Here’s what I’ve been up to lately. I traveled to Southern California all of last week  – from Saturday, April 13th through Saturday, April 20th.  I experienced many great highlights; too many to mention. Here are some of them:

DAY One: Carpinteria Greenhouse & Nursery Tour, sponsored by the California Cut Flower Commission. I was hosted by Harry and Michele Van Wingerden, the great folks at Myriad Roses and Padaro Floral Design for a day of book-signings and eco-floral demonstrations. A special thanks to the Van Wingerden family, CCFC CEO/Ambassador Kasey Cronquist and Event Planner Anna Kalins for making it a successful and enjoyable day!

DAY Two: Book signing and flower demos at botanik in Summerland. Loved spending time with very talented owner Erin Taylor and her team. After several hours at botanik, I met up with Cristi Walden and we headed to Sea Crest Nursery, her father Jack Stevenson’s palm and cycad collection. It was so exciting to return to this beautiful place and hear how my talented friend is learning the business of growing and selling amazing landscaping plants (oh, and propagating, too!).

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Earlier this week I was hosted by my dear friend and fellow Garden Writer board member Nan Sterman when I flew to San Diego to give a talk to the San Diego Horticultural Society. I love the title that Mary James  of SDHS gave my talk: “Bring me Slow Flowers” – a fun play of words on the title of my next book. Using images I’ve shot over the past several years, my lecture incorporated concepts from The 50 Mile Bouquet and Slow Flowers.

Here are the highlights of my (almost) 72 hours in San Diego:

First, I visited Hasan and Ayse Kayali, some of our oldest friends from college days. My husband Bruce and Hasan were jumpers (long/triple) for Harvard’s Track Team back in the day and we never, ever get to spend enough time together. However, all of us were together in Tuscany in 2009, for a week at Villa Maddalena in the town of Montisi. That was pretty special. After a late, but delicious, lunch, we took a walk on the beach at La Jolla Shores.

After I said good-bye to the Kayalis, I headed to Encinitas, just a few miles north. Nan Sterman and Curt Wittenberg welcomed me with a flavorful Moroccan chicken dinner prepared by Curt, and we stayed up way too late just talking. Nan and I figured out that after this month (December), we will see one another in January (GWA Winter Board Meeting – Austin, TX); February (Northwest Flower & Garden Show – Seattle, WA); March (SF Flower & Garden Show – San Mateo, CA); April (when I’m back in San Diego to speak) . . . and of course, in August, when our GWA annual symposium heads to Quebec City. Nice to anticipate!

On Monday morning, I headed over to Carlsbad, Calif., to visit the very famous René van Rems, a world-class floral designer and friend of Nan’s.

I’ve known of René because of his books (including René’s Bouquets: A guide to Euro-Style Hand-Tied Bouquets) and others. He is an internationally recognized designer, consultant and instructor, born in Holland, but based in San Diego for the past 30 years.

Last year, René established a new studio in Carlsbad, north of San Diego. I was so impressed with the interior space – as you can see here. It’s suitable for large-scale production for big events, for René’s many floral design workshops, and for private events. René considers himself to be in the “business of creativity,” and he loves to teach everyone – from the DIY flower-lover to the professional who participates in his advanced Master Classes.

René signed and gifted me two of his recent books — the hardback version of René’s Bouquets and his way-cool new book: Rene’s Bouquets for Brides. I felt a little inadequate giving him a signed copy of The 50 Mile Bouquet, but he was quite gracious about it. And, he was very kind to come and attend my lecture that evening. Please check out René’s beautiful work at his website, here.

Nan picked me up around lunchtime and we headed out to Fallbrook, Calif., about 45 minutes east of Carlsbad. We were on a floral mission: To visit Rainbow Protea, an exotic cut flower farm that grows South African and Australian flowers in the Proteaceae family.

A special thanks to Dawn Bonner, whose family owns Rainbow Protea, and to sales & marketing whiz, Kim Jernegan, who hosted us. Kim loaded Nan and me into a pickup truck and we traversed the bloom-filled hills of the 198-acre farm on a brilliant December afternoon.

Rainbow Protea began operations in 1985. While some may liken the hilly terrain approximately 20 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean and 60 miles north of San Diego as “similar” to South Africa, Kim begs to differ.

She points out that to grow thousands of flowering sub-tropical shrubs — Protea, Leucadendron, Leucospermum, Banksia, Leptospermum, Chamelaucium (Wax flowers), Anigozanthos (Kangaroo Paws) and other Mediterranean specimens — the farm’s crew has to use an auger-style drill and major amendments.

