I wrote about Los Angeles’s gardens-in-the-sky in 2007, so when my chef-photographer friend Rico Mandel told me about a rooftop vegetable and herb garden that fellow chef Jonathan McDowell had been cultivating, I was excited to learn more. And to see it!

We grabbed a Starbucks and hopped on the freeway a few days ago to drive to downtown Los Angeles. On the way, I told Rico about an article I had just read in the January 2009 issue of Growing for Market, a journal for local food and flower producers. It was written by Marc Boucher-Colbert, a Portland sustainable farmer who created Rocket Restaurant’s rooftop garden with table-high steel planting troughs and 39 lightweight “kiddie” wading pools.

“Kiddie pools – how do you like that?” I asked Rico. “That’s cheap, lightweight and clever, isn’t it?” He silently chuckled to himself. Later, I understood why. Because what Jonathan had to show us was as far from a plastic wading pool as you could get.

Blue Velvet restaurant occupies the ground floor of a 10-story, 1960s-looking (but new) apartment building – all horizontal lines and clean facade. Jonathan met us in the parking lot and took us up the elevator to the top floor; we climbed a flight of stairs and emerged onto the roof.

Rico hinted about the totally unusual, sculptural design that contains Blue Velvet’s edible crop, but there was no way I could have envisioned the fluid, galvanized metal, Frank Gehryesque installation in front of me. What the . . . ?

Turns out, this creation was fabricated on site to mold up and across a bleacher-like frame that hides HVAC units and other commercial rooftop paraphernalia.

It begins as a 10-foot vertical installation of long, horizontal channels – stacked almost like a wall of roof gutters. Many of the sections are planted with trailing rosemary. We marveled at the metal material. Even though Rico and I visited on a dreary, cool day in June, there’s no denying Southern California’s heat and sun effect. “Oh, well, this wall is north-facing, so at least it’s away from the most intense heat,” I commented.

“Wait until you see the rest of the roof,” Jonathan promised.

We walked a few yards across the roof, following that vertical wall of herbs, and I noticed how this “metal farm” took on kinetic qualities, wrapping over and around the “stuff” on the roof (and in the process, facing due south!).

To get an idea of how this scheme looks in person, take a sheet of paper from your printer and fold it back and forth every 1/2-inch or so. This is how we made paper “fans” when we were kids. Open up the paper slightly so there are V-shaped pleats. Now, imagine translating that texture to sheet metal. The V-shapes create long planting channels, about 4- to 8-inches at the deepest point. Sections of the metal, welded together every 18-20 inches or so, take form, twisting, bending and turning as a beautiful sculpture.

But for all practicality, in responding to this design as a gardener, I have to admit that a million questions flooded my mind. How can tender herbs, greens and vegetables handle this sun-baked, roots-against-metal, rooftop condition, especially in July and August when it is ugly-hot? Moreover, where was the irrigation?

Jonathan, who just completed a four-year stint at Blue Velvet (two years as sous-chef and two years as head chef), looked at me and shrugged. Although he wasn’t involved in the design of the “garden,” Jonathan was tasked with figuring out how to grow plants in it. That has meant filling those pockets and grooves with soil and planting veggies in an artful way. There’s no denying this is an evocative design. “It pleases the eye,” Chef Jonathan acknowledges. “It has attracted a lot of attention.”

But – duh. Every square inch of this garden has to be hand-watered.

“In L.A.’s restaurant gardens, freshness is grown to order,” a May 20th Los Angeles Times Food article, Betty Hallock featured Blue Velvet’s rooftop garden, quoting its designer, architect Alexis Rochas: “The point was to experiment with how to turn infertile ground into a fertile one,” he said.

That’s an admirable goal. But the experiment has revealed that plants here don’t thrive against metal, and the absence of drip irrigation – that could direct moisture straight to root zones – is a negative. I’m worried that those hand-watering duties will likely be neglected when the guys in the kitchen get super busy!

Metromix Los Angeles recently featured “rooftop gardens” in a trend report by Krista Simmons. She included Blue Velvet’s in-the-sky garden, calling it “a sweeping silver flatbed . . . strikingly similar to the Walt Disney Concert Hall.” Simmons points out that the garden doesn’t generate enough to sustain the restaurant, but adds: “. . . McDowell does use the produce for tasting menus, amuse bouches and specialty holiday events.”

I applaud the rooftop restaurant garden. It’s a great vehicle to bring the “seasonal, sustainable and local” concept from garden to plate. To succeed, however, Blue Velvet needs a retrofit. Maybe getting an irrigation specialist up to that rooftop will help. Ask a professional market farmer or gardener to consult on how to better grow and sustain these poor little plants – they looked pretty stressed out! After all, part of the sustainable equation is to work with nature and create a supportive growing environment so that plants are productive and bountiful.

