As some of you may know, I’ve been working on a book about local and seasonal floral design for several years, since 2007 to be precise. My collaborator, photographer David Perry, and I have been using the working title, A Fresh Bouquet.

But that’s all changing now, with a new title from our new publisher, St. Lynn’s Press. The words evoke just the right idea we want to communicate: The 50 Mile Bouquet: Discovering the World of Local, Seasonal, Sustainable Flowers.

Nice, huh? Our publication date is April 2012 and I’ll be writing lots more news about it soon.

Since all I’m doing these days is interviewing flower farmers, eco-couture floral designers and gardeners who grow their own cut flowers, my head is swimming with beautiful blooms.

And somehow in all this flurry of work, I’ve failed to post the out-takes from my floral design story that ran a few months ago in Better Homes & Gardens. So today, I’m taking a moment to get to it.

How great that 7.3 million readers of the July 2011 issue were introduced to the timeless notion of gathering flowers from the garden, a local farmer or a market stand – IN SEASON – and creating a simple, yet sumptuous arrangement that’s of the moment!

I have my editors Eric, Doug and Gayle to thank, because they believed in the idea and created the perfect opportunity for me to fly to Iowa and design a series of bouquets literally out in the field at Howell’s Family Farm.

I shared some of my on-the-scenes location photos last year, but here, finally, are my photos and recipes of the actual arrangements.

Project One features a rectangular galvanized container, measuring about 5-by-8 inches and about 5 inches tall. This small vessel was perfect for a compact bouquet with two simple ingredients. First, I filled the opening with four or five luscious heads of ‘Limelight’ hydrangea, the stems cut fairly short, say 3 inches long. To fill the spaces between the hydrangea heads and to add contrasting color and texture, I made miniature bunches of ‘Strawberry Fields’ gomphrena by wiring five slender stems with wire so that each bunch could be inserted as if it were a single flower. This is the perfect arrangement to enjoy while it’s fresh and then let it slowly air dry as an everlasting bouquet.

Project Two features a tall, square, modern green glass vase with a neck opening that’s smaller than the base. So of course, to make it look abundant and full, I had to create volume and height. The starting flowers here are sultry-looking zinnias from a new seed mix called ‘Queen Red Lime’ – I love the terra cotta, mauve, and reddish blooms with a lime-green center. Once I had those in place, I thought: We need dark foliage. And lucky for me, the folks at Howell’s, like many cut flower growers, have discovered how well basil performs as a cut ingredient – especially purple basil! Think about it: when you harvest basil from your garden and bring it indoors to keep in a jar on your windowsill, have you ever noticed how long those cut stems last? Of course basil is a great cut floral ingredient! The third element here is one of those happy coincidences – common foxtail grass, which some consider a ditch weed, that perfectly echoes the green vase, and catches the late summer sunlight just beautifully. Three simple ingredients in perfect harmony.

Project Three is one of my very favorites, because of the mix of colors and textures. Contained in a vintage pitcher, I absolutely love the playful combo of velvety cockscomb (the crested form of Celosia ) with all the lime green contrasting forms. Here’s how I made this bouquet. First, I filled the pitcher with soft greenery, a white mugwort (Artemisia lactiflora) that fills the opening and becomes the supporting structure for all the subsequent stems. Second, I stripped foliage off of 10 maroon and coral-hued cockscomb flowers; then I cut the stems pretty short and inserted each into the fluffy base, making sure that you can’t see the stems showing at all. Third, I added some ‘Green Envy’ zinnias, which echo the pitcher’s green quite nicely. For a sense of movement, as a final touch, I inserted taller stems of quaking grass (Brizia maxima), so they seem to hover above the bouquet. Casual and the epitome of summer!

Two other projects fell on the cutting room floor, so to speak, so you get to see them here! Actually Project Four showed up in the iPad edition, along with a video interview filled with my eco-savvy design tips. You actually have to download the July edition to see the entire interview (filmed by David Perry) on an iPad.

