Mary Martin, with Wallace, her cockapoo; photographed on July 5, 2007 by William Wright

Mary called me on May 15th from Atlanta to tell me of her sudden diagnosis of brain cancer. Four days later, she died, after doctors tried to relieve the bleeding and remove her tumor.  How can one so vibrant and full of creative energy disappear from our lives so quickly?

Featured in “Personal Space,” one of the first chapters in Stylish Sheds, Mary Martin was a consummate Southern lady. She embraced this book with incredible passion and support, investing her own time, money, and energy to promote it to clients of her fine gift business, Mary’s Garden Champagne Savers.

I met Mary through Atlanta landscape designer David Ellis, of Landshapes Garden Design. I fondly remember when Wendy Bassett, my Atlanta “shed angel” (aka fairy godmother), drove me to meet Mary and see her little cabin on a chilly day in January 2007. We came down the driveway, turned the corner into her gorgeous backyard (even in winter, it was in perfect, tip-top shape!), and were immediately drawn down the curving stepping-stone path toward a charming split-log style haven.

A curved path made with stepping stones large enough for two to walk side-by-side travels across the lawn from Mary’s house to her personal backyard retreat

While she wasn’t sure of its provenance, Mary guessed that the rustic, 1930s-era shed might have been purchased by earlier owners from a mail-order catalog, perhaps as a potting shed. She updated the 240-square-foot hut, painted the board-and-batten walls of its two interior rooms in pistachio green, added a fresh coat of  bay-green paint to the two cottage doors and “moved in.”

Beyond the walls of her rather grand Southern Colonial-style home, Mary could be found, secreted away in her backyard studio, which served as a potting shed, storage for beekeeping and honey making, a painter’s easel and a writing room.

“When I first saw it, I thought, What a wonderful place for gardening, but it has also become a nice little project building,” she told us.

Her love of this little building, which Mary later expanded by adding a 16-by-17 foot screened room, was rooted in memories of a childhood playhouse. She played outside and cooked on a real stove inside a little pink playhouse her father, John Martin, built for Mary and her younger sister, Ann. On her desk inside the cabin, Mary kept a framed photograph of the tiny, sweet structure.

“I do think my childhood memories of that pink playhouse tie into my enjoyment of this very private, peaceful ‘retreat’ where I feel hundreds of miles away from the city when I’m inside it,” she said.

I spoke today with Janell Knox, a friend of Mary’s since college, and she told me that Mary faced the news of her illness with incredible courage. “She was out in the cottage on Sunday,” Janell says. Later that day, the pain in her head was so severe that doctors had her taken to Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. Efforts to relieve the bleeding failed. In her last moments, Mary was surrounded by friends and loved ones, including her parents, John and Elizabeth Martin. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s obituary of Mary aptly described her as having “enthusiasm for life.”

Selfishly, I am so pleased that in her last year, Mary befriended Bill Wright and me. She had an intensity about everything she did in life, including the way she devoted herself to friends. We will miss her spirit, although having a glimpse of her in the pages of our book is a quiet comfort.

I end with a quote that Mary loved. It is from her late grandfather, Rudolf Anderson, who was a landscape designer and widely known for his camellia and azalea breeding throughout the Southeast. It sums up her philosophy, as well, evident in the way Mary drew her beloved plants and garden into her life.

“I’ve always felt that anybody looking at beauty in nature cannot help but have more noble thoughts.” (Rudolf Anderson, 1967)

Good news: The Los Angeles Times has a wonderful “Web Exclusive” featuring Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways in today’s HOME section.

Bad news: The article surrounding this gorgeous photograph/caption puts us smack next to a very strange neighboring article with the off-putting headline: “Confessions of a chronic shed slob.”

EEEK! Stylish Sheds is the antithesis of that notion! Kinda worrisome to see our gorgeous, design-driven book about small architectural gems appear side-by-side with an essay by a gardener who calls herself a “shed slob” and basically treats her shed as a storage unit for “. . . Christmas ornaments of a festive but forgetful lodger who moved out in 1998, a Food 4 Less shopping cart filled with kinked and leaky hoses and broken sprinklers, a toilet with a cracked lid, sacks of concrete that set without ever having been mixed, mismatched curtain rods, rusting tomato cages, and all manner of paper files that became somehow hard to throw away.”