More reading: INHABIT, a design blog

Green walls are the hot, new, must-have landscape design element. The Europeans were the first to figure out how to engineer large-scale planted walls, inspiring some innovative American designers to follow with their own twist. From my research, most are here on the West Coast, natch.

My friend Flora Grubb in San Francisco has received quite a bit of press for her avant-garde planted wall tapestries that incorporate everything from succulents to air plants (Tillandsias). 

And recently, the Los Angeles Times featured green wall designs using edibles (by Go Green Gardeners’ Anne Phillips) and California native plants + succulents embedded with LED lighting (by L.A. artist Michel Horvat).

HOW DID THIS TREND GET STARTED?

Garden writers have been describing “vertical elements” in the landscape for years. Traditionally, this idea involved arbors, trellises, fences and other structures upon which vines and climbing plants are trained. An explosion of interest in “green” planted roofs – including here in Los Angeles – followed. Pamela Berstler and Marliee Kuhlmann, two cool LA designers, create planted succulent “sky-scapes” for their clients’ garden roofs. I’ve seen, touched, and admired their work – and I can tell you, a lush, foliage-strewn roof is a lot more snazzy (and eco-smart) than tile, composite or tar!

But privately, some designers have confided to me their concern about liability issues involved in engineering green roofs. Even when I wrote on this topic for the Los Angeles Times in 2007, the experts I quoted cautioned that roof structures should be designed with load-bearing supports to manage soil/planting medium, handling moisture, and just the sheer weight of plants.

So, it’s only natural that the planted wall is the next installment of “plants-as-architecture” – a trend that seems more achievable than a green roof. I love seeing how designers are “going vertical” with a planted foliage palette.

THE WALL AS A PLANTING CANVAS

One of my favorite designers, Seattle-based Carina Langstraat (who runs Langstraat-Wood Landscape Architecture & Design with her landscape architect partner Erik Wood), has recently engineered a 4-foot by 5-foot green wall prototype at her Ballard studio. She shared with me photos and tips on how she created the system. It’s exciting to think about the possibilities, whether you’re willing to play around with this concept on your own or if you want to hire a professional.

READ MORE…

I only check my P.O. Box once every week or two, usually to find a lone press kit or alumni association mailing. Rarely does any personally-written correspondence show up.

Then a few weeks ago there was an envelope. The return address read “ARTISAN SHEDS.” Well, that certainly warranted opening! I opened it up to find a four-page, lovely hand-written letter from Lynn Weber.

Lynn is the owner and architectural designer of Artisan Sheds (the company’s tagline is alluring: “A collection of custom outbuildings to suit your lifestyle.“) She designs the small outdoor dwellings; her husband, Michael Weber builds them.

Artisan Sheds and Lynn’s personal story get filed under my ever-growing category: “The ones that got away.”

They are on my list of great shedistas who have come to me, each with an unique point of view, a personal narrative as to what inspired them to create a P-O-D (personal outdoor dwelling) and, of course, a fabulous little structure that I wish with all my heart that we would have discovered in time to include in Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways! Several days after reading her charming note, I called Lynn. We enjoyed a friendly chat, swapping ideas and stories over the line, three time zones away from one another.

Since she and her sheds are in North Collins, N.Y. (about 30 minutes south of Buffalo), I won’t be able to personally visit the Weber family’s garden showroom – yet. But I can share their story here with you. Lynn gave me permission to use excerpts from her letter. The photographs are courtesy of Artisan Sheds.

Hello Debra,

Late last summer, while browsing the web, I came upon your Shedstyle web site. I ended up reading about and purchasing your book, “Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways.” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Here was someone writing about something that had been an interest of mine for so long and who clearly had the same philosophy as I – the importance of an aesthetically pleasing building that one could call a place of their own; a place to escape to. Since my childhood, I’ve had a fascination with little outbuildings. . . Your book . . . convinces me, more than ever, how important in our hectic times a place to retreat to is.

Lynn continued by sharing her story. Originally, she planned on converting the second level of her barn-style garage into an art studio-home office-gathering place. Then she saw a few magazine articles featuring re-purposed potting sheds and something took hold in her imagination:

“. . . my thinking shifted from renovating the barn to the idea of designing and building a smaller, separate structure.”

Soon, Lynn was entertaining the notion of starting a cottage industry to create, build and share her shed designs with others.  “With my education and background as an artist and designer, and my husband’s craftsmanship in building, I knew we could turn out some incredible things,” she wrote.