Here’s a rough-cut edit of the video:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLKacMtjJUY

Anyone can replicate Project Four, a fun trio of mini-arrangements, which are displayed in a row or grouped together on the table as a centerpiece. We used three yellow tumblers that art director Scott Johnson brought from his kitchen cupboard. The simple idea was to showcase several varieties of black-eyed Susan flowers (Rudbeckia sp.) with a mix-and-match of foliage choices. The daisy-like Rudbeckia varieties include, from left: ‘Indian Summer’ and ‘Denver Daisy’ with zebra grass (Miscanthus sinensis ‘Zebrinus’); ‘Irish Spring’ with lamb’s ears; and ‘Prairie Sun’ with goldenrod (Solidago). This type of design works well when you only have one or two of anything in bloom at a given time – voila!

For Project Five, the last arrangement, I had to rise to the challenge of creating flowers that wouldn’t fall out of the wide, saucer-like bowl. Similar to cutting the hydrangea stems short in the first design, I cut lots of Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ in their unopened stage. A this point, they still look pretty green because the buds are tight. When you cut the stems short, say at 2-3 inches, you can really cram a lot inside an opening. To me, they almost look like heads of broccoli! But the tightly-packed sedums create a foundation through which other stems can be inserted. And in this case, I inserted old-fashioned love-lies-bleeding (Amaranthus caudatus) and Queen Anne’s lace. The tassels cascade over the edge of the shallow bowl, and while it’s kind of quirky, I really love the effect of textures and colors.

Together, these five designs demonstrate the diversity of the cut flower world – and ways to arrange blooms without using florist foam to stabilize the stems. Have fun playing around with these ideas using your own vases and garden flowers.

The October issue of Better Homes & Gardens features a container design story that I created with my talented BFF Jean Zaputil of Seattle-based Jean Zaputil Garden Design.

This story began when I pitched the idea of a feature about using ornamental and dwarf conifers as the focal point of a fall container . . . that will then transition nicely through the winter months. My editor in the garden department, Eric Liskey, and his art director Scott Johnson liked the idea. But then they asked me to find a good location for photographing the fall story.

I immediately thought of Jean’s intimate Seattle garden, which is planted for all-season interest and has beautiful seating areas both in the front yard and back garden.

Once Scott and Eric signed off on the location, our challenge continued. Scott thought that a purple palette was both uncommon and a great foil for the evergreen needled foliage. So, needless to say, much of my energy producing this story was spent scouring the greater Seattle marketplace for plum, lavender, aubergine and purple containers. We ended up with a grand total of three pot styles – a small lavender ridged pot; an egg-shaped pot (in 2 sizes) and a classic olive jar shape (also in 2 sizes).

Thank goodness for some wonderful importers here in Western Washington who came to the rescue, including Washington Pottery and Aw Pottery! Our friend Gillian Mathews of Ravenna Gardens was extremely helpful in making those connections for me.

Jean used many of her favorite wholesale and retail nursery sources to come up with the conifer “stars” for each pot, as well as their companion plants.

The idea was to use only two or three accent plants in the container so as to show off the Hinoki false cypress, juniper and other conifers in their full glory.

We hope that this piece inspires readers who never before viewed a conifer as a container plant to do something fun and different this fall. I quoted Jean in the story saying:

“Use the golden glow or silver shimmer of an

ornamental conifer to catch the fall light.”

Here are some of the tips we outlined:

1. Use a large pot, if possible.

A 12-inch diameter pot is a good minimum size.

2. Start with a small juniper, cypress, or other conifer.

Then combine it with two or three complementary or contrasting cool-season annuals and perennials.

3. Flowering plants might fade after the first frost.

You can replace them with foliage perennials that will last through fall, even well into winter.

Here is the best of the best – from our photo shoot a year ago this month! Kudos to the very talented Laurie Black, who took the magazine photos, such as the one above. The photo of Jean and Pots 1, 2, 3 & 4 are my photos.