Even after she cleaned out said shed, scheduling a “Bulky Item” pickup with the LA Bureau of Sanitation to get rid of her junk, this woman still isn’t using her shed to its highest and best potential. She appreciates the tools nearby and at-hand, resting inside the doorway, but it doesn’t seem like she uses the shed, either for gardening or a higher purpose, such as a backyard retreat. What a lost opportunity! Maybe I need to write a new article: “Can this Shed be Saved?”

To me, when presented with a little building in the garden, even one that was once packed to the gills with clutter, it is inconceivable to ignore its design potential. As my friend Lorene just wrote to me: “I was immediately transported by your lovely words exhorting us to find a place of solace and sanctuary – at home!” And then she added: “This is the summer I do the trailer!!” (that’s for Lorene, and not me, to write about though. Mosey over to planted at home, her fun blog, to learn more).

Lorene and Jimmy’s trailer-retreat-in-the-garden

Tom Spencer, Debra Prinzing & Bill Wright – on location

Bill and I had a wonderful experience today, taping an 11-minute segment on Stylish Sheds with Tom Spencer, host of “Central Texas Gardener,” a popular show on the Austin PBS affiliate, KLRU.

The show will air on June 26th – stay tuned for a link to the segment.

Tom was a delightful host, a kindred spirit in the conversation about gardening as sanctuary, sheds as shelter, places for meditation and destinations for creative expression.

Our thanks to producer Linda Lehmusvirta, who not only “gets it,” but who helped me find many of our Austin shed locations when I was scouting here in January 2007.

Here is a peek of the Austin/Hill Country structures we found and photographed last year. We’re lucky to feature four terrific Texas sheds inside the pages of Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways:

Sylvia and Steven Williams’ “Hill Country Haven”

Loretta and Terrill Fischer’s “Mod Pod”

Beverly and Eldon Sutton’s “Texas Teahouse”

Carol Hicks Bolton and Tim Bolton’s “Heart’s Content”

March 20th is a magical day for me – the Spring Equinox and the day of my son Alexander’s birth. Today he turns eleven! Like me, he is a Pices, arriving at the last possible moment of this sign.

My friend Scott Eklund, now a photographer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, took this “flower baby” portrait of Alex in the fall of 1997 when we were shooting a holiday brochure at Emery’s Garden

I take pleasure in the fact that my first child was born on the Summer Soltice and my second child was born on the day when spring arrives (today!). It feels symbolic and life-affirming in so many ways, especially for a mother whose creative expression occurs in and around the garden. My sons, so special and yet very different from one another, are growing up. Oh, for a time-lapsed movie of their young journey to date. In my memory, my mind’s eye, I can actually see them growing: their legs and arms lengthening; their shoulders broadening. In the stories my husband and I retell one another, we roll back the tape and hit the pause button to watch it over and over again. Remember when….?

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A little piece I wrote for the Los Angeles Times appears today under the banner: Breathing Room.

If you read my “willow” post in January, you’ll know why I so enjoyed composing a short essay about environmental artist Patrick Doughterty’s new Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanical Garden installation. Called “Catawampus,” the willow sculpture opened on February 24th.

Here is my essay in its entirety. The Times had to cut it for space, which is fine. I like it both ways. Read the published version by clicking here: Branching In.

Willow wisdom

Standing in a distant field, looking like child’s building blocks tossed here by giant hands, the assemblage of woven-willow cubes and rectangles conveys kinetic energy.

Aptly named ‘Catawampus’ by creator Patrick Dougherty, it is slightly askew, beckoning me to draw near.

Taller than a house, the installation is situated away from the main path at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden. I approach, noticing how sunlight slips between open spaces formed by the warp and weft of twigs. The tactile quality of each thread-like branch appeals to me: the in-and-out, the over-and-under. I run my hand along the twisted surface, marveling at the density of four-inch-thick walls. My fingers stroke pussy willow-like tips, velvet against the rough twig bark. The structure looks spontaneously woven, as if beavers gathered the arboretum’s fallen branches after a windstorm and built themselves a fanciful dam.

Like a sophisticated student of art, I try to mentally deconstruct the organic sculpture. Is it a modernist bird’s nest? Is it a commentary on the fragile balance between nature and architecture? Or is pure folly, meant only to delight the eye?

 The tilted branch-blocks rest on ottoman-like cushions of willow. I enter and move from one interconnected space to the next. Peering out of the window openings, I glimpse a maple tree, its new green leaves about to unfurl. Through another portal in the gray-and-brown twig wall I see an early-blooming magnolia. A “skylight” at the top brightens the dark interior with spring’s pure blue sky.

