweater-worthy evenings and dewy morns that welcome the ocean air; between them, these two moments sandwich pleasant mid-day temperatures of 70-degrees. While my East Coast friends are suffering 80-degree-plus temps (global warming?) I am finally enjoying Ventura County’s climate.

DAY TRIP ONE:
On Monday, I drove north, up the Pacific Coast on Hwy. 101 toward Montecito, the elite community outside Santa Barbara that has a rich architectural history long preceding the arrival of famous types like Oprah who have driven up real estate prices into the stratosphere.

Marcia Gamble-Hadley

Marcia Gamble-Hadley, a Seattle architect and friend introduced to me by photographer Bill Wright, was here on her second research trip for her book about the historical Moody Cottages. Marcia is a great-niece of the four Moody sisters (I can only think of them as a bolder, more independent, early 20th century version of Little Women). Starting in the 1930s, Marcia’s great-aunts Harriet, Brenda, Mildred and Wilma designed around 35 storybook cottages in Montecito and Santa Barbara. Quirky, wondrous, inventive and resourceful, the women’s designs live on today – in tiny little houses – dare I say BIG SHEDS? – that are prized by 21st century owners.

A half-cottage on a tiny lot brings delight to its occupants

Having designed some pretty innovative Seattle cottages herself, Marcia has a big mission – to document the work of her great aunts (never before collected into a book) and draw lessons from their designs for today’s residential designers.

Look closely: the door at the right is a “false” door (the kitchen sink is mounted just inside the window!)

“The Moody cottages are so delightful,” Marcia explained while taking me on a whirlwind tour of six structures (some of which involved window-peeking, while others were open to us). “You don’t feel deprived because you’re not living in 2,200-square-feet.” The one-bedroom cottages suggest clean, simple lines, comfortable proportions, nurturing and enclosure . . . less is so much more.

Long before Sarah Susanka conjured up The Not So Big House, Marcia’s great-aunts were creating their own magic with small cottages. According to Marcia, there are six “hallmarks” of a Moody-Sisters’ cottage – design elements that any architect or builder would be smart to emulate:

Tall windows invite light inside a perfect yellow cottage

• 1. Daylighting: tall, wide windows; sills that are flush with countertops; double-doors;
• 2. Strong connection to the landscape

The Moody sisters were never about to line up windows and doors!

• 3. Whimsey and irregularity (nothing symmetrical about these fantastical cottages!)
• 4. Efficiency (built-in cupboards appear under eaves; bookcases under staircases; storage is maximized everywhere)
• 5. Tradition ( a nod to the English cottage )

 

A “fan” style bump-out creates a pleasing human-scaled niche, just large enough for a table at the window

• 6. Human scale (cozy is an overiding emotion)

I can’t wait to see how Marcia captures the story of her own architectural legacy in a book about her great-aunts (who, she points out, “had these amazing careers as single women long before they had the right to vote.”). You can learn more about her research at www.moodycottages.com.

DAY TRIP TWO:

My day at Rose Story Farm with Maryann and Charles Pember was a rose-induced dream

On Wednesday, I met up with longtime Seattle friends Maryann and Charles Pember, who had just taken in the Southern California historical and garden destinations (The Huntington Botanical Garden, the gardens at the Getty Villa, the Gamble House, and Lotusland, among other visits) while on vacation. Maryann and I have known each other long before we were fellow Northwest Horticultural Society board members in Seattle.

It was a treat to be invited to join them for a day of good-ol’ garden gossip about people and plants in Zone 8 while visually drinking in Zone 10’s botanical temptations.

After meeting in Ojai (I finally ventured off Hwy. 101 onto Hwy 33, then Hwy 150 to the foothills where I got my first peek at Ojai – need to go back soon to visit this artist community famous for its day-spas!), we drove along Casitas Pass toward the oceanside town of Carpinteria. Our destination: Rose Story Farm.

Rose Story Farm hearkens back to to an earlier, low-tech world

Located on a former avocado and lemon farm in Carpinteria Valley, this breathtaking rose farm is a lesson to me in how old-fashioned farming practices (the kind that were natural to our great-grandparents) are viable in today’s modern agri-business world. An organic farm where hundreds of varieties of old garden and English roses are grown. No fussy hybrid teas here. There are some hybrids grown here, but these are ones bred with ancient parentage for cherished traits like their long-lasting perfume. 

Even on a mid-October day, the rose farm displays a perfect palette of creamy whites, sublime pinks, and alluring oranges.

Row upon beautiful row of floribundas and climbers, chosen for bloom color, petal arrangement, and most of all – FRAGRANCE (scents like anise, clove, spice, honey, babypowder, a juicy peach, citrus…filled our nostrils), planted up a gently sloping hillside, like a technicolor vineyard. Organic mulch from a nearby mushroom farm cushions and nourishes the soil at their feet.

