why oh why won't my A. marlothii bloom?

There were so many heart stopping specimens of Aloe marlothii, all in full bloom, and these I rolled my eyes at, because I am SO ENVIOUS! My Aloe marlothii, Willard, hasn’t bloomed in YEARS! WTF? What could I be doing wrong? All of my other Aloes are so happy and put out bloomspike after bloomspike, but my Willard just mocks me, spikeless. So I come to the Huntington to enjoy these succulent candelabras, and dream of the day when I get another one popping up in my own garden.

gulp! my heart is beating so fast over this masterpiece!

Okay – I am on record not liking massed plantings. I think it is lazy to take a few plants and “stripe them out”; it is an easy kind of drama that one finds often in front of office buildings. But if you take a complex association of plants and run a river of something amazing in the middle – well, then you have REAL drama. Just look at what the Aeonium ‘Zwartkopf’ does in this planting! The huge swath of this dark beauty really brings it – I especially love the textural and color contrast between it and the small leaved gray succulent to its left. Sometimes botanical collections of plants don’t quite hang together as a design – it is planted features like this that turn a collection into a real garden. I am in wild love!

it's all about the strongly planted path

Show me a path that conceals the final destination, and I’ll show you a path that makes any space seem bigger and more interesting. Here we have the curve (What could be beyond? A desert oasis? A castle filled with Seven Dancing Princesses?) and a striking planting of cacti to beckon you forward. J’ADORE!

nature knows her colors, right?

I was totally captivated by the bloom of what aloe I don’t know – I neglected to write a note on it, I was so in the moment! Just check out these beautiful soft colors – a buttery yellow that graduates to a soft, salmony orange as the tubular blossoms move up the spike, and then the glorious lavender purple stamens!!! Ease OFF Mother Nature, you are KILLING me with your chic color combos! I totally want a dress in these colors. STAT!

a mound of this, a mound of that...

This was my favorite image of the day! I am a stickler for mixing different forms in plant designs – but here, we have just one form that is being repeated with two different plants in different colors. I am an unabashed fan of golden barrel cactus, and these are obviously old stands that have been allowed to have “pups” and mound away. The same is happening with the near-black dyckia – and what an effect this is! It stopped me in my tracks – and this is something in a garden with so many incredible images that every other step is a potential show-stopper. The color contrast and fact that the dyckia’s spiky profile has a finer texture than that of the barrel cactus gives this repetition of mound on mound enough interest to keep us looking, and we are so rewarded when we look! The planting is cuddled into a clearing of large, twisting pachycereus – I was swooning with plant lust! To swoon and to learn at the same time is a wonderful thing, indeed.

I’m going back to the Huntington soon because they have just re-opened the Japanese gardens they have been renovating – what will our Germinatrix learn there?

The next post is going to be a hard one – I am again turning my lens at my own garden, and it giving it a hard once-over. My garden may never forgive me.

Until then I remain,

Your Germinatrix! XOXO!!!

The tracery of Parthenocissus on a wall.

Simple.

Elegant.

Eloquent.

a line drawing by mother nature

Los Angeles is a city that loves illusion. The winter character of this city isn’t very different than what we see during the summer – green green irrigated green. Evergreen trees pushing up into the sky, aggressively  blotting out the warming sun. It can be oppressive. In most parts of the country, unclothed branches etch themselves against a background of gray for several months, a leafless tree canopy that opens up to the winter sky.

I love that this vine is even more beautiful in its naked state than it is fully clothed. By removing more than 50% of the previous season’s growth, the underpinnings of the parthenocissus has been exposed and the qualities of movement and flow have been enhanced. It reminds us that there is beauty in the fallow times, and that is something we don’t see enough in Southern California. This vine was lovingly crafted for its winter look – and I applaud that loudly!

a plant doesn't have to be a scene-stealer to be a show-stopper

We all love the sexy floozies of spring and summer – big, blowsy roses, flowers of all colors adorning trees and vines, richly colored leaves (often crazily variegated) – but we need a version of visual silence in our landscapes sometimes. A moment for our eyes to adjust. That doesn’t mean that we need dead air – by treating our deciduous plants with as much care for their ornamental appeal off-season we are taking a step to further detail our gardens for year-round visual appeal that is subtle and thoughtful. Right on, I say!