It’s easy to be lured into Dougherty’s rooms, made from saplings grown by the Willow Farm in Pescadaro. Even though the primitive chambers are penetrated by air, light and sound, they feel safe and separate. Time stands still, at least for a few moments.

Solid-looking, yet impermanent. In the end, it is simply a series of large forms, fashioned from ordinary willow otherwise destined for the compost heap. But it gives me quiet comfort.

Catawampus by Patrick Dougherty runs through 2009 at the Los Angeles County Arboretum, 301 North Baldwin Ave., Arcadia, (626) 821-3222 or www.arboretum.org.

“To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which all enterprise and labour tends.”

—Samuel Johnson, 1750

I’ve been meditating on the notion of home this week, trying to figure out if it’s possible to possess more than one.

And I don’t mean having a second home in the mountains or at a lake (that vacation cabin of our fantasies), but what this question really gets to is whether my heart can be at peace when it lives in two places even though I’m only physically in one of them.

It’s funny how frequently the word “home” appears in our lives. And how many different synonyms we use to describe it (nest, shelter, cocoon, cave, abode, roost, maison, house, castle, my place…..).

Last night, my son’s high school choir staged an ambitious “Singing Waiter Dinner,” during which some very talented teenagers sang — and served dinner to — parents and friends, while also raising funds to pay for their spring performance trip to Boston. The theme of “home” appeared in at least a half-dozen of the numbers: ballads, show tunes, hot songs that teenagers are listening to right now, and even an original song written and performed by one of my son’s fellow choir members. Home is on our minds, whatever our age.

So while in Seattle for the Northwest Flower & Garden Show last week, the notion of home occupied my thoughts. My heart is invested in that city, the city of my college years, our early (pre-children) married life, my many professional iterations, my multiple newspaper, magazine and book projects, the home Bruce and I made for ourselves, with our fabulous architect and builder friends, and the garden I planted and cared for, and loved. This, I thought, was “home.” The place I left 18 months ago for S. California, which was decidedly “not home.”

I remember my first return trip in February 2007, when I flew to Seattle for the flower show and spent five days pretty much on the verge of tears. I stood up on the podium to lecture and was so overwhelmed at the sight of friends and their dear faces in the audience – people who I considered my community – that my eyes welled up and I had to pull myself together in order to give that talk. It was a tough trip because I’d only been away for six months and I felt as if I had been exiled to an alien land.

This time, the story was different. I guess that extra 12 months of familiarizing myself with a new landscape – literally and figuratively – started changing my idea of “home.” During a completely self-indulgent week in Seattle when I left my family behind in order to have long, uninterrupted adult conversation, hug and laugh with friends, inhale the fragrances of wet earth and feast my eyes on plants I can no longer grow, I finally realized that I was kind of just a visitor. Life continues, but it changes. And you know, that’s okay. And for the most part, even though we miss one another, my friends would rather know that we’re happy, adjusting, getting connected and making a good life here in LA. They don’t really want to hear that we’re miserable, lonely, and lost in this land.

And the good news is that we’re not lost. I’m surprised every day about the experience of living here. I never could have imagined feeling “at home” in a new city and state. But it’s happening, thanks to kindred spirits who have adopted me and taken me on plant-and-garden lovers’ field trips, and shared their passion for this place with me. Sandy, a talented designer who I met through a mutual Seattle friend, laughed at me recently, saying: “You’re like a tourist – you get excited about everything new!” I guess I can thank my insatiable curiosity for helping deepen my affection for my new surroundings.

After returning on an early morning Seattle-to-Burbank flight last Saturday, I wrote this email note to a friend: “Being in Seattle last week was the first time I realized that it is no longer my home, but a beloved place that I cherish in my heart. Home is now in Southern California, and after a week of playing in Seattle, I was ready to get back here.”

Yesterday, after playing catch with my dog at the ocean and filling my pockets with bits and pieces of seashells, smooth glass and pottery that dotted the sand, after touring a favorite display garden where the hot orange South African aloes were in bloom, and enjoying brilliant conversation over lunch with Paula, another writer exiled in L.A. (from Boston), I realized what a gift it is to be given a “new home,” even one that I didn’t realize I wanted.

Zanny started barking when the FedEx truck arrived at the curb around 11 a.m. today. Little did I know she was announcing the delivery of my advanced copy of Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways!

I opened the padded envelope from Clarkson Potter so quickly that I got a paper cut, but no bother…it was worth the pain because I knew what was inside. What an exciting feeling to hold this volume in my hands, to feel the slick, glossy jacket wrapped around a hardback book bound in two shades of sage green, to flip the pages (c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y at the top, right corner, Robyn) and then see Bill Wright’s gorgeous photographs return me to the many magical destinations we’ve visited in the past few years. 