POT 1: Sadly, this gorgeous purple egg-shaped pot was left on the cutting room floor! But here is the recipe:

• Juniperus horizontalis ‘Limeglow’
• Japanese blood grass (Imperata cylindrical ‘Red Baron’)
• Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens)
• Chrysanthemum ‘Dazzling Stacy Orange’

 

 

 

 

 

POT 2: A miniature garden in a pot – perfect for a side table or the front porch:

• Hinoki false cypress (Chamaecyparis obtuse ‘Verdoni’)
• Japanese sweet flag (Acorus gramineus ‘Minimus Aureus’)
• Bluestar creeper (Pratia pendunculata ‘Little Star’)

 

 

 

 

 

 

POT 3: This might be my favorite! We photographed it on Jean’s front porch, against her beautiful green screen door:

• Hinoki false cypress (Chamaecyparis obtuse ‘Gold Fern’)
• Tiarella ‘Sugar and Spice’
• Vinca minor ‘Illumination’
• Gazania Gazoo Mix

 

POT 4: This copper red “turnip” pot is one of two Jean already owned and we thought the color and shape looked autumnal, while also complementing the purple pot tones:

• Juniperus horizontalis “Limeglow’
• Moss (Schleranthus biflorus)
• Sedum hakonense ‘Chocolate Ball’
• Chrysanthemum ‘Dazzling Stacy Orange’

A few more tips, from the story:

When, and whether, you leave containers out all winter depends on where you live. In Zones 8-10, most conifers and cool-season annuals will survive outdoors in pots. In Zones 7 and lower, few annuals will overwinter in pots, and some evergreens won’t either, depending on hardiness. So before the ground freezes, transplant them to the garden or move the pot into a shed or unheated garage. Water pots as needed to keep soil moist throughout the winter. For outdoor winter use, pots should be glazed, hard-fired clay. Terra-cotta and soft-fired clay do not withstand freezing.

 A few weeks ago, at the invitation of the Whatcom Horticultural Society, I spent a relaxing 24 hours surrounded by gardens, flowers and nature – as well the company of like-minded plant-lovers. 

“Why don’t you come up to my house on Wednesday morning and we’ll go see some gardens before you give your lecture?” my friend Dawn Chaplin suggested. With established Bellingham landscape designer Susann Schwiesow, Dawn organizes the monthly lectures for WHS. This is the third time over the years that the society has invited me to speak. It’s always enjoyable, especially since the drive to Whatcom County and the enticing gardens and kindred spirits make my trip north so pleasurable. 

After meeting up with Dawn, who lives on a beautiful bluff outside Stanwood with her husband David, we hopped in the car and traveled to Fir Island, a small, bucolic place that’s reached by a bridge, so you barely realize you’re crossing over Skagit River to a real island. We toured the timeless garden created by Lavone Newell-Reim and her husband Dick. I’m hoping to publish as a magazine story in the future, but I can’t help but treat you to a few of the luscious images from this very special, lived-in and loved-in landscape: 

 

READ MORE…

The Julius pot is back — and with it a tale about just how hard it’s becoming for California designers to manufacture their latest looks locally. 

In 2009 Annette Gutierrez and Mary Gray, owners of Potted in Atwater Village, introduced the Julius — “a modern, sexy pot with a curve and a little pedestal,” Gutierrez said, and a tribute to the late architectural photographer Julius Shulman. Back then, Potted worked with a small, local ceramics factory to produce the planter. “We did a couple runs, and then he went out of business,” Gutierrez said.

In its short life, the retro planter was popular with landscape designers who liked how it graced the poolside and the patio. The Julius was used at the Geffen Playhouse and in the model residences at the W in Hollywood.

“It was our best seller, but suddenly we couldn’t find anyone locally to make it,” Gutierrez said.

So the Julius was shelved as Gutierrez and Gray looked for another local manufacturer who could turn out consistent colors and forms in small quantities. “Every year, the number of Los Angeles ceramics factories has dwindled,” Gutierrez said. “And because of its size, the larger Julius design doesn’t even fit into most local kilns, so that made it even more difficult.”

Potted recently teamed up with Steve Gainey to reintroduce the Julius in aqua, avocado and matte or glossy white ($149 for a 16-inch-diameter pot, $89 for a 12-inch). Gainey is a third-generation California ceramics maker and president of LaVerne-based Gainey Ceramics, a 60-year-old venture that is one of the last ceramics factories in Southern California. He said he recently changed his business strategy after losing a large percentage of his commercial customers.

“My established banking, real estate and shopping mall market has gone away, but we’re a versatile facility that’s able to change,” Gainey said. “I decided we needed to focus on consumer products and reach out to artists in the ceramics community who have no ability to produce their designs otherwise.”