Those include primarily organic addititives such as fish fertilizers, worm compost, compost tea and kelp products.

Enjoy my photographs of the plants that earned my affection.

Kim sent me home with a bountiful box of blooms, which I have been enjoying all week.

The wonderful thing about these exotic members of the Proteaceae family is that they are VERY long-lasting in the vase.

You need to re-cut the stems and refresh the H20 every two to three days; but then you can plan on having an exotic, modern-looking arrangement for weeks and weeks.

Finally, I was welcomed by the members of the San Diego Horticultural Society. I felt like the room was filled with kindred spirits – gardeners who want to learn more about the plants they grow; people who are eager to try new things, including floral design. A great visit – and one that I will always cherish. Nan, Curt, Karen Bussolini (a writer/photographer friend who was in town, visiting from Connecticut), Bonnie Manion and I closed down the night with a late dinner at Il Forniao. Very satisfying!

Before I left the following morning, I squeezed in a visit to fellow garden blogger Bonnie Manion of vintagegardengal.com. I first met Bonnie in 2009 when Country Gardens magazine asked me to write about her vintage container designs for spring bulbs. The story was called “Tour de Forced Bulbs.”

Later, after we moved from Seattle to Southern California, Bonnie and I finally met in person – and we had several fun adventures, including our day-trip to the Long Beach Flea Market with Lorene Edwards Forkner and Kathy LaFleur. Bonnie is an amazing designer, writer and winemaker (with her husband John Manion). While our time was short, I was tickled to spend a little time with her, touring their newly renovated home, barn, barrel room and more…and talking about the book-biz, blogging and gardening.

Look for exciting things coming from Bonnie in the near future, including a new book on keeping chickens!

Okay, enough for now. Please enjoy these photos and check out all the people I’ve highlighted in this blog post.

 

 

The back story

My nearly four years in Los Angeles have been quite amazing. We arrived here in late August, 2006, not really excited about leaving our beloved Seattle, but trying hard to embrace our “new” life here in SoCal. 

The mood around our household has changed dramatically in 2010. The boy who was entering high school when we moved here has just graduated and is college-bound. The child who came here as a 4th grader is now a teenager, ready for 8th grade. The husband who came here for a pretty great job lost it during the financial meltdown. But in the interim, he earned an MBA from UCLA and joined an amazing new company NOT in financial services – one that uses his combination of legal and business talents for a compelling new business strategy.  

 As for me, well, this four-year California chapter has been quite an adventure. I have grown professionally, honed my design sensibilities and in many ways gained more confidence (guess that comes with turn 50 anyway, right?). I have met and interviewed incredible people – designers of homes and gardens, artists, actors, directors, producers, animators – famous people and unusual characters alike, all of whom embody this beautiful spot on the planet. Writing about the homes and gardens they possess has been a privilege. Seeing those stories appear in some of the most well-respected publications has been quite satisfying. 

So now, we are moving again. And while I have alluded for months to our plans to relocate to Pittsburgh, the surprise ending of our California chapter is that we are actually returning to Seattle. 

Bruce’s company – at what feels like the eleventh hour – has shifted strategy and is moving its corporate HQ to Seattle. Manna from heaven, I say. A small part of me thought the Pittsburgh thing would be a fun adventure (actually, after what we’ve been through on the unemployment front, I would have willingly moved to Siberia). I have a few acquaintances in Pittsburgh – through Garden Writers Association – and I was interested in spending more time there getting to know them better. That optimism was combined with anxiety about having to garden in Zone 4 or 5; whatever low temperatures Pittsburgh experiences in the winter, at the very least I know it has snow – lots of it.  

So here we are, on the threshold of yet another move. But one that brings us full-circle back to the city where Bruce and I first met, lived as were newlyweds, gave birth to and raised two wonderful sons, became first-time homeowners, and even built our dream house, living a life surrounded by so many cherished family and friends.  

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In the middle of last week, when I really didn’t have the time to do it, I drove northbound, to central California, where I spent 24 hours with talented writer-illustrator-naturalist Sharon Lovejoy and her smart and kind husband Jeff Prostovich. I met Sharon a little over two years ago when Nan Sterman and I drove to the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show with our friend Joan Bolton of Santa Barbara Garden Design. It was our Garden Writer Caravan and Road Trip. First, Nan took the train/bus from San Diego to my neck of the woods (Ventura Co.); then, the next morning, we drove to Santa Barbara to pick up Joan. Another 90 minutes north of Joan, up Hwy. 101, and we arrived to visit Sharon and Jeff. They fed us, feted us, and hopped in their car to follow the caravan.

