Announcing my new book...

In a setting of snow on the last day of 2009, the Phipps Conservatory makes a grand statement

An amazing garden under glass, The Phipps Conservatory is a delightful destination in the heart of urban Pittsburgh.

I visited last week when the outdoor daytime weather averaged 20-degrees Fahrenheit.

But once we walked indoors, of course, the “season” changed. Blooms more likely to be seen in my Los Angeles backyard were thriving in the conservatory’s dozen-plus ”rooms,” including the tropical-like Palm Court, Fern Room, Orchid room and Sunken Garden.

The Desert Room looked oh-so-familiar to me, with agaves, aoeniums, aloes and opuntias poking through the sand-colored gravel floor.

This was a new combination to me: Ti plants (Cordyline sp.) with Poinsettia

I visited on New Year’s Eve day and was delighted to learn that the Phipps actually remains open until 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, welcoming those more interested in a serene, candlelit celebration than louder festivities.

Right now, many of the plant displays here are dotted with glass sculptures by an artist named Hans Godo Frabel, who is know for his “realistic and otherworldly glass figures.”

Chihuly's brilliant chandelier in mimosa yellow hangs from the ceiling of the new entry

Glass of a different sort was presented here in the past – the Dale Chihuly sort – and a few of his pieces remain in the permanent collection, which my photos show here.

My son Alex, who is 12, was very intrigued by Frabel’s alienlike glass creatures, as well as by his realistic glass flowers and salamanders. We took lots of “alien” photos.

One of the eery glass aliens by Hans Godo Frabel

Fortunately, these disparate works of art were grouped together to present little stories in distinct wings of the conservatory. Otherwise I would have been completely confused.

In the 2000 book Crystal Palaces: Garden Conservatories of the United States, Anne S. Cunningham profiled the remaining major glass gardens. She wrote:

“Phipps Conservatory is a reminder of Pittsburg’s greatness in the time when Andrew Carnegie and Henry Phipps helped transform the American landscape with steel, steam engines, and civic philanthropy. Among his many contributions, Phipps (1839-1930) gave the city a conservatory “for public instruction and pleasure” in the newly developed Schenley Park.

When it was built, the Phipps Conservatory was the largest of its kind in the country. The shimmering Romanesque-style edifice made of steel, cypress, stone and glass reached 64 ft. tall and covered more than 43,000 square feet. It was originally filled with plants chosen at the World’s Colombian Exposition in Chicago. Writes Cunningham: “. . . the entire tropical plant display was shipped by train across the Midwest in time for the debut of the conservatory.”

From the height of fame to unfortunate neglect, this place barely survived subsequent decades. Sadly, the glorious conservatory fell into disrepair during the Depression. According to Cunningham: “by the 1930s, rats and weeds competed for space; a savage storm in 1937 damaged the big glasshouse and destroyed the greenhouses in back. By 1940, WPA crews had reconstructed the production houses, but the conservatory continued to suffer from natural deterioration and inconsistent community support.”

The Phipps’s renaissance  came in 1993 when a private foundation purchased it and began to restore and revive the grand garden under glass. The Phipps seems to have come full circle with the 2009 highlight of hosting President and Mrs. Obama and the G-20 summit last September. The conservatory was the site of the opening dinner and reception for the world’s leaders. How wonderful that a garden was the backdrop for this powerful gathering.

The rebirth of this grand conservatory is indeed cause for celebration. Here are some impressions from our visit last Thursday:

Gourmet food, exotic tea blends and a library of design books fill the new Rolling Greens in Hollywood

Last Thursday, a vintage tire shop in the heart of Hollywood was the setting for a festive pre-opening bash thrown by Rolling Greens, its new tenant.

Designers, landscapers and horticulture fans gathered to sip, graze, explore (and shop!) at the hottest new garden emporium in Los Angeles. My editors at Garden Design magazine asked me to attend and check out the happenin’s.

Rolling Greens’ second location is the brainchild of owner Greg Salmeri and his colleague and creative director Angela Hicks. The original store in L.A.’s Culver City is a distinctive nursery, home and garden destination, formerly only for the trade, that opened to the public in 2004.

Tire dealer-turned-garden emporium, in a historic, weathered building that's full of character

For his new outlet, Salmeri snagged the lease on Town Tire Company, a weathered brick building that has been a Hollywood landmark at the corner of Beverly Blvd. and Gardner Ave. Built in 1930, the iconic structure was originally a food market and then in 1963 became a tire store.