I want to meet whoever pruned this vine and give them a hi-five! Or a kiss on the cheek. Or a new pare of pruners…

XOXO Your Germinatrix

ME! ...not quite a centerfold, but close...

Wow.
What a dream come true!
It was a lovely October day when Stephen Orr, (Big Cheese Garden Editor at MSL) and the wonderful photographer Juliana Sohn invaded my garden and made a little magic.

Somebody PINCH ME! See, me and Martha go way way WAY back – well, of course I’m not alone in that but I think the special allure of Martha is that we all feel personally connected to her. When I first started reading her magazine and watching her show, I felt we were LIKE THIS – BFF’s. All of those “good things” – well, they were for me … perfect solutions to the problems I was having in my brand new house and budding garden. I really hate the bottle my vinegar comes in Martha … well, Ivette, you can decant that vinegar into a bottle of your choice – and maybe put a sprig or two of your favorite herb in it as well! It will add flavor and visual appeal. Thank you Martha! I never liked vinegar so much!

So when Stephen Orr told me that they wanted me to be in a pictorial about garden bloggers, I almost choked on my tongue! YES YES YES … (I am not one to play hard to get). I looked around my garden and immediately thought “omigod. My garden super sucks! What can I do to get it in shape?”. But then sanity returned. My garden is my garden. Sometimes it looks great, and sometimes – yes – it super sucks. It is REAL. I didn’t want it to look like some hyper-perfect magazine garden! I want people to know that garden beauty is imperfect and changeable – it HAS to be that in order to be a real, living interaction with nature. So I didn’t do a big crazy “putting the garden in order” thing. No fluffing, no new plants. Just the same old friends that have been planted for years, a few additions from the last season, and I finally hung the circle planters that I got from Potted a few months ago. Basta.

It was amazing having Stephen and Juliana in the garden. They went through and created beautiful vignettes from little things that I had around my house, and I found myself asking “why didn’t I think of that?” Why? Well, because I am not a part of the Martha Stewart Living Brain Trust, that is why. These people have an extra flair; their third eye works purely in the space of design. That crappy little woven basket that had been hiding under the side table in the living room was discovered and filled with a bouquet of marjoram… and suddenly it was NOT crappy! It was GORGEOUS! I wanted one of those baskets – even though I already had one! THAT EXACT ONE! My life looked so amazing in their stylish hands. I am determined to live the life that it looks like I live on the pages of Martha Stewart Living.

They even changed my CLOTHES! This was a big issue. See, I have a certain thing – I have a very specific color palette when it comes to clothes (black, brown,maroon,dark blue,a little green – think of a bruise and you’ll get the idea) and I have a pretty defined style (kind of goth meets fly girl). This of course would look weird in the pages of the magazine – Martha is all about light, breeziness, and a dialed in sense of ease. I like having a dark, tattered edge. But I was flexible – I allowed myself to be photographed in blue jeans and a PINK SHIRT!!! I even smiled – mostly because Steve was constantly telling me how FANTASTIC I looked. I tossed my hair and smiled some more, looking into the camera with my chin down, trying to penetrate the lens like I learned from watching all 38 seasons of America’s Next Top Model. Juliana would smile gently from behind her camera and then I’d change my pose to something equally fabulous. My GOD, why didn’t I think of becoming a model?

Then my little dog Sadie trotted by and stole the show. Sigh. I knew it. I tried hard as I could to keep her hidden so all of the focus could be on ME… but charisma like hers is hard to keep under wraps. She was a total Eve Harrington, acting like my sweet innocent little dog – but all the while she was scheming to get in as many shots as she could. And wouldn’t you know it, Sadie ended up having a full page shot! OF COURSE! It could be that being a French Bulldog gave her an edge – Martha has two of her own. I don’t blame Sadie… she has to werk it. She’s a star!

At the end of the shoot, I made a batch of Tomato Water Martinis with a twist – I call them “Pomodoro” Martinis because I rim the glass with a clove of garlic and muddle basil into the fresh tomato liquid. You can find the recipe on the MSL blog At Home In The Garden. We were officially wrapped, so down came our hair and we commenced to enjoy the martinis while we danced salsa long into the evening. It was the best photo shoot I’d ever experienced.