Sharon is a total rock star in the Garden Writing Galaxy and I was so excited to have a chance to spend time with her and Jeff.

She has had a huge following ever since she started writing “Heart’s Ease,” a monthly naturalist’s column for the former Country Living Gardener magazine. Sharon’s blog is fun and highly personal – it’s read by friends and fans around the globe.

Her illustrated books about gardening, gardening with children, gardening for wildlife, gardening with food — oh, there are so many and they are like little love letters — have sold hundreds of thousands of copies over the years. In our world, that is unparalleled, I tell you.

If, like me, you love the way Sharon involves children and their grownups with the natural world, be on the lookout for her next book – out in January 2010! It’s called Toad Cottages & Shooting Stars (and it features her sweet artist-granddaughter, Sara, on the cover).

Sharon and Jeff and I had a magical 24 hours in which we basically talked, ate, drank, cooked, went to see the Lone Pine Arboretum and the plant nursery at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, admired nature, and compared notes about our industry (?) and the “new media” platforms we’re all learning to navigate.

We had to force ourselves to go to bed last Tuesday night . . . the fire was burning in the fireplace and we had so much to say to one another. But we drifted off to sleep and rose on Wednesday morning in time for me to join Sharon at her writers’ group, during which yet another sparkling facet of this talented writer was revealed to me (hint: she is writing a wonderful young adult novel and I can’t wait for it to be completed AND published!).

It was nice to do something very spontaneous (and very nice that my own husband Bruce held down the fort at home so I could take the trip). I’ve been anxious to see Sharon’s new garden shed.

I had a sneaking suspicion I would be able to persuade Sharon to let me interview her on camera, so I asked – and lucky for you – she said yes. (And there was Jeff, the smart marketer, egging us on and actually directing us at one point.)

We made this totally rough-and-rugged video with my little Flip camera and gave the footage to Shirley Bovshow of Garden World Report. Shirley cleaned it up and used a portion of my tour with Sharon on today’s show. You can watch it here, along with contributions from Ken Druse and Ellen Zachos, two of my favorite garden writer-designers on the east coast.

Sharon promised me a personal tour, and here it is:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv4OT8NukZ8

This entire experience reminded me of why I love what I do and the people with whom I share this journey.

Since this is Thanksgiving week, I’m thinking about gratitude:

1. I’m thankful that Nan introduced me to Sharon. Nan’s heart is big enough to share her blessings with her friends. I love that about Nan. It’s not the first time she’s opened a door for me, and I hope I can reciprocate.

2. I’m thankful that Sharon and Jeff have adopted me as a friend, and for their generous gift of time, ideas, support, encouragement, shelter (hey, I didn’t mention getting to sleep in the cozy loft at the top of a spiral staircase in Sharon’s art studio!!!) and food (oh, time around the table in their farmhouse kitchen was delicious – in more ways than one).

3. I’m thankful that there are so many kindred spirits in the gardening world, especially for innovators like Shirley Bovshow who just make things happen in new ways, pioneering the path that we all wish to follow (but when we don’t have a road map….she’s bound to!)

4. I’m thankful for my long-suffering spouse and partner, Bruce. He always encourages me to take these trips and excursions, even though it usually means more work for him. I can’t wait for the time when he’ll be freer to join me (and vice-versa).

That’s it for now.

Garden Writers Association Annual Symposium, Part III:

 Thursday morning kicked off with our keynote speaker Dr. Lowell Catlett, a fascinating economic futurist who really put things into perspective in his talk, “The Greening of America.” Dr. Catlett tailored his remarks to our profession and totally blew the audience away. We were inspired and challenged (in a good way) to rethink our definition of “green” and “sustainable” lifestyle choices.

You can find several clips of Dr. Catlett’s lectures on YouTube, so check him out. He ended the lecture with this charge: “Do not sell people products and services. Sell them dreams.” It resonated, because we know that seeking and creating beauty in our surroundings is a basic human desire. If you didn’t make it to the symposium, Dr. Catlett’s lecture is one CD to purchase and listen to.

After the morning workshop sessions and a working lunch at the trade show, we hopped on buses for the first of three days of garden touring.

Thursday was the hottest, most humid day during the conference, so I have mixed memories from our late afternoon tour of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens.

The 55-acre public garden graces the campus of Duke University and features several special areas, including a formal Italianate-style terrace garden planted with an explosion of colorful tropicals, annuals and woody plants. I spent a lot of time here and was drawn to the twin historic stone structures. Not quite sheds, but shed-like for sure.