The Potted partnership is one of several similar arrangements with local artists who appreciate that Gainey is high-quality and homegrown. Gainey said he also has started producing his own designs, including a vase called X-Factor, which the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona recently added to its permanent collection.

Gainey’s embrace of the consumer market follows the national success of Janek Boniecki, who in 1998 acquired the original Bauer Pottery facility in Highland, reissuing classic Bauer pieces for the tabletop and garden, as well as the work of other artists.

Gainey Ceramics also produces Potted’s 12-inch Circle pot ($89), right, inspired by a 1960s hanging ashtray that Gray found at a flea market. Suspended from an 18-inch stainless-steel cable, “it’s perfect for displaying succulents like burrow tails, string-of-pearls or an echeveria,” Gutierrez says.

Earlier this year, Potted and Gainey introduced a matte-white Wedding Cake planter, a three-piece, stacking flowerpot, below. The bottom piece serves as a saucer, while the top and middle “layers” are deep enough to hold plants. The set ($125) measures 11 inches in diameter and is 9.25 inches tall.

“This is our take on the cake platter as a tabletop planter,” Gutierrez says. “Whenever you can lift something up slightly with a pedestal, it looks lighter and fresher.”

Potted plans to develop more products that will be produced by Gainey Ceramics. But Gutierrez is circumspect about the challenge of remaining local while facing the inevitable competition of less expensive knockoffs. “We can’t compete with China on price,” she said. “We can only compete with our originality.”

Potted, 3158 Los Feliz Blvd., Los Angeles; (323) 665-3801.

Gainey Ceramics retail operations, 1200 Arrow Highway, La Verne; (909) 593-3533 or (800) 451-8155.

Link to LA Times @Home story 
— Debra Prinzing

On his popular HGTV show The Outdoor Room with Jamie Durie, stylemaker Jamie Durie uses interior and architectural design tricks to amp up dreary backyards.

By the end of a whirlwind 30-minute episode, you’re energized and inspired. Of course, nimble edits have compressed a couple of days of dirt, sweat and (possibly) tears into a dreamy landscape for the small screen. But still, there’s always a takeaway, a “lesson” that catches the viewer’s imagination. “I could try that,” you say to yourself. “Oh, what a simple way to disguise that ugly wall,” or “That’s brilliant!”

Some of the projects conjured by Jamie and his design team are complicated and require professional assistance to execute. But many others fall into the DIY mode: affordable and requiring only a discerning eye to add polish, such as using color, texture or materials to unify otherwise disparate objects.

That’s one reason why I really wanted to see Jamie’s garden firsthand. When I visited his Los Angeles outdoor design laboratory (aka his humble backyard) last spring I loved what I saw.

My assignment was to interview Jamie and help produce the Better Homes & Gardens “Stylemaker” story that appears in the September issue – out on newsstands right now.

Art director Scott Johnson and I both flew into Los Angeles to work on the story. We were very fortunate to team up with LA photographer Edmund Barr and LA videographer Adam Grossman for the shoot. You can see my article and Edmund’s photos in the September issue; you can watch a fabulous how-to video with Jamie shot by Adam on BH&G’s digital edition. And a special thanks to Edmund for snapping this cozy portrait of Jamie and me, lounging in his outdoor living room. Fun, huh?

Many of Jamie’s best design concepts are ones he previously tried out for clients of Durie Design, his studio in Sydney, Australia, and Los Angeles. Some have been executed on previous episodes of The Outdoor Room, or in the pages of his new book by the same name.

We zeroed in on the ideas that move plants away from the obvious “ground plane” and onto other surfaces, such as living walls, green roofs and in the unexpected niches of garden structures. Jamie’s passion for plants is contagious – and you can see it spill over onto BH&G’s pages. Here’s an excerpt:

Outer Sanctum: HGTV star Jamie Durie uses unexpected designs to turn the barest backyards into green oases. 

“Once you create an outdoor room, you’ll fall in love with your backyard again,” says Jamie Durie, the star of HGTV’s The Outdoor Room.

A popular designer and TV personality in his native Australia as well as North America, Jamie encourages everyone who has a small patch of earth — or even just a patio or deck– to re-imagine their exterior environment as a functional, eco-friendly living space.

