My fellow Shed Aficionado across the Atlantic, Uncle Wilco, has presided over a fantastic “Shed of the Year” competition for each of the past three years. The British press has followed his competition with avid enthusiasm, including a recent story in the The Sun, a national tabloid. I have the honor of serving as the “international” judge, joining an illustrious team of judges for Shed of the Year. 

Uncle Wilco will announce the winner on July 5th – the start of National Shed Week in the U.K.  

He has given me permission to share photos and details about the 13 finalists. Each has captured the fancy of visitors to We [Heart] Sheds, his blog that invites “sheddies” from around the globe to share photographs and details about their own private, backyard getaways. 

I recently checked in with Wilco to get a few more details about this year’s contest. 

Debra: How many entries did you receive? 

Wilco: “We had about 1,200 in total, including 60 international sheds this year.” 

Debra: I noticed that there are no finalists from North America! 

Wilco: “I think that the public who voted for the ‘short list’ went for the quirky UK sheds.” 

I agree, Wilco. The quirky UK sheds are highly personal and very creative. I promised that I wouldn’t reveal how I voted until the July 5th announcement . . . but in the meantime, here is a preview of the finalists, along with my commentary: 

PUB SHED Category: The 3 Steps (left) 

WOW, I didn’t want to like this Man Cave at first, but I’m actually blown away by the smart design, amazing efficiency and cozy feeling of Garry’s shed.  

I think I would like him as my neighbor!  

Everyone is talking about being alone and alienated in the suburbs, but Garry has taken care of that problem by building community at The 3 Steps Pub 

WORKSHOP Category: Junkaholic’s Weaving and Sewing Shed (left) 

Sweet and fresh, simple yet stylish. Artemis has turned something utilitarian into an inviting escape where I could be happy day after day. Love it!  

UNIQUE Category: The Lady Sarah Out of Worthington Shed (right) 

Reg is living the good life here on his ship.  

Viewing the photos and movies felt like a journey into Ye Olde  Curiosity Shoppe – something wonderful and strange with every glimpse.  

He has really created a backyard destination unlike anything I’ve ever seen – and certainly beyond the imagination of most shed owners.  

WOODEN Category:Frankenshed, Penny Two Allotment (right) 

What a creative way to dress up and decorate a basic tool shed. Frankenshed’s allotment potting shed is charming and has lots of personality. I love the lettering painted on the boards in contrasting lavender and green.  

STUDIO Category: In the Shed (left) 

Nicola knows how to turn a box into a beautiful working space. Interiors are very creative, much more so than the rather plain exterior.  

TARDIS Category: Tim’s Tardis (right) 

Clever and resourceful as a storage unit and garden accent.[Note: TARDIS is the name of a space-travel machine from “Dr. Who,” a popular British sci-fi novel] 

NORMAL SHED Category: Mini Jeff Dave Jones (left) 

This is exactly what I look for in a stylish shed – a “chill-out” place in the garden that’s both useful for storage and pleasant for R&R.  

Nicely placed in the garden and I love all the attention to detail in the finishing. Not fussy at all, but a true Stylish Shed.  

ECO SHED Category: Ecopod (right) 

The Eco Pod is inspiring and has a really appealing “mod” silhouette. Love that it was designed with sustainability in mind. I wish it was a little more organic as a garden element, though. Needs some oxygen-producing vegetation to downplay all that wood and really make the sustainable message relevant. It’s almost there, and I’d love to get my garden designer friends on the job to soften it up.  

GARDEN OFFICE Category: One Grand Designs (left) 

Great design, great use of materials, wonderful attention to detail (wrap-around deck; skylight). Probably the best design of the batch for the mass marketplace. I see this design turning into DIY kits all over the globe.  

HUT Category: Beach Shed (right) 

Tiny and terrific. Love the way this diminutive hut draws a crowd and even offers a cozy hideaway inside.  

OTHER Category: Uisge Betha (no photo) 

Less is more – great ideas for turning one space into three distinct ones. Love the way the outdoors garden is “borrowed” into the overall design scheme 

CABIN Category: Naval Museum (left) 

Fantastic! Stephen is an absolute success at what he set out to do. The exterior fits really nicely into the garden and its interior demonstrates how to fit all your desired amenities into a tiny box – yes, you can have it all, even in the backyard shed.  