Thank you Steve, for your friendship and enthusiasm! You made my garden more than it is! And Juliana, she of the magic camera – you can point your lens at me and my world ANY TIME!!!

I hope you all run out and get a copy – but hurry up, because I might just go crazy and by them all up myself!

XOXOXO Your Germinatrix

The other day I was taking shots of my favorite tree, my Acacia baileyana purpurea,because she was looking mighty fine in full bloom. Tiny yellow pom-poms had exploded all over the lilac-gray foliage, the bees were maniacally happy gathering pollen,and the branches were arching elegantly under the weight of it all. That should have been a warning, maybe…

pretty flowers decorating an already pretty tree!

So here is the tree about a week ago, standing fairly tall…

beautiful acacia - tall and proud (well, actually starting to lean a little bit

And then we had some rains… not ALOT of rain – nothing like what we usually get this time of year. But my tree ended up looking like THIS!:

that is quite an angle - how can she STILL be in the ground?

YIKES!!! But wait – there is something kind of cool about it. Look at how it creates this weeping tunnel effect that could become an archway that leads to a different part of the garden. Of course, not as it is NOW – it blocks the entire area right now – but I am thinking that Mother Nature was trying to show me something. I’ve always thought this particular area is a transition point in the garden, but haven’t found the right thing to frame that transition with. What if I adjust the tree so that isn’t sitting ALL the way upright, and then start pruning to direct the growth to create a kind of arching affect over this part of the patio? I think it would be MARVELOUS!!!

Sometimes bad things happen and they are really opportunities in disguise. To pass up a new idea because it came in a crazy way would be to cut yourself off from a tremendous source of inspiration – CHAOS! Being flexible in a garden is so important, because things often don’t happen according to plan. We, as gardeners, really need to be open to those collaborations with the forces of nature that might seem awful when they happen, but can actually take us to a new, different, refreshed place. Okay, my tree almost fell and is looking all tweaked – but that “tweaked” quality gave me a great idea! If I would have just straightened it up it would have been fine, but now I am brimming with ideas for this new transitional space. How fun is that?

Let’s keep ourselves open to inspiration! Let’s look for that inspiration in unusual places. Let’s take our Meyer Lemons and make some super sweet, gourmet lemonade!

I’ll keep you all updated on the development of this new idea – cross your fingers for me!

XOXO Your Germinatrix

a lovely little infusion I shared with my friends

Well another year has drawn to a close and tonight is the night we all must raise a glass and toast the coming of 2012.

I hope that the glass you are raising has something in it that came out of your garden!

There has been an infusion craze going on! Over the past couple of years, I’ve not only been eating out of my garden, I’ve been drinking out of it. I use my lemons, lemongrass, strawberries, tomatoes, marjoram, basil, melons, peppers, and much more as a flavor enhancement to all manner of spirits, and the results are delightful and delicious!

And SOOO easy to do! Just think of the flavors you want in your drink, put those fruits, vegetables, herbs, or spices (sometimes all of the above) into a mason jar and pour some vodka (or bourbon, or tequila, or rum, or gin) in. Let it rest, “cooking”, and in a week or two you’ll have a kick ass potion of your own creation. Be an ALCHEMIST! EXPERIMENT! And taste it often, because some flavors can infuse quickly and may overpower your liquor of choice.

This is really a game. It’s fun. And the drinks you can make with your infusions are endless. Be your own bartender for 2012 – it is the Year of The Dragon, so we are all going to need a cocktail every now and again! There is a FABULOUS blog, Dirt & Martinis, that all of us who enjoy … well, dirt and martinis MUST read!

Gardens are such lovely places to throw cocktail parties. The days are getting longer, we are thinking about our gardens and what food we want to grow – let’s think about things we can DRINK, too! As soon as spring rolls around you should be swimming in ideas of the homemade infusions you can make! Get ready for a bash in your garden!Serving your guests drinks that have been kissed by your garden in the ultimate. And there is really no reason to wait to grow it yourself – support your local Farmers Markets and get some bounty there! A lovely winter infusion is Bourbon with Clove-studded Oranges. Serve it on the rock, or make a toddy by heating it up with unfiltered apple juice – YUM!!!

This is my New Year’s Gift to you, my dear readers – I give you more reasons to drink in the 2012. And if you make it, you must drink!