How odd, to read the words I wrote with such intensity (and almost always while on a crazy deadline) as they looked up at me in a friendly, familiar way. What a gift to have been able to explore this notion of a separate, backyard destination, and take the journey with so many wonderful shed owners to discover their stories.

There are some very special people to acknowledge, and I’ll be thanking them again and again. First of all, my collaborator and creative partner, Bill Wright, photographer extraordinaire. We had a fun and compatible adventure documenting nearly 40 locations, 28 of which appear in the final book. You don’t really know a person’s true character until you have to work side-by-side with him at 4:30 a.m. (after going to sleep at midnight the night before), schlep photography equipment together, and realize he is letting you be bossy when he really does know what he’s doing! No words can fully explain my gratitude, Bill. We got through Stylish Sheds with only a few “I’m about to kill you” moments — moments that we thankfully laugh about now.

Doris Cooper, our visionary and big-picture editor, believed in this idea. I am grateful that she was willing to trust her gut, trust our creativity and support us as we pursued this dream. I’m ready for the next big thing and hope I can repeat the experience with her at the helm. Marysarah Quinn, the incredibly gifted designer and art director, took a pile of photos and pages of text and conjured up a jewel of a book that really sparkles. All I can say is “wow,” Marysarah. You gave us your best and it feels great to hold the finished evidence in my hands. Finally, a big bouquet of thanks goes to Sarah Jane Freymann, the agent who “gets it,” who represents us so well, and who inspires me, makes me laugh, and gives me hope.

All these accolades will be repeated in two months when our official on-sale date arrives, April 29th. But my birthday is this week, and I’m tickled for the early B-day present.  

Thought I’d post a few photographs of the real thing, and share some lines from the introduction, entitled: “Escape to your own backyard.”

. . . The human need for a separate place appears in literature, speaking to the ideal of ‘sanctuary’ in our personal lives. In his book The Poetics of Space, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard wrote, ‘The recollection of moments of confined, simple, shut-in space are experiences of heartwarming space, of a space that does not seek to become extended, but would like above all still to be possessed . . . [it] is at once small and large, warm and cool, always comforting.’

Bachelard’s thoughts on shelter resonate with me, as do the words of architect Ann Cline, who calls her backyard shed a ‘hut.’ In her book of essays, A Hut of One’s Own, Cline describes a journey taken by many of us (if only in our dreams): ‘Nowadays, the woman – or man – who wishes to experience the poetry of life . . . might be similarly advised to have a hut of her – or his – own. Here, isolated from the wasteland and its new world saviors, a person might gain perspective on life and the forces that threaten to smother it. Only in a hut of one’s own can a person follow his or her own desires – a rigorous discipline . . . . Here, a person may find one’s very own self, the source of humanity’s song.’

This is all lofty stuff, isn’t it? Well, there’s more. After quoting the academic and professional people who inspire me, I needed something solid, rooted to the earth. I turned to carpenter-philosopher, John Akers. A profoundly wise craftsman, John designed and constructed several sheds that appear in our book’s pages, including four structures for Kathy and Ed Fries and one for Edgar Lee. Here’s what John has to say, quoted in the introduction:

“I’ve seen so many situations where people have slowed down because of adding a shed to their property. They experience something intangible when entering their sheds. Maybe it transports them to a simpler time.”

What this carpenter-philosopher has to say makes a lot of sense. The modern shed may be a purely practical solution that expands the square footage of one’s living space, or it may be a simple sanctuary in the garden. But either way, it is a gift. John sums up his observations with a laugh: “I guess you could say my motto is ‘build a shed and change your life.'”

Amen, brother.

As long ago as the Tong Dynasty (616 to 906), Chinese scholars and poets sought refuge in small, distant places – such as a pavilion – to write, observe nature, and seek understanding.  Powerful and universal is the desire to separate from everyday life for quiet, spiritual, and artistic pursuits.  I was reminded of this notion, one that bridges cultures and centuries, when taking a pre-tour of Liu Fan Yuan, or the “Garden of Flowing Fragrance,” at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, in San Marino, Calif., near Pasadena.

On a crisp, sunny January morning, June Li, Chinese Garden curator, and Lisa Blackburn, Huntington’s communications coordinator, escorted me behind the construction barriers to stroll this magnificent new garden, which opens to the public this weekend.