Kiki clips a ‘Shot Silk’ climbing rose, dozens of which are planted along the central path at Rose Story Farm, as a glorious hedge

Tens of thousands of luscious roses are lovingly cared for by a small crew of farmers who know exactly when to harvest them. Can you imagine an east coast bride who simply MUST have a romantic, voluptuous rose bouquet of say ‘Fair Bianca’? It’s possible for her floral designer to order armloads of this vintage rose from Rose Story Farm. Say her wedding is on a Saturday. On Thursday, the roses are picked, hydrated and conditioned, de-thorned and carefully packed in bundles of 10 stems. According to our rose-obsessed tour guide Kiki (shown above in the hot pink straw hat), the cut end of the stems are packed in wet moss to keep the roses hydrated; the flower ends are gently nestled in tissue paper; each bunch is packed in an ice-filled box and shipped overnight (Fed-Ex, next morning delivery) to wedding and event florists around the country. Around the country, on Friday mornings, the boxes of these Carpinteria-grown roses show up at floral studios: an enduring gift of romance, nostalgia, sensory delight.

Packed bouquet of 10 just-harvested roses

Kiki says the farm gives very specific instructions to their customers, telling them to quickly unpack, hydrate and refresh the cut flowers before using them in a bouquet or arrangement. It’s a 48-hour marathon as each rose travels from its plant to the bride’s hands. A ritual that brings happiness and joy to anyone who sees (and smells) these roses.

The joy of each rose is heightened when gathered together in Kiki’s basket. My new favorite: Jean Giono, is the vibrant tangerine rose at the center right

After our delightful walking tour of the rose fields, I came home with a lot of newfound confidence about growing roses in my Southern California backyard. I met a new rose I couldn’t resist, and I brought him home with me – Jean Giono. I will happily replace one of the ubiquitous ‘Iceberg’ roses that I inherited with this property with this alluring dark-gold, multipetaled rose that smells like heaven.

Rose Story Farm’s famous lemon cake, made in a rose-shaped bundt pan and topped with a bloom that looks pretty enough to eat!

Schedule your visit to Rose Story Farm on a Wednesday or Saturday and spend $38 for the small group tour, which is followed by a delicious garden luncheon. A gift shop filled with rose-themed and garden-inspired ware from Europe and beyond (including a few antiques) is worth a visit. Here’s where I found, to satisfy my current made-in-the-USA obsession, a cast-aluminum, rose-bloom-shaped bundt pan so I can try making my own Rose Story Farm lemon cake.

The rose allee through planting fields

‘George Allen’, a surprisingly beautiful variegated yellow-and-red rose – very masculine

‘Tropical Sunset’ – you can tell I have a thing for variegation!

‘Yves Piaget’ – as large as a cabbage

Our pretty centerpiece, pave-style roses in every color – and scented beyond description.

Then and now. A study in contrasts teaches me that there are many ways to experience beauty if one is looking closely and accepting of change (especially in myself).

Then: October 2005.

What: a mesh bag filled with King Alfred daffodil bulbs, promising to produce the biggest, gaudiest yellow trumpets I could imagine come spring. A bag of potting soil. A carton of bulb fertilizer.

The container: a nearly-discarded “Radio Flyer” red wagon, slightly rusted with lack of use by a boy now into his teens. Mom couldn’t bring herself to abandon those sweet and bittersweet memories of taking walks around her Mount Baker and Seward Park (Seattle) neighborhoods, first with Benjamin, and then little brother Alex, resting on a throne of pillows with hands clinging to the (now rotted away) wood rails. Childhood, pure and simple.

What to do? Get out a hammer and a 6-inch-long pointed spike – not sure why I have one – maybe for mounting a trellis or some other ambitious but unfinished garden project. With hammer, I pierce the bottom of said Radio Flyer, turning the inside into giant sieve for drainage.

The wagon’s depth is about the same as the bulbs…not always recommended, but this was going to be a temporary installation, planted in October; the anticipation of its spring performance teasing me every time I look outside my kitchen window during the rainy months of November, December, January, February…..then March arrives and the primary red wagon takes on a crown of gold daffs. Erect, reaching for the sun, perfect in form and attitude. Hurrah!

Now: October 2007.

What: Same perforated, slightly rusty red wagon. Now empty, having begged transport with a family’s entire life moved two states away to California. A flat of 4-inch succulents. My new best friends. No more spring bulbs for this girl. Instead, names like Crassula ‘Tom Thumb’, Aeonium ‘Kiwi’ and Pachyveria glauca stare up at me, bone-dry in their plastic pots, but seemingly unbothered by it. In this very different fall setting, I start to plant a succulent tapestry in my Radio Flyer.

The container is the same, of course. The soil mix is different, since I’ve learned from locals to grow succulents in a combination of equal parts of organic potting soil and cactus mix. After filling the wagon with this two-way formula, I arrange my little treasures, playing around with their color and form as I recall my mother’s skill at mixing fabric swatches while quilt-making. 

Dusty blue-gray, gold-and-red-variegation, a purplish tinge makes an unnamed Echeveria sp. particularly pretty this sunny morning; spikes and whorls, medallions and rosettes.

