A Gardener's Thoughts & Fancies

“Buds’re bustin’ out of bushes, And the rompin’ river pushes, Ev’ry little wheel that wheels beside the mill!” Okay, Spring may not be “bustin’ out all over” as Oscar Hammerstein put it, but there are certainly enough buds beginning to make an appearance and the fact the Trader Joe’s  is selling daffodils does suggest that [...]

While the better part of the country is, or will be, digging out of from under blankets of show, Southern Californians, can anticipate Spring by using their shovels to dig holes and plant any number of available “bare-root” plants. These include: roses, cane berry bushes, deciduous fruit trees, ornamental deciduous tress and a variety of [...]

With the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl starting the year off, I thought there was no better time than now to ask this simple question! When Is The Best Time To Plant Roses? And the answer is … it all depends on where you live and the climate zone your in. The simplest solution [...]

Southern California has been struck by ferocious Santa Anna winds, which have toppled century old trees, tossed palm fronds around like tooth picks and sent tree branches crashing to the ground. Since the winds hit, my landscaping crews have been chain-sawing their way through my clients’ gardens working overtime to clean up the mess. And [...]

I was leafing through Pat Welsh’s wonderful resource book entitled Southern California Gardening – A Month-by-Month Guide, Chronicle Books, 2000, when my eye caught a side bar on “How Cymbidiums Came To California.” It’s something I never considered and thought it might also interest my blog readers. So here it is in its entirety. How [...]

Now that it’s getting dark at 5:00 p.m. I’ve been asked by a number of people what would be involved in transforming a dark or poorly illuminated landscape into something magical. The answer is a landscape designer, an outdoor lighting specialist, or you – if you’re so inclined, who understands how to use light to [...]

November in Southern California is the beginning of our rainy season, although, this year, it did begin a bit early. And while October is the ideal time to plant, if you haven’t already done so, November offers a window of opportunity for a number of plants, including: onions, strawberries, ground covers, a variety of bulbs [...]

Sitting on the north side of Pershing Square in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, Perch is a bar and rooftop French bistro that occupies the top three floors of 448 S. Hill Street. With wrap-around patios on its 15th and 16th floors, it offers views of Bunker Hill to the north, Pershing Square to [...]

I thought this article was fascinating and it helps explain why I walk out on my porch or go sit in my backyard whenever I feel overwhelmed by the work I need to be focusing on.  It’s excerpted from The American Society of Landscape Architect’s blog, The Dirt, and is well worth a read. Nature Works [...]

October, with its cooler days and the occasional sprinkle (our Southern California “rainy season” actually begins in November), is the ideal time to plant most perennials, with the exception of tropicals, which should be planted in late spring or early summer, and bare-root plants, which should be planted in January. The reason is simple: get [...]