Lynn and Michael spent an entire summer on the first prototype of a potting shed, a 12-by-12 foot structure . “We moved it to a spot near the roadside and put up a sign: ARTISAN SHEDS. We had a great response from the public,” Lynn continued. “People honked their horns and shouted out compliments and gave us ‘thumbs up’ as they drove by. Apparently, they had been watching our construction progress all summer and were just as excited to see us finish as we were.”

Like many of the very special havens we profiled in Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways, the ones designed by Artisan Sheds provide small-scale backyard shelter. But they also nurture one’s spirit, inspire the inner artist, and encourage the dreamer in all.

Lynne wrote this text for her brochure – it strikes a chord in my heart: “Experience the charm of a guest cottage complete with a platform bed, storage drawers and bookshelves; or a lakeside house for boating equipment that doubles as a beautiful summer bunkhouse. Perhaps an artist’s or writer’s studio with upright storage for canvases, a sink for brushes, or a desk area for your office equipment, comfortable chairs and a built in coffee bar. The choices are almost endless.”

READ MORE…

My “In the Garden” column for 805 Living’s May issue is all about great gardening books to give Mom (or keep for your own shelves).

Grow your garden library: Just like plants, you can never have too many books that inspire and intrigue

By Debra Prinzing

I was on the East Coast recently to lecture at the Philadelphia Flower Show. While sharing gossip and a glass of chardonnay with my NYC-based literary agent, Sarah Jane Freymann, conversation turned to the sorry state of book publishing.

“When I give a gift,” she proclaimed in her always-alluring British accent, “I only buy books.” Her singular gesture of thoughtfully choosing, buying and giving a book (rather than an impersonal gift card) might be an important element of the reading person’s economic stimulus package.

Books, especially when they are hand-picked for the reader, convey as much about the giver as the recipient.

For my birthday, my writing mentor, Paula Panich, recently gave me American Writers at Home, by J.D. McClatchy, a fitting tome for a journalist who covers architecture, interiors and the garden – all aspects of the home. When Britt Olson, my best friend from high school, recently wed, she spent hours at the book store, choosing just the right hard-bound volume for each of her attendants. For me, she selected Barbara Kingsolver’s lovely memoir of a year growing her own food, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which fed my spirit and mind alike.

If you’re like me, you can “read” a person by observing the titles that fill her bookcase. So here’s a peek at what’s on my bedside table (a new crop of gardening books). Whether for Mother’s Day, a friend’s birthday, or just for your own pleasure, give the gift of a book. As the author of five books, I thank you.

A Rose by Any Name

By Douglas Brenner and Stephen Scanniello [Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009, 320 pp., $19.95]

I met Stephen Scanniello, president of the Heritage Rose Foundation, in a Chicago radio studio several years ago. We enjoyed our banter with the host of a garden show, but the conversation continued well after the gig was over. His favorite subject? Roses. Scanniello lives, breathes, and designs gardens with roses. Not those scentless, thornless pageant variety roses, but ones with  storied pasts and interesting pedigrees. He teamed up with co-author Douglas Brenner, a former Martha Stewart Living garden editor, to document the origins, history, and lore of more than 1,200 rose names.

Their enchanting narrative follows the trials and tribulations of this beloved flower through the centuries to modern time. The rose has been entangled in love, war, politics, show business, fashion, sports and even automobiles (yes, the ruby-red ‘Chrysler Imperial’ rose was bred in the 1950s, right here in California).

A Rose by Any Name features all sorts of facts and anecdotes about the world’s most popular flower. There is even a chapter devoted to celebrity-named roses, including ‘Barbra Streisand’, a glamorous purple-blushed lavender rose that the star selected from a field of potential candidates. Even we nobodies can have a personalized flower. “As with vanity license plates, anybody can have his or her name officially conferred upon a rose,” the authors write. “All it takes is a phone call and a big check.”

Designer Plant Combinations

By Scott Calhoun [Storey Publishing, 2008, 240 pp., $18.95]

I’m a sucker for artful color combos,and I can often be found playing with paint-chip samples at the hardware store or mixing and matching blooming plants at the nursery. But here’s a guide that color-dreams for me. Designer Plant Combinations features inspiring techniques the pros use to pair color, texture, scale and form in the garden.

Tucson-based garden designer and book author Scott Calhoun is easy to envy for his writing and photography talents. Except that since he’s so likeable and engaging, I end up hungrily waiting for the next installment of his thoughts and images that appear in book form. And this vibrant guide doesn’t disappoint. Calhoun crisscrossed the country visiting the best residential and public landscapes to study and photograph stunning plant vignettes. Each of the 105 design schemes include six plants or less, which will inspire both designers and non-designers in their garden-making efforts. Detailed plant lists and photographs show you how to replicate the ideas in your own garden.