SUMMERHOUSE Category: Pebble Hideaway (right) 

Lovely, light-filled design. I’m impressed with the use of glass doors and windows; the color blue is wonderful and it looks like a little cottage. A sweet spot.  

Stay tuned for the announcement next week. I’ll let you know the final judging, as well as my own personal selection (including a Q&A with the shed creator).

Sometimes all you need are a few pretty leaves to conjure up a gorgeous tabletop arrangement or centerpiece. I have my talented friend Susan Appleget-Hurst, former senior associate garden editor for Better Homes & Gardens, to thank for producing a story that illustrates this idea (with several cool designs).

Susan, who now blogs at Cake in the Garden (check it out!) designed the lovely, leafy bouquets and co-produced the story with art director Scott Johnson. Then I was lucky enough to be asked to create the accompanying text. Pick up this month’s BH&G or click here for a peek at the story.

The idea of using leaves as cut flower ingredients is nothing new. But it’s always nice to see someone else’s twist on the technique. One of the things I love about Susan’s designs is her use of white vases in several different sizes. The white really offsets the leaves and focuses the viewer’s interest on the form, texture and scale of the various cut foliage. I also loved the monochromatic and contrasting combinations of leaves.

After writing the text, I kind of forgot about this story until I opened up the June issue and saw how beautifully it turned out. I decided to try my own version of this floral design project (I can’t get more “seasonal, local and sustainable” than my own backyard!).

Looking around my landscape, I realized how many awesome succulent plants grow here. Even when a sedum, aeonium or crassula stem breaks off of the plant or gets bumped when someone pushes a chair out from the patio table, I try to “rescue” the severed piece and put it in water. Inevitably, a few roots will emerge and I can plant that cutting. So clipping a few succulent pieces for the designs you see above didn’t kill me. Once these pieces root, in water, they will be returned to the potting soil or garden bed.

My idea: To showcase the amazing color diversity of succulents. For each of three color schemes – silver-blue, maroon, and lime green – I looked for perennial foliage to match with the companion succulent. Unlike Susan’s white vases, I tried to pair the foliage hues with my slender colored-glass bud vases. I have owned this trio in green, tangerine and turquoise glass for several years. I think they came from IKEA.

These designs look sweet displayed on my block-printed cotton table cloth (it’s nice that each picks up on the botanical pattern and palette).

Here is what I included in each:

The Orange Glass contrasts beautifully with three silvery-blue ingredients. The succulent element is called Senecio mandraliscae. Here in Southern California, people grow this shrubby, South African succulent as a groundcover. I actually have some in a pot and I love its slightly curved blue-gray leaves. Softer textures come from my other fave silvery garden plants. First is Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’, which has lacy foliage. I clipped the taller stems from Westringia fruticosa, also called coast rosemary. It’s from Australia, has a rosemary-like texture, and looks just gorgeous growing at the base of my fruitless olive tree.  

The Green Glass is a perfect foil for the deep purple-maroon ingredients. My succulent starting point was to add two small Aeonium rosettes. Not sure of the cultivar because I inherited this plant when we moved here in 2006.  Almost like a touch of embroidery, the dark plum version of sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas) spills from the neck of the slender vase.

The Turquoise Glass gets a fresh accent from lime green and chartreuse stems. I started with an un-named lemon-lime sempervivum that has pretty pointed leaves. These bold forms have a fluffy collar of chartreuse dead nettle (Lamium galeobdolon).

My challenge to you is to walk outside, clippers in hand, and create a foliage bouquet with what you have growing in your garden. Don’t overlook the unexpected ingredients. Hey – maybe that awesome artichoke leaf in the vegetable patch is worthy of a starring role in a vase. Or perhaps the conifers could stand in for my succulent ingredients. Have some fun! The best part? It means you have a lovely centerpiece for free!

Garden Scouting: It sounds so luxurious, doesn’t it?