XOXO, Your Germinatrix

mmmm... poppies. photo by Linda Lehmusvirta

I have had a long-standing love affair with poppies.

sigh! the soft petals with splotches at the base, and the tantalizing center ... photo by Joseph Tychonievich

But when I say “poppies”, I don’t mean that little orange flower that cheerfully, happily pops up in the late spring and early summer, carpeting the roadsides of California, Texas, and other warm, xeric environs.

bright and perky! sweet and cheerful! but NOT a REAL POPPY!!! photo by Susan Morrison

I mean POPPIES – statuesque, hypnotic, dark, mysterious, dangerous … yes, dangerous. THAT is the poppy I tango with.

It’s not that I have anything against Eschscholzia californica – the little California poppy that poppy naifs think of as a true poppy – I think they are lovely little things, and I use them in designs and enjoy them as a tough wildflower. But I WISH they weren’t called “poppy”. I want that name reserved for the glorious, glamorous Papaver somniferum – the opium poppy.

swoon. I'm yours. photo by Joseph Tychonievitch

Yes. Opium. The stuff that started wars in the far east. The stuff that certain dens are named for, places where Chinese men (and several expats from far and wide) would smoke their lives away, falling into an addictive hazy netherworld forever. Poppy gives us a powerful drug. I TOLD you she was dangerous! And like many dangerous women, she comes to us draped in mad beauty. She is seductive, sexy, and very very tempting. She emerges from the earth; her elegant, cut leaves first becoming a silvery rosette that is already a wonderful addition to a garden. But then the flower head shyly emerges, peeking out from the center of the leaves, head bent on the slender stem as if Poppy is supplicating herself to you – HA! Don’t be fooled! It is YOU that is the supplicant.

shy. just you WAIT. photo by Linda Lehmusvirta

As Poppy bathes in the sun and becomes fully in possession of her powers, she raises her head and stands proudly, like a ballerina taking center stage. She is getting ready for her moment – her grand performance. Her head becomes full and suddenly opens to reveal one of her secrets, an incandescent blossom that has few rivals in the plant world. It doesn’t matter what variety, they are ALL bewitching; they all captivate. This is the first way they pull us in. Bees can’t resist them, they dance among their stamens and pistils and “do the deed”, while the poppy smiles a secret smile. She knows what is coming!

gulp. I wish I was the bee! photo by Linda Lemusvirta

When they have preened and been stroked, cooed over and sufficiently … um … admired, the gossamer petals fall off, one by one, like a striptease, to reveal a swelling, fertile seedpod. As divine as the blossom was, it is the seedpod that makes me shiver. It swells, becoming rounder, tighter – there is a “crown” that becomes evident as the seeds ripen. When the seeds are ready to be set loose, they escape through little holes beneath the crown – Queen Poppy is a wonder of design. The wind dances with her, and every time she sways she sends her seeds flying, planting more, more, more – collaborating with nature to plant a corps de ballet of intoxicating beauties wherever the seeds may fall.

there are secrets in the pod, but you have to know what you're doing... photo by Linda Lehmusvirta

Intoxicating. Remember, we are talking about the opium poppy here. The latex sap that exudes from the swelling seedpod is, in fact, opium. Lachryma papaveris, or “poppy tears”. Sigh … everything about Poppy is alluring, even the words used to describe the resinous secretion that gets you high. The Lachryma of garden variety Papaver somniferum has 12% morphine in it – it takes a field of poppies to create something that actually has enough narcotic properties to pack a punch, but many people report that opium “tea” made from garden poppies has a soothing, soporific effect. The poppy used in the production of opium and heroin in the Middle East and Central America is a very potent cultivar that has more than 90% morphine in its latex. In the U.S. it is technically illegal to grow Papaver somniferum, but these laws are vague and difficult to enforce on gardeners that are growing them in obvious ornamental settings, or growing them for poppyseeds used in baking.

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her co-horts take a shortcut to the Emerald City through a field of poppies, and all fall asleep. This was always my favorite image in the movie – Dorothy in her blue gingham gently folding herself into a carpet of red flowers… drifting off… I had no idea what it meant, but the image was captivating. When I had my first garden, I wanted it to be a field of poppies, so I planted hundreds of Black Thundercloud poppies in my front yard and threw caution to the wind. It was beautiful – but I have to admit to being nervous whenever a police car would slowly roll by. I was certain I was going to be busted. I never was. But the poppies got alot of attention – and the local birds were always pecking at the seedpods and dreamily flying off; their version of an afternoon cocktail, I suppose.