The book’s oh-so-alluring imagery is more than just eye candy, though. Calhoun explains why these perennials, ornamental grasses, annuals, ground covers, woody plants and dramatic accent plants are hardworking ingredients of successful garden design (look for useful designer tips, such as “when using one color, use different textures”).

A consummate plantsman, Calhoun is convinced that non-plant elements are crowding his beloved specimens out of the landscape. He writes, ” . . . good plant combinations are a little like the stanzas of a poem. That is, like the stanza, they are not trying to be a whole garden but a self-contained little part of one.” Whether bold or subdued, the groupings you’ll find here will give your garden personality and elevate it to something more than ordinary.

The New Terrarium

By Tovah Martin (photography by Kindra Clineff) [Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2009, 176 pp., $25.00]

Devoted subscribers of the original Victoria magazine know the work of garden writer Tovah Martin. In her stories, Tovah brings a sense of wonderment to each of her subjects, be they gardens, gardeners or the plants they love.

Likewise, her latest project, The New Terrarium, is a magical tome filled with small, planted scenes, diminutive landscapes, twee still-lifes and dwarf collections – all under glass. This dreamy book is captured on film by photographer Kindra Clineff.

The New Terrarium pays homage to the conservatory gardens of the Victorian era, as they were the first to perfect the art of gardening under glass. According to Martin, in today’s go-go, hard-to-find-time to garden world, the terrarium may be the best way to bring something from nature into your life. “A terrarium is any transparent confine that allows you to nurture the elements of the green world,” Martin writes. “[It] is truly a small world . . . a mini-environment that provides an atmosphere of elevated humidity for all the botanical contents it embraces.”

This idea is appealing – and relatively simple to do yourself. Martin presents an array of cool glass containers suitable for planting: Traditional cloches, “Wardian” cases (miniature glass greenhouses), hurricane lamps, recycled aquariums, vases and repurposed glass domes typically used to cover cakes or cheese platters. What to grow under these unique vessels? Martin provides a comprehensive plant encyclopedia, including orchids, ferns, heucheras, begonias, mosses, African violets, bromeliads, ivies, ornamental grasses, and more.

This writer’s enthusiasm for gardening under glass inspired me to buy a small potted fern and contain it under a cloche (also called a bell jar). Living in its charming covered world, the fern, I think, will be happy. And I know I will be, too.

Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love

By Julie Moir Messervy [The Taunton Press, 2009, 240 pp., $30]

Julie Moir Messervy is an amazing landscape designer, author and teacher who teamed up with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma to create the Toronto Music Garden, and with architect Sarah Susanka to co-write Outside the Not So Big House.

In her new book, Messervy asks, “Why do we spend the bulk of our resources on the inside of our house, while settling for so little on the outside?” In response, she walks readers through the process of turning any property into the “home outside” they’ve always dreamed of. If, like her, you believe that the nurturing nest, the place called home, begins at the edge of your property and encompasses everything within its boundaries (the porch, the patio, the lawn where your children play – even the pathways, edges and corners), then Messervy’s book is the ideal reference to inform and inspire your design decisions. If you haven’t thought of the landscape in this way, her design approach is the perfect starting point. It will equip you with both basics and intricacies necessary to create a personal outdoor space that feeds the eyes and the spirit.

Bursting with instructive illustrations and before-and-after photographs of do-it-yourself gardens, Home Outside helps you see a property the way a landscape designer views it. Messervy breaks down the design process into manageable pieces. Take her “Designer’s Personality Test” and learn more about your style of garden-making. After completing the quiz, I discovered that I’m more expressive (versus reserved) and more relaxed (instead of orderly).

Our Life in Gardens

By Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd [Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009, 322 pp., $30]

My aforementioned agent, Sarah Jane, has a saying about what makes a good cookbook. “It must transcend the recipes,” she posits. In other words, we can now find recipes anywhere – in magazines, on the web, in grandmother’s dog-eared “Joy of Cooking.” But what makes a great cookbook resonate is the way it touches our universal relationship with food.

Similarly, Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd, Vermont-based garden designers and authors, transcend the typical gardening book in Our Life in Gardens. Their collection of nearly 50 essays (arranged logically from Agapanthus to Xanthorrhoea quadrangulata) is so engaging, so gratifying to read, that you truly forget it came from the section of a bookstore otherwise filled with “how-to” titles. There is a lot to learn from these celebrated designers, but I think the lesson is more about observing and cherishing everyday life in the garden than about how to grow delicious peas.