Spending four days scouting some of the most beautiful and unique residential landscapes in and around Los Angeles! 

I do it all the time – visit and tour gardens that might just make it onto the pages of the magazines and newspapers to which I contribute. And yet, achieving the “get” is not always that luxurious. It’s fun and rewarding. But also hard work. 

Successful garden scouting requires lots of telephone calls to set up appointments. It means I have to lean on my personal connections to cajole invitations from reclusive garden owners or rock star designers. And it demands that I put way too many miles on my Volvo odometer. A lot! (Thank goodness for NPR.) 

Most of all, this job means being extremely open to everything I see, while also keeping out a discerning eye for that magical glimpse of a perfect story. 

It’s alot like being on a treasure hunt when you don’t know the ending, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! 

Jenny Andrews, executive editor for Garden Design, one of the magazines for which I am contributing editor, was in Los Angeles a few weeks ago for a four-day scouting marathon. As she put it, it felt like we were college roommates for four days . . . probably because Jenny ended up staying with me for most of the time. She got to experience the craziness of the Prinzing-Brooks household with kids, dog, schedules, and more. And, we put 700 miles on my car in four days. We were both exhausted by the end. 

READ MORE…

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.  

READ MORE…

As a follow-up to my last post about round objects in the landscape, I thought I’d show off a few more of my spherical works of art, from my backyard. You can see how appealing it is to start with a shape and then repeat it often. Some of the orbs in my garden are more obvious than others. One of the round forms is quite subtle. It is part of a sculpture called “Tempest” by my friend Jennifer Asher and her collaborator-fabricator Mario Lopez.

Jennifer owns TerraSculpture with Karen Neill Tarnowski  and the two women never cease to amaze me at their innovation and talent. These pieces fill a void in the outdoor sculpture world – bringing contemporary sculpture to the residential setting at far below the huge price tags you usually see.

TerraSculpture originally created Tempest in a powder-coated bright orange finish. My husband Bruce was interested in the piece but suggested that we have Jennifer and Mario make the base in weathered steel, which somehow fits our style better.

I love the shape of the base – three “arms” join together and then gradually open to cradle a stainless steel mesh ball. The weathered steel (some might call it “rust”) echoes the dark burgundy-rust blades of my garden’s New Zealand flax and Cordyline plants. There’s something really wonderful about the piece’s see-through quality, too. Upon seeing “Tempest” standing in our garden, visitors are likely to utter a gasp of delight, followed by the immediate question: Where did you find that awesome piece?

More steel – also rusted – appears in the 24-inch orb I purchased from my friends Annette Gutierrez and Mary Gray of Pot-ted in Los Angeles. I’ve shown earlier pics of their tangerine and aqua-finished objects.

For me, the weathered steel works well with everything else in my garden. See how pretty this piece looks on the “California Gold” crushed gravel? On the other hand, if Annette and Mary ever decide to make their metal orb series in lime green, I will be the first in line to snag a small-medium-large trio!

And what about those awesome Bauer balls? I think I have six of them (it’s an ever-changing number). Here are two of them, looking nice and settled-in at the base of a New Zealand flax. These Bauer glazes are called Lime Green (15 inch size) and French Blue (8-inch size).

The glossy finish and classic round forms add up to nothing short of stunning, especially when surrounded by foliage, flowers and ornamental grass plumes.

I have a thing for floating glass balls, too. Here is a little cluster of them, floating in the fountain on our entry porch. There are several glass artists who make these decorative balls. You can usually find the artists and their wares at major flower shows.

One of my favorite sources is Glass Gardens NW. Owner-artist Barbara Sanderson makes a rainbow of glass floats and orbs, as well as larger sculpture pieces for the garden. Check her out!

Finally, the garden has curves of a more organic nature – and that is in the outline of two crescent-shaped perennial beds. With so much linear geometry in my backyard (the horizontal lines of the house, patio, pergola, wall and pathways) it’s nice to visually break up these forms with sinuous curves.

ATTENTION Better Homes & Gardens readers! Thank you for visiting! Click here to see my gallery of circles, orbs, spheres, and globes in the garden. 