With an initial phase that includes a 1.5-acre lake, a complex of pavilions, a tea house and tea shop, and five stone bridges, the $18.3 million project has been a decade in the making. It covers about 3.5 acres of a planned 12-acre site.

Amidst architectural majesty of carved stone and wood, handmade roof-tiles, and a dynamic entry wall that undulates like an ancient river, appears the most arresting visual sight: Di Lu Ting, or, the “Pavilion for Washing Away Thoughts.” Other features of this garden are pristine and elegant, but the pavilion is humble by comparison.

The Pavilion for Washing Away Thoughts

This rustic thatched structure, situated a distance from grand pavilions, soaring moon bridges and pebble-patterned courtyards, appears at the edge of a rushing stream in a canyon-like setting. Constructed with traditional post-and-beam craftsmanship, the round, open-air shelter orients its occupant’s eyes upstream, past mature winter-flowering camellias, toward the heart of the Chinese Garden.

A couplet is inscribed in Chinese characters on two wood columns:

“Flowing water can purify the mind; Fragrant mountains are good for quiet contemplation.”

(by Shi Tingquan, also known as Richard Strassberg, professor of Chinese at UCLA)

June Li told me that the 21th century Chinese landscape designers who worked with the Huntington included the thatched-roof pavilion as a symbolic reference to Chinese literary traditions. Ancient poetry and essays, she says, “talk about scholars wanting to retreat to a thatched cottage or pavilion by a stream.”

It is pleasing to see this peaceful, soul-nurturing place at the wilder edges of the Chinese garden. Just viewing it reminds me that my interest in the architecture and design of sheds and hideaways is nothing new. Centuries ago, on another continent far from here, others sought solitude to pursue art and beauty. 

In an article I wrote about the garden for the San Diego Union-Tribune, I ended the piece with this paragraph:

For anyone living in the fast-paced, twenty-first century Western world, time spent in this “living painting” is to be savored. When you visit, perhaps you’ll recall the story Li shares about Tao Yuan Ming, a fourth-century Chinese poet whose favorite flower was the chrysanthemum: “As we all do sometimes, he was frustrated with a life of compromises. So he retired to his garden, which for him was more of a form a protest to uphold his moral principals, rather than just giving up. He desired the ideal of living a simple life.”

My friend Paula Panich recently shared this passage from Doris Lessing’s 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature speech, presented on December 7, 2007. Lessing urges writers (and, I would imagine, any creative person) to seek a distinct and personal space in which to feel surrounded and enveloped when putting pen to paper. Her admonitions gave me goosebumps. It was if this literary icon was speaking directly to me. There she was, an accomplished and celebrated author, sharing an insight about the practice, the craft, of writing. And what she says — about escaping to that separate place — feels just right. Read an excerpt below:

“Writers are often asked: “How do you write? With a [word] processor? an electric typewriter? a quill? longhand?” But the essential question is: “Have you found a space, that empty space, which should surround you when you write? Into that space, which is like a form of listening, of attention, will come the words, the words your characters will speak, ideas – inspiration.”

If this writer cannot find this space, then poems and stories may be stillborn.

When writers talk to each other, what they ask each other is always to do with this space, this other time. “Have you found it? Are you holding it fast?”

Let us now jump to an apparently very different scene. We are in London, one of the big cities. There is a new writer. We, cynically, enquire… “Is she good-looking?” If this is a man: “Charismatic? Handsome?” We joke, but it is not a joke.

This new find is acclaimed, possibly given a lot of money. The buzzing of paparazzi begins in their poor ears. They are feted, lauded, whisked about the world. Us old ones, who have seen it all, are sorry for this neophyte, who has no idea of what is really happening. He, she, is flattered, pleased. But ask in a year’s time what he or she is thinking. I’ve heard them: “This is the worst thing that could have happened to me.”

Some much-publicised new writers haven’t written again, or haven’t written what they wanted to, meant to.

And we, the old ones, want to whisper into those innocent ears: “Have you still got your space? Your soul, your own and necessary place where your own voices may speak to you, you alone, where you may dream. Oh, hold on to it, don’t let it go.”

For so long, I have had to apologize for wanting to close my office door. Yet having a door is a luxury, considering the place where I used to sit when I wrote. Before moving to my current home nearly a year-and-a-half ago (where my office is a former bedroom with a real door — hinges, knob and lock included), my writing desk resided in a corner of an open loft.