“I’ve had my eye on the Town Tire Co. building for years and dreamed of opening Rolling Greens in this incredible space,” Salmeri says. “In this new location, we’ve expanded our offerings into home categories beyond what we offer at our Culver City location.”

Greg Salmeri

Salmeri and Hicks turned the tire shop’s unpolished attributes into appealing design elements for Rolling Greens. There are big metal garage doors that roll up to connect the indoor spaces with the fresh-air ones. The original concrete floor has been cleaned up and the exposed brick walls sandblasted. Once covered over, several huge glass doorways topped with half-circle transom windows have been exposed to invite sunshine into the 1,000-square-foot bed and bath department. The cash-wrap counters are clad in 19^th century pressed-tin ceiling tiles. The “color greenhouse” is a glass-and-steel dividing wall that encloses an area for indoor plants, including orchids and ferns. Panes of amethyst and bottle green glass replaced broken sections, creating a vintage greenhouse backdrop at the center of the store. (more…)

Uncle Wilco, as he is depicted on his web site, We *Heart* Sheds (well, this was a holiday version from 2007)

Here’s some background about SHED OF THE YEAR and its creator Uncle Wilco, a cyber friend who lives in the UK in South Wales, and is the creator of We (Heart) Sheds and several other projects.  I was thrilled to discover that I was not alone on this quest for finding and documenting awesome backyard structures, that many kindred spirits existed on this globe to share my journey. Here is the original story I wrote about Uncle Wilco nearly two years ago. A memorable quote about his Shed of the Year contest:

. . . the British have a love affair with the shed, so really it’s just snowballed. I was lucky to do a few radio interviews. I got the impression they thought I was a nutter . . . ! But at least people realise that I have a passion for sheds, so that’s all that matters.

Imagine my surprise when Wilco asked me to join his illustrious team of judges to represent as the International Judge for the 2010 Shed of the Year competition! The event culminates with an announcement in early July, during National Shed Week, and I’m eager to participate. I’m hoping to get over to the UK to join the others, but at the very least, I will do my part on this end. I encourage any of my readers to submit photos and enter. That is all it takes!

Thought I’d kick things off by telling you a little more about the competition. In the words of Mr. Wilco himself:

Q. You started Shed of the Year in 2007, right? So you’ve had 3 winners!
What has surprised you most about the scope and diversity of sheds
around the globe?

Tony's Roman Temple took honors in the 2007 Shed of the Year contest

A. I have run readersheds since 2001  and thought it was time I should celebrate all these great sheds. So I started Shed of the Year. The last three winners have been very different: 1) A Roman Temple,  2) A Pub Shed, and 3) a Cabin. I look forward to shed of the year 2010 — it could be a workshop or studio or even a hut. That’s the thing – we don’t know until the public have voted and the judges have made their decisions for Shed Week 2010.

Q. Who does Sheds better, the UK shed aficionados or the North American ones?

A. Well, I am biased. UK sheds Rock- or should I say UK Sheddies rock. But you US sheddies have a different view on sheds. The UK history with sheds as mainly a man thing is very long and it’s the sheddies that make readersheds.co.uk

Q. Can you please describe “wossname” and how I can explain it to US readers?

A. I am not great with words , so I tend to fill in things I can’t think about with “wossname.” So it’s a term in the UK, like a thing or a “wotsit,” when you can’t think of the real word!

Here's where Uncle Wilco hangs out and enjoys his home brew

Q. If you had to spend your final days inside your own shed, what three essential items would you need to bring with you?

A. That’s very difficult. I would say family and friends and  my dog, but as for items it would have to be some home brew (beer).

Q. What kind of swag can I expect for being a Shed of the Year judge?

A. What, the glory of being a judge in the World’s most favourite Shed competition is not enough?

Q. How many entries have you had from North American shed owners (in past years)?

A. Well, it’s not just North American sheds. It’s International, too. We love sheddies from the Americas, Canada, Europe and Australia and New Zealand. You can view all the international sheds entries (199 of them to join the 1200 UK ones) here.

Q. What else do you want my readers to know?

A. That we are welcoming entries to Shed of the Year 2010 now and would love to have some more  Stylish Sheds added. All I ask is that the sheddies add a few good images — including external/internal shots. The more images the better, so the public can get a  good look.

Thanks so much Uncle Wilco – I will do my best to pump up the entries from the International contingent. See you soon.

Here’s a story that ran in the Los Angeles Times last month. It’s about a few of Stephanie Bartron’s projects to remake her clients’ ugly concrete patios into more attractive – and sustainable – backyard features. The best part of the story is learning how easy it is to turn this technique into a DIY project of your own. The LA Times also features an awesome in this photo gallery. Read on . . .