It is time to start casting your poppy seeds to the wind and inviting these exquisitely complicated lovelies into your garden, if you feel so inclined. Can YOU dance with Poppy? Or are you someone who would rather be friends with the little California poppy, the sweet, happy flit who, just because her name is also poppy, might be getting a bit of a boost to her reputation. No – California poppies don’t get you high, they didn’t start historical opium wars, they are NOT the Helen of Troy of flowers … they are just pretty. But they ARE easier to have in your garden, if you are concerned with matters of legality, intoxication, and potential addiction.

addicted to the poppy! photo by Joseph Tychonievich

Because it is very easy to get addicted to the poppy! Plant her if you DARE!!!

A very very very special thanks to my lovely blogfriends Linda Lehmusvirta, Joseph Tychonievich, and Susan Morrison for their very generous and beautiful photographic contributions!

XOXO Your Germinatrix

a greenhouse in the Antarctic - notice how they painted vegetables on the side of the building!

In the last post, we looked at the work of an artist who is creating spaces to grow food in a very difficult place – a cubicle in an office building. In THIS post, we are taking a trip to possibly the most difficult, inhospitable space to grow food in the entire world – McMurdo Ice Station in ANTARCTICA!

You might be asking yourself how your Germinatrix managed to get these super top-secret shots of growing food in this extremely remote, unforgiving place? I will not divulge my sources. Let me just say that I had a clandestine meeting with a young denizen of the ice station, and he regaled me with stories of hydroponic food growing at McMurdo. It was all so Sci-Fi and enthralling!

McMurdo Station is a science and support facility that services all of  the research going on in Antarctica – everything that has to get to the South Pole station (the remotest place on earth) has to come through McMurdo. There are a little over a 1500 people there during the prime season, but when the skies go dark, the numbers dwindle to a tiny crew of support staff and engineers who keep the station up and running until it the conditions are right for the scientists to return. Science and research is the main aim of the station – it is a remarkable “control”, because there is little pollution, and because it is very very quiet – some of the most interesting discoveries about sound have been made down there, in the silence. Isn’t that FREAKY???

what a humble home for such a wonderful thing

Anyway – the people who live at the station subsist mostly on canned and frozen food. But one day, several years ago (my source whispered this as if it were a legend or a well kept secret), one man decided he needed some fresh tomatoes. He commandeered a shed and set about building a hydroponic system to allow for the growing of vegetables and herbs and had a pilot bring him seeds. That was the beginnings of fresh food for the station. I asked if there was any other “plant” being grown in the hydroponics in the shed, but my source just raised an eyebrow- I was left to wonder.

where the magic happens - an obvious labor of love

My source recently returned from his 9 month sojourn way way down there, and he was very serious when he looked into my eyes and said that it is unbelievable the difference fresh herbs made to a meal prepared exclusively of canned or frozen food. I gently patted his hand – I could imagine. He was there at the station doing support work – important maintenance and upkeep of the facilities, but he spent most of his spare time in the growing hut. Not only was the act of cultivating fresh food immensely centering in the strange, dark environment where he found himself , but the growlights helped him keep the intense gloom that a lack of sunlight causes at bay. The air in Antarctica is very dry, but in the food chamber there were humidifiers, so it was comfortable – he would read, listen to music, and nap. I had no idea how necessary a growing environment could be down there – it was obviously something more than just a place to grow food. The way my source described it, it was a GARDEN – a place to get away, to enjoy nature, to revel in the magic of what living plants (and the place they grow in) can do for a person. I was dazzled, but not surprised.

notice the chair in the corner - for relaxation and contemplation in the "garden"