Yes, all three bedroom doors opened onto this space where desk, computer and bookcases were shoved against one wall. This space also contained a futon and a cabinet where the television was hidden. I began freelance writing in earnest when we built this home in 1998, with a one-year-old and a six-year-old nearby. As a writer, I shared this “sacred” space with the children’s play area (in those days, in the late 1990s, I would actually un-plug the phone and fax during nap-time, holding my breath that the UPS delivery guy wouldn’t ring the doorbell and destroy my perfect 90 minutes of quiet!).

My daily view, Lake Washington (1998-2006)

In one sense, I couldn’t complain, because this perch offered me the most dazzling views of second-growth Northwest forest (on a park-peninsula that jutted into Lake Washington), the lake’s ever-changing, but usually grey-blue surface, and the top peaks of the Cascade mountains to the east. How could I whine about my work space when I enjoyed the respite of lifting my eyes away from the computer screen to peer at this gift of nature anytime I needed a pause?

Yet, to use a phrase that novelist Amy Bloom shared with me about her “mom” years as a writer: I was interruptible. Can you imagine being on deadline for an article while also listening to Pokemon cartoons playing in the background? Or trying to conduct a telephone interview while whispering an answer to the daily question: Mom, what can I have to eat? Moms who are attempting to create anything — art, words, a garden — can imagine this.

So yes, I jealously guard my current office with a DOOR THAT CLOSES. I get testy whenever someone enters. There is a comfy futon in here, too, so I occasionally feel like a talk-show host who entertains a steady stream of guest stars…this is usually when one of my guys plops down on those welcoming lime green cushions and wants to talk. But sometimes . . . I just want to lock the door and relish in solitude and the creative atmosphere it produces.

The pursuit of personal, hidden, secluded space for one’s creative endeavors is a thread that runs through my forthcoming book, Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways. While interviewing and photographing locations with my partner Bill Wright, I was so often struck with a sense of awe that the many gifted and talented individuals we profiled trusted us enough to share their “necessary place” with us. They knew we gave respectful attention to their studios, ateliers, nooks and sheds. Regardless of the artistic endeavors that may occur inside the owner’s tiny structure, often measuring just a few hundred square feet in size, we were well aware of the honor and prestige bestowed upon each space. For those whose professional pursuits seem mainstream or decidedly non-artistic, the private, personal space is somehow even more precious: a symbol of time to daydream, ponder and contemplate; to be alone with oneself.

Here are some of the comments we gathered during our interview and photography sessions:

“The real reason my shed exists is so that I can work uninterrupted. There is no phone, no Internet in here.” — Amy Bloom, novelist and creator of Lifetime Network’s ‘State of Mind’

“In designing this studio, my motive was to make it a happy space, because I make happy art.” — Liz Lyons Friedman, printmaker

“Being in the shed makes me feel more connected – and grounded – to the creative forces that simplicity affords. It’s a very practical environment that offers a great escape from all the complexities that surround me.” — Lin Su, designer and painter

“Here’s where I keep everything I want to save and love. This is my little comfort zone, my quiet place.” — Sunni Rudd, illustrator

Another quote from Sunni: “I have a hard time slowing down, but when I come here I want the solitude of my garden shed. It keeps me on an even keel. It keeps me planted.”

“I always wanted to find a place in the country – a retreat. And for years, I had plans for this potting shed in my mind.” — Sylvia Williams, Master Gardener

“People don’t necessarily need more house as much as they need more places to be where they can have fun and utilize their outdoor spaces.” — Kathy Fries, horticulturist

“If I’m inside my shed and it’s raining outside, I feel cozy. On warm days, I pull my chair out to the shed, open the windows and doors, and enjoy the view of my garden.” —Joan Enticknap, banking executive and avid gardener

“It’s so beautiful to be in the little house. We use it in the evenings, on Sunday afternoon when the sun pours in, in the fall when we have a fire going and the doors are open. It’s heaven.” — Anne Kennedy, artists’ agent

“The moment I enter, I’m in a different world.” — Rand Babcock, furniture designer

“It’s intimate; it’s a space that transforms your mood when you enter.” — Tony Nahra, furniture designer

“It’s a lovely place for me to get away. I like to go up there and view the garden; there’s always a nice breeze and I’m away from the phone!” — Patrick Anderson, plant collector and musician

“We’re perfectly aware that we have things to do indoors, but it’s hard to stop being there.” — Beverly Sutton, pediatrician and child psychiatrist

The “space” to which Doris Lessing refers may be a physical space, like a writing studio, sacred and separate. Or, perhaps it is an inner space, the hard-to-explain silence we seek when beginning a writing project. But it is vital and valid, and necessary.