I then escaped to the shade with a few friends walking through the understory of the H.L. Blomquist Garden of Native Plants. Filled with more than 900 varieties of regional natives, it was a beautiful and serene enclave. It was especially fun to hang out here with Nan Sterman, aka PlantSoup, my symposium roommate and Duke University alum. She spent a lot of time studying plants as a biology undergrad, so I had a personal narrative to connect to this amazing place.

We experienced that languishing, Southern state of mind, what with the heat, the humidity, the sun and the sleep deprivation from staying awake late the night before and getting up early in the morning.

A buffet dinner led to some fabulous conversations with new friends, despite the climatic challenges (it was all I could do NOT to throw myself into the “Virtue Peace Pond” to cool off – seriously). Those water lilies, lotuses and other water-loving plants looked so much happier than the humans seated around the pond’s perimeter.

Most memorable that evening were two conversations my good friend (and collaborator) David Perry of A Photographer’s Garden Blog and I had with Susan Reimer, garden and op-ed (!) columnist and “Garden Variety” blogger for the Baltimore Sun, and later with Rizaniño “Riz” Reyes , an up-and-coming plantsman, horticulturist and designer from Seattle. I recall sharing a table (and prior conversation) with Riz at a Northwest Perennial Association event several years ago. Inspiring to know him – and new friend, to be sure.

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Two years ago, I read Julie Powell’s wonderful debut memoir, “Julie & Julia.” Her story of spending 365 days cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” was electrifying and compelling.

I couldn’t decide what was more inspiring – Julie Powell’s innocent ambition and subsequent bravado or the between-the-lines story of the power of blogging as a voice for authors.

Either way, I ended up buying 5 copies of Powell’s book for my favorite writer girlfriends. I told them: You must read this book. It will open up your eyes to the potential of blogging.

At the time, I had just bit the bullet and decided to really try serial blogging. My best intentions prior to the fall of 2007 hadn’t gotten me very far. I originally “started” this blog in March 2007, when I foolishly thought Shedstyle.com would be a book-in-progress blog while Bill Wright and I created “Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways.”  Constant travel, photo shoots, intense deadlines and a generally crazy schedule conspired to keep that from occurring (I think I wrote 2 posts between March and October 2007).

In September 2007, I moderated a “Garden Blogging” panel at the annual Garden Writers Association symposium with blogger-friends Kathy Purdy, Mary Ann Newcomer and David Perry (you will find each of them and their blogs the LINKS section of my home page).  I felt like a fraud. Sure, I created the panel and served as its moderator. But I was a pretender “talking” about blogging, not actually doing it.

I came home from Oklahoma City and, wholly inspired, I just started writing. I am eternally grateful to Mary Ann, David and Kathy for their honest and heartfelt support as fellow bloggers.

Like many tough things, repetition and frequency make it easier to learn new skills and habits. In less than 2 years I have written nearly 200 posts and met many awesome fellow bloggers, readers, friends.

Back to Julie and Julia.

That book really did change my life, thanks to the courageous Julie Powell and the inimitable Julia Child. I came home tonight from watching the movie “Julie & Julia” equally inspired.

As director and screenwriter, Norah Ephron is amazing. What a talent. Her screenplay is delightful. Her cast – Meryl Streep and Amy Adams – are delicious. Totally delicious in their roles as Julia Child and Julie Powell.

A woman seated near me (friend of a friend) told me a great story after the movie. As you may know, Julia Child lived in Santa Barbara in her retirement. The woman remembered working as a waitress in Santa Barbara in 1989. She waited on Julia and her husband Paul, who by then was in a wheelchair.

“Julia ordered a grilled-cheese sandwich and a banana for lunch,” this former waitress recalled. Hmm. I love hearing that our culinary icon, Julia Child, liked basic comfort food. It puts a smile on my face.

Not sure where this post is going, except to say that the writer in me LOVED the book and the film. I felt like I was watching all of our stories, our efforts, our hopes and dreams, up there on the screen. When the film portrayed Julia Child’s manuscript finally getting published after 8 years of work, I felt so victorious for her. When Julia Powell was interviewed for a story in the New York Times food section, I felt the excitement at hearing her answering machine buzz (well, that hasn’t exactly happened to me, but I can kind of relate).

Anyway, if you’re into food you should see “Julie & Julia.” If you’re a writer, you’ll definitely want to.

This post is dedicated to Nan, Paula, Mary Ann and Lorene, my friends who received copies of Julie & Julie from me in 2007.