The basketball-court like patio has been repurposed by scoring and slicing 4-inch bands to create a grid pattern

If landscape designer Stephanie Bartron has her way, California’s sea of patio concrete is going to start shrinking.

When the Los Angeles landscape designer eyed her clients’ slab behind a 1940s Atwater Village bungalow, she knew the concrete had to go. New hardscape and plants would have done the trick, sure, but digging out all that paving was costly and, the the waste would just end up in the landfill.

So, Bartron took a different approach. She hired a professional industrial saw operator to slice up the 20-by-20 foot patio into a grid of 18-inch squares.

The result is a new focal point for the garden, resembling evenly-spaced pavers divided by 4-inch bands of grass. When it rains, the storm water percolates into the ground rather than streaming down the driveway and into the street. Little material was thrown away. But the biggest effect was aesthetic. The repurposed patio no longer resembles a basketball court, nor does it dominate the tiny lot.

A power saw with a diamond blade slices up a sea of concrete

“By cutting it up, I changed the scale of the concrete from a big slab into an attractive backyard feature,” the designer says.

While his two children play nearby, owner Caleb Dewart, a television producer, likes to lounge beneath the mature orange tree that Bartron saved.

“We’re really happy we didn’t have to tear this up and start over,” he says of the patio. “And we like using what we have rather than being wasteful.”

Bartron’s approach solves myriad design challenges, and the designer has artfully sliced up several ugly patios and driveways for clients. Environmentally conscious homeowners like reducing the waste associated with redesigning a landscape. Budget-conscious clients like getting a lot of bang for their buck.

The once-ugly carport slab is reinterpreted as a lovely courtyard and seating area designed by Stephanie Bartron

According to Kenny Grimm, sales manager for Oxnard-based Independent Concrete Cutting Inc., this kind of project requires an experienced operator to cut concrete with a diamond blade, 37-horsepower saw. Cost: $140 per hour, plus travel charges.

“We’re seeing more people re-use their existing material because recycling your paving is an affordable alternative to hauling it away,” he says. “You can get a lot of cutting done for around $1,000.”

For yoga instructor Lucy Bivins and cinematographer Eric Schmidt, Bartron recycled front-yard concrete into useful elements, including garden benches and a prominent water feature.

The couple inherited a gray slab when they purchased a Mt. Washington house designed by architect Barbara Bestor. The concrete had been installed by a previous owner as part of a carport, Bivins says. “It was very bleak and unattractive,” she says. ”A real eyesore.”

At Bestor’s suggestion, she and Schmidt contacted Bartron for design help.

Narrow bands of concrete now form the edges of a modern koi pond and fountain

“We asked for shade trees, an outdoor gas fireplace and some type of fountain,” Schmidt says. “Stephanie turned the unused space into our outdoor living room, which in just a few years has been filled by a canopy of shade trees. It’s a favorite place to sit with our newborn son, Hugo, listen to the fountain and watch the trees move in the wind. It calms him down every night before bedtime.”

Used to working with old, cracked paving, Bartron was fascinated with the newer concrete. Four-inches thick and embedded with rebar, it covered 400 square feet between the street and her clients’ front door.

Coming up with a savvy design that created little waste was “like solving a big jigsaw puzzle,” the designer says. “This material was in great shape, but we wanted to turn one giant slab into many smaller elements for a bold and inviting garden space.”

Bartron chose a rectilinear motif to echo the architecture’s lines, slicing the patio into 1-1/2-by-4-foot sections. She layered the cut-out concrete in the form of an L-shaped seating area, the bench backed by a new, horizontal-plank fence. Narrower slices of concrete stacked four levels high form the edges of a contemporary fountain and koi pond. Cross sections reveal aggregate-like detailing when sanded smooth.

You can see the interesting texture in the cross-sections of cut concrete

Bartron left some of the concrete in place but carved away planting strips to accommodate low-growing, drought-tolerant dymondia, a silver groundcover. She also removed enough patio to create two large beds for Eastern redbud trees (Cercis canadensis), carex and fescue grasses, and New Zealand flax. Evenly-spaced concrete bands serve as a walkway from the front door and adjacent bubbling fountain to the L-shaped seating, which has a gas-piped steel fire bowl designed by New York artist Elena Colombo .

“It’s a very sexy entertaining space,” Bivins says. “Whenever we have people over, we end up around the fire bowl. There can be 10 of us here and it still feels intimate.”

She praises Bartron for coming up with a money-saving design that also enhances the architecture.