What WAS surprising was the jerry-rigged nature of the greenhouse. I’d imagined it would be sleek and scientific – but no, of course it wasn’t. It was built by food lovers with things that were cast off from the station, because asking for things to be flown in by plane was often a problem. See, EVERYTHING down there has to be flown in or brought in by boat, and the climate makes these trips infrequent. Most of the cargo is limited to necessary science and building equipment, so the fact that they got humidifiers (obviously from Home Depot or OSH), rockwool (the substrate used for hydroponic growing) and growlights was a luxury. Everything else was gleaned and salvaged from things cast off from the station – old ventilation tubing was used to warm the space, drain pipes were cut in half to be used as containers, reflective thermal insulation sheets – all recycled. McMurdo HAS to be a sustainable environment – they have no choice. Instead of everything being Sci-Fi in a sleek, space age way, it was a post-apocalyptic “Mad Max” sensibility that was evident. And that made it better. It shows that we can grow food anywhere, under any conditions, without having to erect an expensive greenhouse. We can find and old shed and go from there, finding what we need in what others throw out and making odd, unwanted things work to our purposes.

this small space provides every bit of fresh food for 1500 people

When I first met my source, and artist Stephen Wong from the previous post, I had science fiction visions of hydroponics bays from Star Trek Voyager, the garden ship tended to by Bruce Dern in Silent Running, and the doomed oxygen garden in Danny Boyle’s Sunshine (Watch Sunshine! Brilliant!!!). Growing food isn’t quaint or cottage-y, it is crucial to our survival, welfare, and general well-being. And it will only become more of an issue in the future. The isolation of the people living in McMurdo made taking control of their fresh food not only an issue of taste and nutrition, but one of emotional and physical well-being. Considering that McMurdo is a science station, might we take the results of the growing of food here and the effect of it on the residents as a type of experiment? I might be getting a little metaphorical and simplistic here, but in dark times, getting close to the means of your food production makes you feel better. Imagine yourself in the darkness of space (or Antarctica!), in a place you can’t leave, eating rations day in day out. I would be like the legend of McMurdo who wanted that fresh tomato – I’d find a way to get something fresh, green, and alive around me. Or I’d scream. And in space, nobody can hear you scream…

I want to thank my source, who is getting ready for a new adventure, this time on the high seas. I am hoping the next time we meet, he has another story to tell, maybe of seaweed farm in the middle of the Sargasso Sea, or of a tribe of vegetarian mermaids who live near the Galapagos.

So there are no excuses – GROW FOOD, wherever you are!

XOXO Your Germinatrix

the run of the mill office cubicle, BUT - Space Cube has come to the rescue!

While enjoying the afternoon, I was introduced to an artist, Stephen Wong (who works also works under the name of Dai Toyofuku), and we got to talking about his project called “Space Cube”. (It has to do with plants, and something about me gets people talking about plants. I wonder what that’s about) Wong creates modular “planting pods” that are specifically made to be used in office buildings by people stuck in cubicles during the work day.

I’m pretty exclusive in my gardening practice – I am all about the glory of the world outside your back door (and front door!), and I tend to see indoor gardening as purely decorative and slightly limited. I mean OF COURSE I know that there are reasons beyond the ornamental for bringing certain plants indoors, but in my personal experience it has never been as satisfying or interesting to garden inside. I’ve made terrariums, coddled ficus trees (which all die miserable deaths for mysterious reasons that get me all riled up), and grown plants that with wicked names like “Mother-in-laws Tongue” that are so boring in their potted isolation that they put me to sleep. The results of my indoor gardening efforts have always looked like a TGI Fridays in San Antonio, Texas. Eeeewww.

shelving with grow lights and SNACKS !

Seeing the images of Wong’s project were exciting to me – here was a very simple, clear, and direct way to utilize the functional aspects of plants in a place where they can have an immediate impact. Most office buildings are “tight”, meaning they were built to minimize the infiltration of outside air to reduce the cost of heating and cooling. As a result, every bit of air in these energy efficient building is recirculated – including the dangerous volatile compounds off-gassed from carpets, office equipment, and chemical cleaning products. There is no way for anyone to stroll over and open a window to let in a breeze – the workers have to sit and suffer the assault of molds, formaldehyde and all matter of noxious ickiness.