For example, in “Pea Season,” a chapter illustrated with one of Bobbi Angell’s charming plant drawings, Eck and Winterrowd philosophize on the rewards a gardener receives outside of the vegetable plot. The chapter opens with these lines: “No one can say that a gardening life is rich in leisured holidays, but a gardener’s rewards are festivals, big and small, though we make little distinction there, for they are all wonderful. There are other activities in which effort and labor are so certainly followed by achievement and celebration, and anyone who takes an active hand in shaping life must know equal causes for joy. We know only our life, which is largely one of gardening.”

Written with passion and honesty, this book is a keeper. Buy two copies. One to delight in yourself and the other to share with someone who needs to be lured outdoors.

Today – May 2nd – is the 16th annual Venice Garden and Home Tour, which is a hip, happenin’ kind of tour serving up no fewer than 30 properties. For $70-per-ticket, that averages about $2.50 per garden, so when you look at it that way, it’s well priced. Plus, who can argue with the deserving beneficiaries? Children! The tour raises funds for the Neighborhood Youth Association of Venice, which operates Las Doradas Children’s Center, a licensed childcare facility that serves working families.

Along with tour producer Barbara Baumann and co-chair Adri Butler, I previewed several of the properties a few weeks ago and wrote about four of them for today’s Los Angeles Times.  Due to s-p-a-c-e limitations (surprise!), there is only room for one mini-feature in the print edition. You have to go to the online gallery to get a peek at how the staff photographers captured the three other gardens.

Here are the four gardens we profiled, complete with my original story about each. Take a virtual tour and enjoy a slice of one of the most eclectic spots in Los Angeles.

Get the Venice vibe and borrow these easy design ideas for your interior and exterior spaces

A colorful compound on one of Venice's unusual canal streets

By Debra Prinzing

For all the glossy magazine articles and garden-makeover shows we consume, there’s nothing like a day of garden sight-seeing to inspire the inner-landscaper in all of us.

Featuring nearly 30 properties, today’s legendary Venice Garden & Home Tour is sure to ignite your imagination – and dish up dozens of adaptable ideas for your own yard.

Don’t go empty-handed, though. Bring a camera to capture a cool architectural detail or alluring bloom, a notebook and pencil for jotting down plant names or design resources, and plenty of curiosity. In many of the gardens, owners and designers will be on hand to answer questions and share tips. Consider it affordable design research. Plus, nothing’s more fun than cruising along the canals, walks and side streets of one of L.A.’s most iconic neighborhoods.

We previewed several of the tour’s vintage cottages and sleek cubes (and the gardens, decks and balconies that surround them). Here’s a look at four favorites, including design tips from each.

 Accessorize your garden with salvaged signage

A generous and genial host, Orson Bean

Orson Bean, a veteran actor and longtime resident of Venice’s canal district, has a thing for Americana, especially signage “folk art.” “It’s really just pop culture,” he says. “Advertising has always been part show biz.”

Oversized and retro, Bean’s restaurant and retail signs are well suited for the endless scale of blue sky and sunshine overhead. Their very presence in his garden brings out the storyteller in Bean.

There’s the tale of the neon billboard that’s mounted against a ficus-covered fence in the garden he shares with his wife, actress Alley Mills.

“It’s from the ‘Simple Simon’ rhyme, but it was also the logo for Howard Johnson’s restaurants,” Bean points out. “That sign was as identified as the McDonald’s arches.” Rendered in carnival-colored neon tubes, the once-ubiquitous image of a baker, a boy and his dog promised coffee and a slice of pie to drivers along the Jersey Turnpike.

Orson and Alley's vintage Howard Johnson's sign embellishes a corner of their Venice garden

The neon Ho-Jo is one of several pieces Bean has collected as garden art. He likes the way they personalize the shallow-but-wide landscape, which was created by combining three adjacent cottages and their yards over the years, beginning when he spent $113,000 for the first one in the early 1970s.

Another sign promises “Cash for Cars” and it, too lights up at night. Tucked next to a camellia shrub, a third, its faded paint beginning to chip, advertises a sheet metal shop in the hands of a cartoonish man.

There is a down side to having neon tubes so close to the lawn, where Bean’s seven grandchildren often play ball. Fortunately, he has been able to replace or repair occasional damage. “Only the chef’s hat is original,” Bean says.

Infuse the sound of bubbling water in a few square feet

Barbara Balaban's tiny fountain with broken pottery mosaic trim

There’s not a lot of room in her 20-by-20 foot front yard but Barbara Balaban has maximized every square inch. Instead of a space-gobbling fountain, she created a tiny one, wedged between the walkway and the front steps. The 18-inch water feature uses a re-circulating pump bought at a home center. “I filled the top with river rocks and surrounded the fountain with a border of broken pottery,” says the interior designer and contractor. “I just wanted the sound of water here.”