The Summer 2010 issue of Nature’s Garden (a Better Homes & Gardens title edited by the very talented Jane Austin McKeon) features two articles by me. Here’s a sneak peek at those stories. 

The fist one, titled “Got Nectar?”, is about naturalists and nursery owners Steve and Donna Brigham. 

The story, produced by Andrea Caughey and photographed by Ed Gohlich, describes how the Brighams created a 1/4-acre Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden at their former nursery in the San Diego area. 

Buena Creek Gardens is now owned by Steve and Shari Matteson, and you can visit year-round for a great selection of native and wildlife-friendly plants. You can read the full article, here. 

If you’re inspired to attract more hummingbirds and butterflies to your backyard, take a gander down these two lists, shared by Steve Brigham. 

You can meet Steve and hear him lecture in Pasadena on Septemer 25th, as part of Pacific Horticulture’s symposium, “Style and Whimsy in the Sustainable Garden.” Steve will speak on “Attracting Birds & Butterflies to Your Garden and Keeping Them There.”  

”]Top Nectar Plants for Hummers 

Brazilian verbena (Verbena bonariensis); 3-6 ft., summer 

*Butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii and hybrids); 3-10 ft., spring and summer 

Bottlebrush (Callistemon citrinus and hybrids); 10-15 ft., spring and summer 

Coral bell (Heuchera sp.); 1-2 ft., spring to fall 

Firecracker flower or cigar plant (Cuphea ignea or C. llavea); 1-3 ft., spring and summer 

*Flowering sage (Salvia sp.); countless varieties in perennial (1-3 ft.) and shrub (2-5 ft.) forms, spring to fall 

Fuchsia (Fuchsia x hybrida), 3-6 ft. or trailing type for hanging basket, summer 

Grevillea (Grevillea sp.), shrub form (3-8 ft.), summer 

*Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), 3 ft., summer 

Penstemon (Penstemon sp. and hybrids), 1-2 ft., spring to fall 

Peruvian lily (Alstroemeria hybrids), 1-2 ft., summer 

Torch lily (Kniphofia hybrids), 2-5 ft., summer to fall 

Top Nectar Plants for Butterflies 

Butterfly flower (Gaura lindheimeri), 2-4 ft, spring to fall 

Gloriosa daisy (Rudbeckia hirta), 3-4 ft., summer 

Heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens), 3-4 ft., summer 

Jupiter’s beard (Centranthus ruber), 3 ft., summer and fall 

Lantana (Lantana hybrids), 2-5 ft., summer 

Marigold (Tagetescultivars), 2-4 ft., spring and summer 

Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia), 2-3 ft., summer 

Pincushion flower (Scabiosa columbaria), 2 ft., summer 

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), 3-4 ft., summer 

Shasta daisy (Chrysanthemum maximum), 2-4 ft., summer and fall 

Tickseed (Coreopsis grandiflora and cultivars), 1-2 ft., summer 

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium and hybrids), 2 ft., summer 

Here’s how to find Buena Creek Gardens: 418 Buena Creek Rd., San Marcos, California, 760-744-2810; www.buenacreekgardens.com 

In the July 2010 issue of Better Homes & Gardens, I wrote a short item for my “Debra’s Garden” column called “Curves Ahead.” It could also have been titled “Three Cheers for the Circle.”

I am obsessed with round shapes — balls, spheres and orbs — and I love to dot the garden with these forms. This design trick relates to one of those basic lessons anyone who studies the art of landscape design is taught: Choose an idea and repeat it frequently.

My eye is naturally drawn to orbs and globes. They are so pleasing to me – in fact, I wrote about this passion previously – in an earlier blog post, “Zen of the Circle.”

Ornamental globes, obelisks and balls have taken up residence here in my Southern California backyard — check out the photograph below.

And it’s not just the three-dimensional geometry that puts a smile on my face. Curved outlines, such as the edge of a perennial border, patch of lawn or a turn in the path echo the orbs and reappear as arcs or crescents in the garden.