Wong’s project sites small plant growing units within an office cubicle. He uses plants that have been tested and proven to help clear the air of chemical compounds, then he directs the air flow to where it is most needed. There are shelving units with grow lights mounted, and here you’ll find lettuces, herbs, and even strawberries. The worker in the “sick” building can grow their own healthy, organic snacks to avoid the dangerous pull of the candy machine.

munch munch munch

The containers where the plants grow are pleasantly hand made out of see through materials. All of the layers of drainage, the soil, and roots are visible. One planter is a closed box – a system which gathers the fresh oxygen released from a boston fern and emits it to the spot where the worker is seated at his/her workstation via a silver ventilation tube with a small fan attached.

the oxygen machine, for your breathing pleasure

Like I said before, indoor planting is dominated by aesthetics. The straightforward, jerry-rigged way Wong builds his “machines” strips down the idea that plants are used to decorate and deals exclusively with the use value of the living material. It has a no nonsense approach that brings an edge of the post-apocalyptic into play – the grow lights are eerie, the bins and buckets used to plant in seem trash-picked, and the crinkly shine of what looks like recycled aluminum foil lines some of the food containers. Who has time to think of “pretty” when the air in your office building is polluted and the food you buy is suspect as well? The movement towards sustainable living also carries with it a frisson of paranoia, which is nicely in evidence in Space Cube.

strawberries! in an office cubicle!

I revel in the place where art and issues of landscape collide. Artists like Fritz Haeg (Edible Estates, Animal Estates) and the Fallen Fruit collective open up their practices and create an inclusive, democratic place between critical thought and our practical, essential, day-to-day concerns with food and planted spaces. It is great to see another art practice moving forward and taking up these issues in a way that welcomes both art viewer and the lay person to join in.

Today I have a special guest star weighing in on Stephen Wong’s Space Cube – ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to my husband, art writer Jan Tumlir:
“There’s a relation to Minimalism – to the shelving units of Donald Judd as well as the plexiglass cubes of Larry Bell and others – in particular, I think of Hans Haacke’s Condensation Cube, but here it is given an environmentally functional role rather than one that is hands off phenomenological. This makes sense in the world, and thereby also complicates its sense as art. Bravo!”

YAY ART!
XOXO Your Germinatrix

look how pretty!

I love love love my hanging ceramic circle planters from POTTED!

I’ve been feeling the intense desire to do a hanging garden these days – and this is my tiny beginning.

Notice the “light chimes” (also from POTTED) that dangle like earrings near the pots. These are my FAVORITE things – they activate the light in a twilight garden. As the sun is setting, the mirrors glint and glimmer and throw little circles of light against the walls, the patios, the chairs, your guests – and turn an ordinary evening into a magical event. And when the sun sets, the little Tinkerbell lights leave as quickly as they came. I will DEFINITELY incorporate light chimes into my fantasy hanging garden!

see the little lightchimes in between the super cool hanging containers?

And there is no way I could have a hanging garden without incorporating Hanging Succulent Balls (which one should actually call Hanging Succulent SPHERES, especially when googling the phrase, or else you may get an eyeful of something else entirely. Ahem) These are so super beautiful, whimsical, and easy to care for in my Southern California garden. The ones pictured below are from DIG, a fantastic nursery in the Bay Area, but those of us who live in the LA area can get them from California Cactus Center. Or you can make them yourself! All you need is the frame (or you can cheat my wiring the bottoms of two hanging baskets together), succulent cuttings (echeveria and aeoniums work the best to keep the tight, round look intact while growing), cactus mix (for the cuttings to take root in), and sphagnum moss (to line the sphere and keep the cactus mix from falling out). After you get the sphere, the soil, and the moss together, just poke in the cuttings – you can bend some florist wire into large “hairpins” to keep the cuttings in place while they root. Then water, and hang!  GORGEOUS!!!! (follow this link to DIG – you can buy a frame and you’ll find specific directions on planting a sphere)

who can resist these orbs of succulent delight?

There are SO many other things to add to the Hanging Garden! Staghorn Ferns, Tillandsias, Spanish Moss (I’m going to try with the moss even though it is pretty near impossible to keep this stuff going in a dry garden – I am nothing if not a risk taker!) This is JUST the beginning!

Thank you POTTED, for having exactly what I need to get me started, and the inspiration to keep me going!!!

*And just for the record, I purchased everything because I support my friends who have small businesses! This ain’t no punk operation I’m running here!!!

XOXO Your Germinatrix!

who needs lawn when you can have THIS?

I have never had a lawn, actually.

When my husband and I first moved into our home, I knew nothing about gardening – but I DID know that I didn’t want a lawn.

why lawn when you can have more of THIS?