Jamie combines a passion for plants, sustainability, and the outdoors into a zeal for landscaping. He grounds his designs in green practices, using local materials, plants that tolerate the region’s climate, and clever techniques to put plants in almost every imaginable nook and cranny. Hanging planters cover his fences and walls, and pergolas support green roofs. Surrounding yourself with nature this way “can improve your health and inspire positive thinking,” says Jamie, who meditates every morning on the patio outside his bedroom.

Check out Jamie's new book for more tips and ideas.

Recently settled in Los Angeles, Jamie used the same advice he offers clients: Increase living space by creating more rooms outdoors rather than indoors. Instead of enlarging his modest 1950s house, he coaxed his once-ordinary backyard to live larger, with outdoor spaces variously designed for cooking, dining, lounging, and chatting. “Your spaces should accommodate your life,” he says. “Not the other way around.”

 “I have a new outlook when I open the doors,” Jamie says. “This house feels bigger than it is, since the lush garden is part of my home.”

The popular HGTV host and landscape designer shares his ideas, techniques and recent projects in Jamie Durie’s The Outdoor Room (Harper Collins, $25.99), a guidebook to creating beautiful exterior spaces.

My niece Marquis is marrying her sweetheart Rashad next month and Aunt Debby volunteered to design the flowers. Marquis’s color palette is soft yellow and white, which at first I thought would be a little too simple or possibly limiting in the floral options.

However, after we visited our favorite local flower farmers and saw all the wonderful options, I have a new-found love of the color combination.

As partners in a vase or bouquet, yellow and white flowers are simply romantic! Marquis asked that I use more yellow ingredients in her bouquet so it will be more visible against her white dress; the bridesmaids will have more white ingredients in their bouquets – which will show off against their pale yellow dresses. Great idea!

With amazing fresh, seasonal and locally-grown ingredients from Jello Mold Farm, J. Foss Garden Flowers and Oregon Coastal Flowers, I made the samples this week so Marquis could see how the designs would look . . . and to help me figure quantities of stems. Here is a sneak peek – I think they are absolutely summery and joyous, just what you want for a wedding:

Ingredients include: White scabiosa with pale green centers (pincushion flower), two types of white dahlias – ‘Bride-to-Be’ and ‘Little Lamb’; two types of yellow dahlias – ‘Nettie’ and ‘Candlelight’; feverfew (the little white buttons, actually Chrysanthemum parthenium); yellow sprays of solidaster for a soft touch; and variegated scented geranium foliage from my garden. The solidaster is a hybridized cross of a goldenrod (solidago) and aster. So if it’s not still growing next month, we’ll substitute regular goldenrod, which will create the same dreamy affect.

Finally, the centerpieces. We are going to use the same shallow glass Ikea bowls that created the centerpieces for Marquis’s sister’s wedding receiption last spring. But this time, instead of floating orchids and candles, I thought about creating a “nest” out of curly willow around the inside rim. The center will have a stunning floating dahlia, like ‘Snowbound’, the dinner-plate-sized one shown here. And I’ll weave smaller yellow flowers into the willow. Today, I played around with helenium, just to see how it looks.

You know, this floral design focus of mine has been really rewarding, both as a storyteller and garden writer. But there’s one really wonderful surprise that has come out of the four years I’ve spent working with photographer David Perry to document the local, seasonal and sustainable flower movement (see our blog, A Fresh Bouquet, for lots more details).

It has begun to dawn on me that I am a creative individual and I love to design and arrange with cut flowers. And while I am totally self-taught, I am actually good at it. I contend that gardeners are the ideal people to be floral designers. We know the habit, form and life-cycle of the ingredients we use, which is more than one can say for some in the conventional florist world. And so I am ever grateful for the opportunities I am given, like my niece’s upcoming wedding, to move my hands off of this keyboard, pick up a pair of snips – and begin to create.

Dear friends and readers, I’m sure you’ve just about given up on ever seeing an fresh, new blog post, since I nearly allowed the month of July to come and go without writing anything.

July was definitely enriching – my over-filled calendar says so! And yet, I am also exhausted (see my prior post, referencing moving to a new home, garden, and pond). Possessing countless experiences in need of personal review and reflection, I had planned to share the more colorful events here in a single post – a diary of sorts from the past month. Yet, since my just-crashed computer is in hospital, complete with most of my stored photos (my external hard-drive has to be replaced, too!), I don’t have much to show you.

