Right-sizing your Garden and Saving Water By Deana Rae McMillion, Garden Enthusiast and Master Gardener Right-sizing our gardens in order to reduce water usage is imperative. Just taking out your lawn isn’t necessarily the answer. Many people who do remove their lawns aren’t doing the necessary research and are planting water thirsty plants or invasive…
Plants
Musings On Design: Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture Part 2
This is Part 2 of our interview with Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture with the principal architect himself. To read the first part, please visit here. EOD: Based on your portfolio that definitely seems to be a case. It can be difficult to make sure all work in harmony, but your clients must know who…
Blue Agave Landscape Design Project
Blue Agave Landscape Design Project After whetting your appetite for planting your own meadow and inspiring visions of golden grasslands, we want to show you a different way of using the “no lawns” concept. Adan Venegas of Blue Agave Landscape in Santa Barbara used lots of Italian terracotta rolled rim pots for planting (surprise!) agaves…
Musings On Design: Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture Part 1
Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture and the Spirit of Place The spirit of a place. This concept comes up throughout our interview with Jeffrey Gordon Smith, principal architect of Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture based in Baywood-Los Osos, CA. There is a respect and celebration of space throughout the work of Smith and his firm….
Book Review: The American Meadow Garden by John Greenlee
“We’ve reached a stage where we can no longer follow past practices unthinkingly, particularly when those practices are wasteful and injurious to the environment. It’s time to get rid of the old-fashioned lawn and embrace a sane and healthy future: the designed meadow.” – John Greenlee In The American Meadow Garden: Creating a Natural Alternative…
Garden Recipe: Tomato, Fig, and Cheese Salad
Garden Recipe: TOMATOES FIGS CHEESE We have had a tiny fig tree in our back yard for seven years…so maybe we are graced with four or five velvety, crunchy, voluptuous figs each summer. This year it is veritably FILLED with figs. It’s still a tiny tree, but it’s trying harder this time. Daydreaming of my…