Balaban moved to her canal cottage after fleeing a traditional Sherman Oaks house destroyed by the 1994 earthquake. Her Venice garden incorporates mosaics of broken pottery salvaged from that disaster: the fountain, a freestanding barbecue-cooking counter and a “welcome mat” at the front gate. “I reconstituted my grandmothers’ and mother’s dishes – and it gives me a big smile to see each piece,” Balaban says.

Tiny and efficient, Barbara's U-shaped eating nook seats six

During a home renovation, she retained the original footprint rather than expanding. “I kept the depth of the property the same because I wanted the garden,” she says. Studio City designers Carol Plotkin and Janet Hoskins helped Balaban rethink the miniscule landscape and incorporate a slim border filled with succulents, Mediterranean plants and whimsical art.

There’s a large glass table (on wheels) that accommodates the parties Balaban and her partner, artist Yaacov Aloni frequently throw. But when they want a quiet Sunday morning brunch, the couple lounges in a U-shaped eating nook installed in a corner of the front porch. “It’s like having a little sofa outdoors,” Balaban says. “We can sit here and be a little secluded from passersby.”

Pave the indoor and outdoor spaces with the same flooring material

Lenny Steinberg's tiled, open-air terrace overlooks the Pacific Ocean

A floor covered in sultry blue-green stone leads your eyes through the soaring, loft-like space, through a 17-foot opening in a retractable glass wall and beyond the outdoor terrace, until they rest on the endless seascape.

“The stones reflect the constant color of the ocean,” say owner Lenny Steinberg of her North Carolina bluestone floor. “Although that seems to change according to the light.”

When Steinberg, a furniture and architectural designer, renovated the former duplex into a single, über-contemporary home on Ocean Front Walk, she wanted to bring the ocean indoors. She inherited a palette of irregular-shaped bluestone after a friend’s patio project fell through.

Lenny designed her chaises with distressed wood and modern lines - perfect for the rooftop garden

“It was the perfect solution for my floor, although I ended up calling all over North Carolina to get more of it,” Steinberg says. Even though the material, a hard slate, is usually installed randomly, the designer spent hours choosing the position of each stone to create a subtle pattern. “I like to think of it as a river running out to the sea,” she says.

The sea metaphor (and the bluestone) continues on the floor of the small, angled terrace that Steinberg designed to cantilever beyond the glass wall. The space serves as the intimate outdoor living room, with views of the palm trees, walkway and pier. The dark teal stone has endured intense sun and saltwater beautifully, says its owner. “If it has any nicks, I just take a little steel wool to it,” Steinberg says. “I wish everything else was as durable.”

 Practice sustainable design by recycling found objects and allowing the garden to evolve over time (rushing is not allowed here)

Tim Rudnick rings his hanging cymbal-as-doorbell

Stepping through the opening in the ivy-clad fence surrounding Tim and Robin Rudnick’s home and garden, it’s possible to lose all track of time. In fact, it seems as if Tim Rudnick, an architectural designer and artist, has turned back the clock to an earlier Venice. “I like the old, tattered hippy cottage that we lived in and raised our kids – where everyone hung out on the old porch,” he says.

Circa 1913, the summer bungalow originally faced Venice’s Aldebaran Canal (now Market Street). The Rudnicks purchased it in 1984, subsequently modernizing the interior and adding an L-shaped Arts-and-Crafts style addition. The old and new portions of the family compound now embrace an intentionally tangled and untamed landscape, also of Rudnick’s design.

“I had this beautiful photograph of a Buddhist garden in Japan and I imagined our yard by looking at it,” Rudnick says. “I loved the idea that like a Japanese garden, you feel like you’re entering another world when you go through the gate.”

Lush and semi-wild, the Venice garden of Tim and Robin Rudnick

A naturalistic pond, measuring about 25-feet across, occupies the center of the garden. Rudnick used the excavated dirt to build a mounded knoll between the pond and a wraparound deck. He landscaped the water’s edge with heirloom irises once grown by his mother, native Pacific coast irises and ferns.

Several mature trees, planted as seedlings nearly 40 years ago, now tower above the rooftops: a coral tree, an olive, and four eucalyptuses. “The leafy trees give us the feeling of real separation,” he says.

Visitors announce their arrival by striking a mallet on two bronze disks, suspended from the twining branches of the coral tree. Rudnick made one from the base of a salvaged clothing store fixture; the other is a recycled cymbal. He prefers their music to a regular doorbell: “One has a very resonant sound and it goes on for 15 minutes; the other makes a beautiful, contrasting sound.”