So the July recap will occur in stages. Phase One covers July 5th-6th when I visited a few rural towns outside of Portland, Oregon.

I rode the train from Seattle to Portland on July 4th of all things, and my 4-hour journey was lovely, relaxing, and quiet. What a nice way to skip out on the potential holiday craziness on the freeway. Upon arrival, I rented a car and drove to the hamlet of Boring, Oregon.

My friend Nancy Buley lives there and she let me stay under the eaves of her farmhouse, in a room she calls the “garret,” the window of which overlooks Treephoria, her boutique tree farm.

Nancy is a tree ambassador who works closely with landscape architects and designers to educate and excite them about awesome ornamental varieties grown by J. Frank Schmidt & Son.

As director of communications, she frequently writes and speaks about new tree introductions, landscape design and tree selection/care. I first met Nancy years ago through Garden Writers Association, but our friendship was actually forged during a fun evening in Oklahoma City in 2007, when Sally Ferguson included us both in her small dinner party. That’s often how things go: We may only see one another a few times a year, but the kinship is cemented and immediately recalled whenever we meet.

Nancy treated me to a fabulous visit, including a walk at dusk around her grounds. At Treephoria, she and her son Neil Buley grow specialty trees in small batches. Nancy possesses a keen eye for the uncommon, but she also evaluates trees for their performance in the residential landscape. She defines Treephoria as, “the rapturous feeling or state of being experienced when surrounded by remarkable trees.”

That is indeed how I felt. I didn’t want to leave! In fact, when given the choice of going out to a restaurant for dinner of staying in the garden surrounded by trees with a picnic of leftovers you can guess what I chose to do!

A highlight of our tour-at-dusk was Nancy’s flashlight-led visit to the stone barn behind the rows of trees. This two-story structure was once the headquarters for Compton’s Dahlias, a commercial dahlia bulb farm owned by Nancy’s aunt and uncle. Wooden trays, retro-style packing boxes and other vestiges of the flower farm made me almost wish she could trade trees for dahlias.

The next morning, I set out to meet photographer Laurie Black and her husband Mark King to shoot profiles of two garden artisans for a feature that will run in Country Gardens magazine next year. I’ll give you a peek about those locations in my next July recap post.

We finally settled in a new home last month, transitioning from a house we had rented after moving from LA back to Seattle a year ago.

Last fall, the Real Estate Gods (or possibly the powers of a statue of St. Joseph, buried upside down in our California front yard – our agent Barbara’s insurance policy!) smiled on us. We sold that house after it was on the market for NINE months (!). Then, we kicked off 2011 with the hunt for a new permanent residence in or near our former neighborhood here in Seattle.

Our “hunt” felt futile and endless, that is until Mother’s Day, when we made an offer on a home in Seward Park that felt like everything we could have ever dreamed of. After a day of agonizing back-and-forth, the sellers accepted our offer.

So, more will be written about the beautiful garden and move-in-ready house (yeah! no renovations required!), but for now, I need to discuss the fish pond.

Yes, along with the amazing residence, excellent plants cared for oh-so-lovingly by the former owners, and a peek-a-boo view of Lake Washington, this property has a bonafide water garden. With lots of pretty gold, orange and white fish. Fish that I called “Koi” for nearly a month until I was disavowed of that assumption. Well, to me, they looked like “small” koi. Guess what? I am the proud Mama of 10 (give or take) ornamental goldfish.

Inheriting a pond comes to me in an ironic way. Presently, I am immersed in a writing project – to update Sunset’s Garden Pools, Fountains & Waterfalls. The book was most recently published in 2007, and is in need of refreshing with new photography and text. So as the project’s writer, I’m up to my ears in Water Gardens. But since I have never owned more than a bubbling fountain, um, well, I only know about fish ponds from a theoretical point of view.

“Guess what?,” I wrote to my editor Bridget. “We bought a new house and it has a fish pond!!! How funny is that?”