To be honest, it wasn’t for any of the high-minded ideals that I espouse these days. I just found turfgrass extremely dull. Snore. Snooze. A big blanket of green, and that’s about it. I wanted something different. something dramatic – so my very first garden was a field of double black thundercloud Papaver somniferum. I wanted it to be a goth version of the poppy field in the Wizard of Oz. I loved it! Then I realized that I was basically growing opium in massive quantities in my front yard and I got really paranoid whenever the neighborhood cops drove by. I pulled them out and thought about a new front yard design, but putting in lawn never even entered my mind.

I am an iconoclast by nature. I tend to go against the grain. I love to explore alternatives, and so when I began thinking about what I could do to my front yard, I was attracted to the strong, sculptural shapes of succulents softened by grasses and other drought tolerant perennials. It is a front yard that evolved over time into a dramatic space that uses very little water, has edibles integrated into the design vignettes, and has, in fact, turned into a neighborhood landmark.

gravel is my favorite substitute for areas that need foot traffic. Who needs LAWN?

So with that in my front yard, why have lawn anywhere on my property? I thought about it, and realized that I didn’t need or want it. Living in Southern California, drought is a constant threat. Watering lawn is expensive and ultimately wasteful. My succulent, drought tolerant borders in both my front and back yards get water once a week in the heat of the summer, and that little bit keeps them looking great. Thirsty lawn is often the lush carpet of green that “sets off” complicated plantings, but in my garden I use gravel as a negative space that also handles foot traffic. The look is neat, clean, and can be either modern or rustic depending on how it is deployed within a design. I have a large concrete patio that serves as a platform for my container gardens, and is used as the main gathering space whenever we throw parties.

My raised edible beds are productive and handsome – they give me food to supplement my marketing as well as a tremendous amount of pleasure in planning, planting, and harvesting seasonal crops.

So with all of this – why would I need lawn? When clients ask for lawn, they always say they need a place for the kids to play. I know several children who have grown up in lawn-free environments – they play in the trees, make forts under large shrubs, create little imaginary worlds among the plants and flowers. It seems to be a much richer experience than whatever game they could play on a backyard lawn.

with all this raucous fun, all of this cool jumble of WOW, who needs LAWN?

There is a place for lawn, in my opinion – city parks, museums, public squares – places where people can gather, picnic, play frisbee and other lawn games in a social setting. Maybe small patches of lawn in yards in climates where there is ample water, with wild meadows and gardens filling in the majority of the planted space. But in urban or suburban environments in dry, hot zones, our need for lawn must be re-thought. There is an alternative … creativity, boldness, and commitment to an ideal that is more responsible, more sustainable, and way way cooler.

Re-think your need for lawn. There are other ways.

Now please follow the links around the country and see what my esteemed colleagues have to say! This month we have the members of the Lawn Reform Coalition weighing in, and they KNOW from lawn alternatives! There are ALOT of great posts and amazing ideas in this group, so don’t be shy! Jump on in and get all juiced up to tear out some LAWN!!!

Susan Harris : Garden Rant : Takoma Park, MD

Susan Harris : Gardener Susan’s Blog : Takoma Park, MD

Billy Goodnick : Cool Green Gardens : Santa Barbara, CA

Evelyn Hadden : Lawn Reform.Org : Saint Paul, MN

Saxon Holt : Gardening Gone Wild : Novato, CA

Ginny Stibolt : Florida Native Plant Society : Green Cove Springs, FL

Tara Dillard : Vanishing Threshold: Garden, Life, Home : Atlanta, GA

Susan Morrison : Blue Planet Garden Blog : East Bay, CA

Shirley Bovshow : Eden Makers : Los Angeles, CA

Scott Hokunson : Blue Heron Landscapes : Granby, CT

Rochelle Greayer : Studio G : Boston, MA

Rebecca Sweet : Gossip In The Garden : Los Altos, CA

Pam Penick : Digging : Austin, TX

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

Laura Livengood Schaub : Interleafings : San Jose, CA

Jocelyn Chilvers : The Art Garden : Denver, CO

Genevieve Schmidt : North Coast Gardening : Arcata, CA

Douglas Owens-Pike : Energyscapes : Minneapolis, MN

XOXO, Your Germinatrix