 

 

I love it when I receive surprise “Shed-Mail” from Shedistas like Suzanne St. Pierre. Suzanne and her husband Scotty Thompson own Living in the Garden, a cool nursery/emporium in Pullman, Washington. We’ve swapped a few emails, originally prompted by Suzanne’s note saying she loves Stylish Sheds as much as I do.

Recently, while planning their own version of a spring flower show, Suzanne and Scotty recycled an old cedar outhouse from their 2-acre property and tricked it out to be a too-cute cottage for their nursery. She sent me a sweet note and some photos and gave me permission to share them with you.

Hello, inspired by your Stylish Shed book, my husband and I jazzed up an old outhouse we had on the property (to use) for a focal point in our Sweet on Spring event at Living in the Garden. It was a hit!! I wanted to thank you for the inspiration and tell you that I enjoy your blog.

I just caught up with Suzanne by phone and we had a good ol’ gab. It felt like I was talking with a long-lost friend. She described how this little structure found its way from humble to haute:

Originally, the cedar “box” was an outhouse over a pit toilet. The couple actually used it while living in their tiny “sugar shack” when they moved to the two-acre property about six years ago. After they built their residence and started running the nursery, they had a “real” indoor bathroom, so the 3-by-3 foot outhouse was no longer needed. “We filled in the pit and just moved the building around,” she says.

When preparing for Living in the Garden’s “Sweet on Spring” event last month, they decided to create several indoor garden displays (it’s still pretty chilly out there on the Palouse in March). As Suzanne explains, “We wanted to create our homage to the Northwest Flower & Garden Show.”

Once she and Scotty decided to dress up the rustic outhouse, the creativity exploded. Suzanne told Scotty: “We have to use everything we already have on hand.”

Like most artist-builders (Scotty is “incredibly handy and artistic”), the couple has all sorts of project piles and cool materials had saved for future endeavors. Clearly, they love to re-purpose what others might toss into the landfill.

This detailed photo illustrates how they used flattened tin cans, layered like gingerbread shingles, to clad the upper portion of the structure. Scotty added a window and the arched doorway, plus the cool corbel-style brackets and scallop-trim fascia board around the shed roof.  It even has a skylight! I’m dying to see an indoor shot (maybe Suzanne will send it to add here!) because apparently she decoupaged the interior walls with pages from old gardening books someone had given them. I guess Suzanne broke her own rule about using on-hand materials when it came to paint. She confesses that she did actually buy the hot pink paint as a finishing detail. Fancy!

I love this couple’s philosophy of truly LIVING IN THE GARDEN. Suzanne grew up in a family nursery and purchased and ran her parents’ former nursery for 12 years after graduating from college with a horticulture degree.

“But I burned out. I was never getting my hands dirty,” she confides. Several years (and a career in the wholesale plant trade) later, Suzanne realized how much she missed retail. “I just wrote on a piece of paper what the perfect job would be: Work from home. Work with Scotty. Work 4 months of the year for 4 days a week.”

Wow. How seldom do any of us have such an honest conversation with ourselves? Guess what? For the past six years, Suzanne and Scotty have been doing exactly what she wrote down on that page. “My commute to work is just 113 steps,” she jokes. “We’re working on our farm and making people come to us. It’s really wonderful.”

Living in the Garden is open from March through June (Thursdays through Sundays). Earlier in the season, beginning in February, Suzanne starts work in their production greenhouse, growing geraniums and plants for their own hanging baskets. By summer, the couple is off on trips in their camping van (complete with solar panels on the roof!) and touring around the Northwest and beyond to see other nurseries and commercial greenhouses.

They believe in “marketing with a cause,” so during the summer months Suzanne and Scotty encourage local charities to use their extensive and beautiful display gardens for fund-raisers or donor-appreciation events.

By September, just about the time Suzanne is “missing” her customers, Living in the Garden opens for one spectacular autumn weekend.

When you arrive, don’t be surprised to hear the mellow sounds of Gregorian chants drifting through the garden and conservatory. “Gardening is my religion,” Suzanne concludes.

Check out the nursery in person or read more at Suzanne’s blog, Living in the Gardens.

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Cindy Dole is LA’s home improvement and design go-to gal on the AM dial. You can hear her “Home Wizards” show each Saturday morning for a full hour on KRLA 870-AM. Cindy chooses all of her music openers and transitions – each number is whimsical and creative. The morning I appeared, she opened the show with the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song “Our house is a very, very, very fine house . . . .” – A perfect segue into a conversation about home, haven, design and interiors.

