Check them out! These are my brand spankin' new vegetable beds - aren't they snazzy? Minions J&Z crafted them from beautiful pieces of redwood - and yes, I know, that's a lot of trees ... but just think of all that will be saved by years and years of produce coming from these strong, well-built beds!
You'll notice that they are different heights ... we decided that varying the levels would make for a more dynamic visual experience as well as allow for me to use taller crops like corn and pole beans to screen out more of my neighbor's roof by planting them in the higher beds in the back. As far as the front three beds go, the shortest bed (we call it 'the coffin') is for lettuces and radishes, the next highest is for herbs, and the highest is for tomatos (!). The back beds are the ones we call 'The C' and 'The L' - these will be the home of corn, beans, peas, melons ... anything that is tall or is vining. One of my favorite parts is my bench/storage box, which has yet to be finished, but is located at the foot of 'The L' - it will be a lovely bench, but I can flip up the seat and below is all I need to dig, cut, harvest, and cultivate my potager. Cool, huh? This bench fits into the hollow part of 'The C' in what may be seen as a racy manuver by some - but as I've said many times before, a garden has to be sexy.
Yes, this is alot of wood right now - but just imagine the beds full of colorful fruits and veg! Needless to say, I'll keep ya'll posted!

Just look at the tired, happy Minions, checking out what they designed and built...

The gate was just the beginning...
I'd like to introduce my readers to the lads I fondly refer to as my "Minions".
Meet Minion J

And this is Minion Z

They are building me a beautiful 'potager' - a fancy french term for 'vegetable garden'. But this is no ordinary vegetable garden. Because these are not ordinary minions. They are sculptors.
Usually, a vegetable garden is a purely utilitarian endeavor rather than an ornamental one - but my potager is going to be right next to the highest traffic area of my garden (my back patio) so it needs to look as super-cool as my Jorge Pardo Tile Wall. That's why I turned to the two most promising recent graduates of the art school where my husband teaches and hired them on as collaborators and, yes, slaves. So far, I'm thrilled with how the build is progressing. By my Friday posting, there should be enough completed for you to get a good idea of what the space is going to look like.


I encourage all of you to find strapping young men to do your bidding!

I love Irises. Some people may think them old-fashioned, pedestrian, overly frou-frou ... not me. I find value in even the puffiest, frilliest, prom dress looking-est iris around. The leaves, the shape of the flowers, the colors ... you have to be a cold-hearted snake not to melt a little for an iris. They have such different 'personalities' that there is an iris for just about everyone. The ultra-colorful, two-toned bearded irises are like the brassy lady who hangs out at the neighborhood bar; loud, funny, a heart of gold, the brightest clothes and make-up, and swoony perfume. Siberian irises are the fashionistas - sleek and sexy, always chic, never too much.
This weekend, my Walking Iris (Neomarica caerulea), a long-legged Brazillian model of an iris, gave me a surprise bloom. They are called 'walking irises' because the flowering stem will lean over and eventually touch the ground, where it will root and become another plant. So eventually I will have an army of leggy beauties strutting their stuff all over my garden! I can't wait!

A while back, Girl About Town Rita posted about an amazing perfume lab in Nolita - Le Labo. I was intrigued. I love perfume. I'd rather wear a great scent than carry a great handbag (not that I like to have to chose) I'm always looking for a fragrance that smells like a garden and not like a chemical soup, so I sent away for some samples and struck olfactory gold.
Le Labo's Rose 31 is a wonder. Never would I have imagined myself loving a rose perfume! Just like a hybrid tea in my garden, I've always found classic rose fragrances cloying, overly dramatic; just too much. Not this baby. The first thing that hits my nose when I spray it on is a warm peppery tingle; cumin as it turns out, and then the rose joins in - but it never steals the show. The rose dances with all the other notes in this fragrance, just like it would in a garden ... a warm woodsiness and a little musky quality sealed the deal for me. This is the most modern, wearable rose perfume - it is my new 'signature scent'.
Fragrance is an important thing to consider when making a garden - it is the sense of smell that informs our memories the most. Play perfumer when choosing your plants, and think about how their scents layer, as well as their textures and colors. Close your eyes and let your nose be your guide...