My interest in the sexy, organic globe shape has come “full circle” (pun intended) from a single idea to a cohesive design theme and a nice way to use ornamentation. Look around your own garden. Wherever you see a bare spot, perhaps it’s calling out for an orb or two.

I included a post-script note in my BH&G piece, promising to share my gallery of rounded and curved design ideas with our readers. Here it is – enjoy! Please send me your own photos and I’ll include the best ideas here, too. Check the bottom of this post for some of my favorite shopping resources.

Best resources for spherical garden ornamentation:

Pot-ted Store: Three graduated sizes of balls made from steel strapping will lend a lovely moment of architecture to the landscape. I have the medium-sized one in weathered steel (my preferred material). Annette and Mary, owners of Los Angeles-based Pot-ted, now sell a series finished with bright orange and turquoise powder-coating – their fav hues. Oops – I mean “aqua” and “tangerine.” Inquire about custom colors! Prices: $98 (18-inches); $139 (24-inches); and $169 (30 inches). Shipping available.

Bauer Pottery Garden Orbs: My friend Janek Boniecki has revived the classic California earthenware known as Bauer Pottery. In addition to making reproduction urns, dishes and serving pieces (in that awesome, sun-drenched palette), Janek and crew also create ceramic garden orbs glazed in Bauer colors. Yellow, dove gray, French blue, Federal blue, chartreuse, lime green, midnight blue, parrot green, turquoise, white, black and aqua (for some reason, the Bauer orange pieces are slightly more expensive, perhaps because of the glazing involved).

I am a bit addicted to these “globally admired” orbs, thanks to the company’s occasional factory outlet sales in Los Angeles. I have five or six of these gumball-shaped objects, which look tres-bien in and among foliage, flowers, blades and stems. Prices: $75-$82 (8-inch); $100-$110 (12-inch); and $150-$165 (15-inch). If you think you’ll be in the Los Angeles area sometime, make sure to check the Bauer web site to see the warehouse sale schedule. You will definitely find great prices and maybe even an orb or two (if I don’t get there first!).

Clare Dohna, Mosaic Artist:  Based on Vashon Island, Wash., artist Clare Dohna makes vibrant mosaic tiles in dazzling botanical shapes (flowers, bugs, leaves and more). She uses these tiles to adorn the surfaces of all sorts of wonderful garden sculpture and art, such as bird baths, bird houses, egg shapes and — my favorite – mosaic spheres. You can see one of her pieces at the top of this page; it plays nicely with the solid-colored Bauer orbs. Contact Clare directly (from her web site) to inquire about color schemes and prices.

If you pick up the June issue of Sunset magazine – the one with skewers of salmon on a cobalt blue plate on the cover – turn to pages 51 and 52.

There, you will see a short (and I mean short!) story by moi. It started out much longer, but is now not much more than the length of a photo caption.

As these things go, I can’t complain. Thanks to the way we communicate these days, full-length magazine articles now read like Cliff Notes versions of themselves. The photo tells most of the story and then a few captions and call-outs do the rest of the heavy lifting.

In this case, the story called “Lush Look, Low Water” was inspired by a rooftop garden owned by Mike McDonald and Jill Martenson, a visionary young couple who built Margarido House, the first LEED-H Platinum home in Northern California.

The “green” home and its eco-friendly landscape have received a lot of press, but the Sunset story really gives readers the specifics on designer Lauren Schneider’s approach to the roof garden. A special thank you goes to Sunset’s Julie Chai for shepherding this story from our initial conversation to the final publication.

Surprisingly dreamy, soft and fluid, despite its exposure to the harshest of elements (wind, sun, saltwater, for example), Lauren Schneider’s design can be replicated in similar rooftop or in-ground conditions. The photos you see here are mine. I included the original full-length story in my articles section.

Eight hardworking native and Mediterranean plants create the central elements of Lauren’s design:

Echinocactus grusonii, Golden barrel cactus

Lewisia cotyledon ‘Sunset Strain’

Nassella tenuissima, Mexican feather grass

Sedum spathulifolium ‘Cape Blanco’

Lavandula multifida, Fernleaf lavender

Libertia perigrinans

Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’

Sedum spurium ‘Voodoo’