Cindy invited me to be a guest on last Saturday’s show to talk all about my favorite subject: personal backyard escapes (aka SHEDS).  We’d been waiting several weeks to do the program, mainly because at this time of year I have too many Saturday lectures or trips. What a treat to finally arrive at her studio in Glendale early last week and meet Cindy in person. She is vivacious and knowledgeable, serving as both executive producer and host of her long-running show.

We found an instant rapport, along with my fellow studio guest, a Los Angeles floral and garden designer George Woods. George and his partner and wife Evonne Woods own The Woods Exquisite Flowers in Culver City.

When Cindy introduced my segment, she promised that we’d talk about “Man Caves” and “Gal Palaces.” I’ve heard lots about the man-cave movement, both here in the U.S. and also in the U.K. But I really love the gal-palace correlary. Looking forward to using those distinctions in my upcoming talks – it’s often not too hard to tell the difference between the styles.

If you want to listen to the interview, Cindy has it posted on her web site in two parts, about 15 minutes total. Enjoy and let me know what you think! Part One and Part Two.

When I saw George Woods’ beautiful floral arrangement that he and Evonne brought to the studio, I knew they were kindred spirits – people who appreciate flowers in season and who are far from traditional in their design approach.

Displayed in a low, square glass vase, combining a palette of greens and vibrant oranges, reds, and purples, George’s design drew from a wonderful mix of flowers and foliage. 

His fresh, new “happy” spring green came mostly from a surprise ingredient: ephemeral Maidenhair Ferns; plus, Algerian variegated ivy, pale green viburnums and hydrangea blooms. Parrot tulips, ranunculus, roses, anemones and some pretty awesome dark purple and fuchsia-colored sweet peas comprised the brighter hues. So breathtaking. Plus, all the stems of these cut flowers and foliage were hidden in a woven “nest” of just-sprouting willow that George used to line the vase.

A lucky listener won the arrangement, but I certainly lusted after it, too. I can’t wait to see what else George has designed (he promised to take me to a certain garden on a Malibu hillside very soon!).

I’ve just returned from spending three days at the fabulous-but-possibly-final Northwest Flower & Garden Show in Seattle where I saw many, many gardening friends, hung out with my Hortus Posse pals and enjoyed a week of Seattle Sunshine (Seriously, folks. It was raining in Burbank when we flew outta here on Feb. 16th and sunny when we landed in Seattle!).

Of course, I was preaching the message of Stylish Sheds, and I’m happy to say, my “Shedar” (that’s like Radar, but it’s my own version of being alert to shed-spotting all around me) zoomed in on several fantastic garden structures, sheds, arbors, pavilions, shelters and enclosures.

It seemed as if every display garden at the show featured a fanciful structure in the garden. That goes to show you how important it is to design with not just plants, but architecture in mind.

Bill Wright, my collaborator on Stylish Sheds, and I kicked off the week with a Tuesday lecture for his peers in the Seattle chapter of American Society of Media Photographers. We participated in “The Odyssey of a Book,” a panel with two other book-savvy photographers, Dick Busher, of Cosgrove Editions, and Rosanne Olson, creator of a beautiful new book called “this is who I am — our beauty in all shapes and sizes”. The audience included fellow photographers, some of whom are also members of Garden Writers Association (David Perry, Mark Turner), friends Marcia Gamble Hadley and writer Robyn Cannon, as well as my former cohort from Seattle Post-Intelligencer days, Steve Shelton (what a treat to see him in the audience!). While we writers were definitely in the minority in the crowded room at Seattle Central Community College’s photography studio, it was a great experience talking books with kindred spirits.

On Wednesday, I took a tour through the Flower Show and snapped a bevy of shots to document the veritable bevy of sheds and shed-like structures featured in the show (see below). I was particularly gratified to see two Modern Shed structures by the talented Ryan Grey Smith and his team. Ryan adapted his awesome prefabricated shed architecture for two display gardens, including Michael Hancock’s “Serene Scapes” garden and Tony Fajarillo’s “Collaborating with Nature” garden.

On Thursday, I was back on my soapbox, speaking about backyard architecture in “Your Personal Escape,” my lecture illustrated by many of Bill’s awesome photos from our book. Bill joined me for a booksigning afterwards and we’re pleased to say that University Bookstore sold out of copies of Stylish Sheds. Hopefully, they’ll order MORE books next time!

The week went by way too quickly, but upon reflection, it was a perfect moment in time; a perfect experience to savor for months to come.  I’ll close by sharing some of my favorite structures: A Gallery of Garden Architecture from the 2009 Northwest Flower & Garden Show’s designers.