Are daylilies overused? Maybe they are - but what good plant isn't overused? I object to plants that are badly used, and daylilies are prone to being planted out in groups of 100 or more... and you all know how I despise massed plantings.
I don't understand why, because daylilies are so easy to integrate into a mixed planting scheme. The grassy leaves and straightforward blossom add an ease and simplicity to anything you put them next to - put a daylily next to a tea rose (if you insist on planting those) and it is instantly less uptight. Add a daylily to an existing group of kangaroo paws and Salvia clevelandii and you have horticultural BFF's (Best Friends Forever, duh...) The rainbow of colors they come in makes them pretty irresistible, and even though the blooms last for only one day - what a show! Besides, there are always so many buds waiting to burst into flower that you can't hold that one day thing against them. Most daylilies bloom for around a month, take a little breather, then rev themselves up for another performance.
Don't just take my word for it - plant some! I know you'll end up liking them, maybe even loving them. And if you don't, you know where to find me.

Check out my new Anti - Escaping Dog Gate, custom made by my new Garden Minions! See, Dexter and Sadie have been busting out of our yard to frolic with the neighbor's dog, Max. Within two days, the Minions built me an extra sturdy, bulldog-proof thing of beauty! The gate's majesty now calls for more thoughtful gardening around it, so I have yet another area to design. It really is a never ending project, this gardening thing - there is no end to how detailed you can get. Even though few people will see this lovely gate on a regular basis, I know it's there, and it makes me very happy. Now I'm going to surround it with ferns and calla lilies!

No more break outs for these bad dogs!

Yesterday, as my garden minions were getting ready to build a gate to keep Dexter and Sadie from escaping into the wilds of our next door neighbor's backyard, they saw this sweet little yellow-breasted robin, dead as a tiny doornail.
What image could be sadder than this? A tiny beautiful thing, a flying jewel, lying on the gray cement - still; lifeless. I immediately wondered about evil portents; after-all, the little robin looked perfect - no bites from a cat or other varmint, no broken neck from flying into a window, nothing gross ... just a peaceful little birdy, dead. I tried to think like a CSI, but other than taking pictures, I have no clue as to how to collect evidence - so I went to trusty Google and typed in " DEAD ROBIN". I had to wade through alot of links about Marvel Comics and Batman, but then I hit pay dirt - the Drunken Bird Theory/Drunken Bird Theory Debunked. It seems that the abominable freeze of 2007 keeps taking lives! You see, when there has been a freeze and a thaw, the berries still left on shrubs will tend to ferment. The longer they stay there, the more alcoholic they become. Little Robins, starlings, and other small birds will then eat these berries, and die from alcohol intoxication! I think that must have happened to our little yellow chested friend.
I decided to give him a decent burial - I folded him in a canna leaf and put a sprig of lemon scented geranium in there... decomposition is stinky. I said a little prayer to ward off any lingering possibility of evil portents, and hoped that in the final moments of his life, the little robin was enjoying his buzz.

Do you remember how devastated I was by all the destruction that the freeze of the century caused my collection of succulents? I wept and moaned for what seemed like weeks... and I still haven't quite worked out the plan for filling in the bald spots in my garden. But now, the warmth of the approaching summer is making magic - will you look at all the baby Aeonium 'Zwartkopf' sprouting from where I cut a frozen rosette! These kids will branch out and revitalize the plant; I can leave them alone and let it be a tall 'black rose' succulent, or I could sacrifice the plant - cut off the new little rosettes (once they have more stem on them) and plant them individually, as little starts.
I think I need more of these black beauties in my garden, so I'm going to let the little ones mature a bit more, and then, just when they least expect it, I'm gonna whack 'em. I'll uproot the mother, slice off the kids, hang them out to dry - then I'll bury them right up to their pretty little heads! It's going to be a bloodbath - a horror show!
Often, gardening is not for the weak of stomach. Cloning an army of plants to fill in your garden is serious business, after all...

Epiphyllum are commonly known as the 'Orchid Cactus', and while most people wouldn't identify the plant as a cactus, the flower does suggest a sort of orchid-y lucsiousness. But where orchids tend to be prim and contained, these blossoms are "too too"- they're bawdy; over-the-top ... they are the flower equivalent of strippers. They only open for a day - but what a day! They bump and grind their way through 24 hours, trying to catch as many eyes they can. And they succeed! Every single flower is visited by a pollinator ... I know that because each flower turns into a seed. That is evidence of horticultural sex. Like I've said before, the garden can be a very NC-17 place.

By the way, check out this post at Heavy Petal (an AWESOME garden blog) - on a trip to Paris, Andrea Bellamy saw this incredible Vertical Garden and some cool ways to display airplants ... the airplant thing is a product, actually - but I think we intrepid and creative types can rig up something similar from wires and washers...