Once these babies are planted, I know they will endure (even appreciate) my forgetfulness. I layered small bits of tumbled rock over the soil to “top-off” the design. My husband asked me why I was carefully sweeping and brushing the pebbles over the top. Is it for drainage? he asks. I don’t really know why. Perhaps I should have just told him: because it pleases me.

I am finding everyday beauty in these unfamiliar plants I once considered a rarity in my former garden.

 

Good news: I just received the Clarkson Potter Spring 08 catalog and we’ve been given two full color pages to promote “Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways.”

This puts us smack in the middle of very good company. Stylish Sheds is featured between “Chocolate Epiphany,” by famed pastry chef Francois Payard, and “Living like Ed,” by Ed Begley Jr. (Hollywood’s eco-guru).

A preliminary cover design (see above) features a fantastic cedar potting shed in the Seattle garden of our friend Joan Enticknap. I have a feeling this isn’t the final cover, because when art director Marysarah Quinn needed to create a cover for this catalog in early April, she had photography from only 10 of the book’s locations to choose from. But the inviting spirit of Joan’s gem of a shed appeals to me – and I wanted to share it here.

“Shedistas,” by Alexander Brooks (10)

“Sheds,” by Benjamin Brooks (15)

 

When we were going through all the hoopla to figure out the cover art (not to mention the book title), my sons created their own book covers for me. I’ve had their sketch with Benjamin’s “Sheds” and Alexander’s “Shedistas” cover ideas taped to my computer during the grueling process of writing 50,000 words (these drawings are accompanied by some wordsmithing, including possible alternatives to the adjective “Stylish,” including “sensational,” “sublime,” “superb,” “saucy,” “spicy,” and – this is an odd one – “syncopated.”)

The effort my family has invested to help us create this book has always put a smile on my face. And thank goodness for children who naturally simplify the things we adults find complex. After all, why are we grownups drawn to backyard sheds? I think it’s to recapture those fleeting moments of childhood joy when we hunkered down in the playhouse or climbed a rickety ladder to the tree house Dad constructed.

This is a favorite quote of mine, which explains in part what I wanted to explore in Stylish Sheds:

“All really inhabited space bears the essence of the notion of home . . . . We travel to the land of ‘Motionless Childhood,’ motionless the way all immemorial things are. We live fixations, fixations of happiness. We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection.” (Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space)

On location in Atlanta in early July — a hot, humid summer day after photographing our 34th location.

 

We’re done, we’re done, we’re done!!! As of today, when I finished writing the dedication and acknowledgements, the manuscript for Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways is complete (oh, except for 200-plus photo credits, but who’s counting?).

This book project has been so fulfilling, so inspiring and motivating as Bill Wright and I have journeyed around the country to find, photograph and interview owners, designers, architects, builders, artists and shed aficionados.  We can’t have enough of it!

The book has finally been listed for advanced sales on Random House’s web site, so it feels real. That we’re still in design and editing is a mere hurdle to overcome.

Now, what I really want to do is finish moving into my house. The one that I’ve neglected for a full year. The one with white walls, no hung artwork and bare windows. Oh, and the “inherited” garden that’s been somewhat neglected. But that’s another chapter: figuring out how to grow plants in SoCal’s dry, hot climate.

I’m deeply invested in the word “shed.” I love our original book title, Shed Style, and now that it is likely to be tossed out and replaced by a title of someone else’s choosing, I’d like to take a moment to explain why I think Shed+Style – those 2 words together – are ideal for what Bill and I are trying to capture in our book.

Shed, the noun (original) is traditionally defined as: a small structure, either freestanding or attached to a larger structure, serving for storage or shelter. A second definition is: a large, low structure often opened on all sides.

We’ve also played around with a contemporary definition (mine) for Shed: a structure designed and built for one’s personal enjoyment in the landscape or garden.

“Style” has many definitions, but I like the one in my trusty 1982 American Heritage Dictionary, which has been on my desk since my first journalism job at Seventeen Magazine. In general, Style is described as:

• a quality of imagination and individuality expressed in one’s actions and tastes;
• a comfortable and elegant mode of living, such as: the style of a gentleman; living in style;

As my friend Robyn puts it, this book is About Sheds and About Style.

I happened to read my husband Bruce’s recent “shed” description – in an email he sent to a former colleague and he tried to explain this book project. In reading it (I was somehow cc’d on the correspondence – I wasn’t secretly reading his email!) I felt so victorious. My wonderful spouse, who has had to live with this book project for more than two years, actually GETS IT. He told his friend the following:

Hint: Don’t think of those aluminum things you see outside of Lowe’s and Home Depot. These sheds are more like structures that are found in the garden but whose interiors may not have ever seen a lawn mower, hoe, or hose. Instead, they are sometimes incredibly lavish retreats for dinner parties, art work, and writing.

So Shed Style, whether we call it that or not, is my attempt to capture the spirit of our separate places. I’m thinking of distinct places-destinations-we can only reach by walking outside (preferably into the garden, or down a path, or through the trees). There are other terms that hint at the notion of a backyard destination (see glossary list at right) that I will explore in future postings.