Owning a fish pond does not immediately translate into knowing how to own and care for fish. But I knew exactly where to go and who to ask for help. In 2002, I had another writing project, to update the 9th edition of an essential regional book called The Northwest Gardener’s Resource Directory. Created and nurtured for more than a decade by the amazing Stephanie Feeney, who passed away in 2000, this book is the Yellow Pages of everything Oregon, Washington & British Columbia gardening enthusiasts need to know.

Oasis Water Gardens is an important entry in the Resource Directory. Founded by Dianne & Bob Torgerson in 1988, this nursery is indeed an OASIS in the middle of an industrial/commercial area just south of downtown Seattle. If you’re in search of water-friendly flora and fauna, here is the place to start!

I knew I had to get my act together after our 2nd week in the new place. Prompted by the fact that I ran out of the stock of fish food left by the sellers, I stopped by Oasis Water Gardens last week and met Dianne. We certainly knew of each other (Seattle’s gardening community is pretty tight) but we had never before met in person. After she made sure I was using the correct food for my fishies, I casually asked: “Dianne, do you ever do in-person consults?”

Yes, of course! And so, Dianne came to see my pond and meet my fish a few days ago. One of the first things she told me is that we have a very sick fish. He has some kind of internal hemorrhaging. She could tell this by the salmon-pink cast to his lovely fins. He also has dark red markings across his nose, thus his new name “Red Nose.”

“All you have to do,” Dianne coached me enthusiastically, ” is use your big net to catch your fish – and bring him into the nursery.”  Our plan unfolded: The following day, I was going to bring our sick fish in a large bucket containing water from the pond to Oasis. Easy, right?

I could NOT have executed this idea without my son Ben’s help. After watching me flail around for a few minutes, he said, “Mom, let me do it.” The trick was first catching Red Nose, and then gently sliding him into the bucket without tearing any of his ruffled tail fins. Stress-FULL!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_wu7BW0y_8

Fish in bucket, bucket wedged behind the passenger’s seat of my Subaru, and a verrrrrry careful drive about 5-miles away to Oasis. Dianne had readied a “quarantine” pond in her greenhouse for Red Nose. He will live there for a couple of weeks while receiving antibiotics. The reason he has to be isolated is that the anti-Bs are placed into the pond water – so we don’t want every fish in our pond to receive those doses.

Dianne sent me home with all the stuff I need to get on top of pond ownership, including: pH test kits, ammonia test kits, nitrite test kits, bacteria additive (the good kind – for the biofilter); and a parasite treatment (she noticed that one of our brilliant orange fish had scratches on his side – indicating that he was itching himself against a rock, which is a giveaway that he has some kind of parasite).

Ben also lent his muscle to helping me wrangle the huge roll of 2-inch thick mesh out of the biofilter so I could hose it off and re-install it. I only have to do that level of cleaning every 6 to 8 weeks, but I think next time I’ll wear my rainproof overalls. It is a big, wet, messy project.

Yesterday, after taking the pH, ammonia and nitrite readings; after cleaning the biofilter, and after treating the pond for parasites, I unwrapped all my beautiful blown-glass floats and placed them among the waterlilies to add sparkle to the pond. What I first considered a huge hassle is going to turn into a daily dose of serenity – there’s something quite restful about watching the water flow into the pond and catching the flash of orange fish bodies dashing to and fro.

Oasis Water Gardens is an amazing resource for fish (Koi and goldfish) owners, pond and pool owners, people who have decorative fountains, and people who wish to add water plants to container gardens. Here are some photos from the nursery to give you an idea of the variety I found there:

Recently, Andrew Buchanan, a photographer friend and former Seattle Post-Intelligencer colleague, told me that Slides.com is the best value for scanning 35mm slides into digital files. It costs about $1.00 per slide, which is a good bargain compared with $2.50 per slide that local labs charge. 

As an experiment, I sent 44 cardboard- and plastic-framed slides that have resided for years in a Kodak carousel tray to Slides.com to see what they could do.

Kay at Slides.com emailed the files to me today – just in time for tomorrow’s lecture.  As it turns out, the digitals seem crisper and brighter than the originals…and they can be manipulated, cropped and re-sized. Pretty handy! 

Happily, my talk’s opening slides look great. And they are very sweet. The little boy you see above as a baby and at left as a bored toddler who I dragged to a container plant trial is now 14 years old, about to begin High School in the fall. Time certainly flies – in the garden . . . and with children!