“It was very crafty of her,” she says. “She took our lemon and made lemonade.”

Cutting up the patio

Another view of the lush transformation of this garden

Want to slice up your patio? Landscape designer Stephanie Bartron says it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s possible to make small cuts using a power hand saw with a diamond blade, but you should take safety precautions such as wearing safety goggles and heavy gloves. Large-scale projects, such as the ones shown here, are best left to professional contractors.

Draw a map of your patio and think about where you want to place furniture. Table and chair legs need to be placed on an even surface, not in the spaces between concrete.

Dig along your patio to determine the concrete’s depth and the edge type (uniform or jagged). Newer concrete may be even, but old patios tend to be rough-edged. The type of edge may determine if or how the cut pieces may be repurposed.

While marking your pattern with chalk, note of any cracks, chips or score lines. If possible, tweak your design to eliminate these blemishes.

If the concrete is prone to cracking, Bartron suggests cutting it so the remaining pads are standard paver sizes (18- or 20-inch squares). “That way you can pull out a cracked section and install a replacement paver,” she says.

The stone steps of La Foce's terraced garden draw the eye upward, towards two large Italian cypresses

I’ve barely been home from Italy for 24 hours and despite jet lag, I am still alert enough to post my first report about the two week trip to Tuscany.

One of the most memorable days was our tour of La Foce, a Tuscan estate and garden with influences dating to the 15th century when the property was built as an Inn (“Osteria”) by the Hospital of S. Maria della Scala.  It is located in the town of Chianciano, about 30 minutes southeast of where we stayed in Montisi.

“Foce” (pronounced Foe-CHAY) means “opening” or “meeting place,” and its origins are traced to the Etruscans. The name refers to the osteria’s location as a stopping place where two prominent roads intersect. The roads were traveled by pilgrims, merchants and travelers who sought rest from their journeys at La Foce. (more…)

Bauer Pottery Company, Los Angeles

Thanks to my friend Cristi Walden and her “Merry Band of L.A. Archivists,” Wednesday added up to a very big Design Adventure. It meant putting a few hundred miles on the Volvo, but that’s part of life here. And anyway, I have NPR and my catch-up calls to friends in Seattle (with a head-set – I’m safe) to keep me company.

We arrived at 11 a.m. in a dusty town waaaaay east of me. Down a vintage lane called Main Street, where stood an ancient wood-and-galvanized metal warehouse. I later learned it was once a citrus fruit-packing plant when communities like Redlands and Highland grew oranges for the rest of the U.S. (we’re talking late 19th century).

This is the worldwide headquarters of Bauer Pottery, the colorful, joy-inducing collection of dishes, bowls, platters and all kinds of awesome outdoor pottery pieces for the landscape (flowerpots, urns, orbs, bowls and much, much more). It was very hard not to hyperventilate.

Janek Boniecki, president of Bauer Pottery California, greeted us. He was incredibly gracious and spent two hours showing our group of five all that he has accomplished since purchasing the factory and reissueing hundreds of Bauer pieces for grateful folks like me.  Manufactured in California since 1910, the highly-collectible vintage Bauer pieces are hard to find and all but the most serious aficionados are starting to feel priced out of the market. Unless you’re a seasoned collector, it’s really hard to discern the difference between an original Bauer piece and one of Janek’s reissues unless you flip it over and look on the back. The words “Bauer California 2000″ are stencilled on the bottom of each new piece.

Janek shows us the reissued Rebekah vase in Bauer crimson

Here’s a bit of history that Janek shared with us:

The Bauer Pottery Company of Los Angeles (1882-1962) started in Louisville, Kentucky, and then moved to LA, where it flourished. J.A. Bauer created simple, yet beautiful stoneware from the late 1880s to the early 1960s, with lines ranging from redware flowerpots to brilliantly colored dinnerware. Bauer Pottery was a staple in American homes for many decades.

Inspired by the weather and the lifestylesof Southern California, Bauer Pottery created many different lines for the home and garden. These new styles and rich colors were introduced soon after the Depression, and it wasn’t long before all the major pottery companies in the United States began to follow with their own interpretation of Bauer’s vision.

Today the work of J.A. Bauer has been reintroduced to the home by a ceramics studio based again in Los Angeles. Just minutes away from the site of the original plant, the new Bauer line is being reproduced using some of the original pieces and models, with an emphasis on items that were manufactured by Bauer during the 1930s and ’40s.

The broken rim and top portion of an original Bauer urn

"Ali Baba" jar, in satin white, inspired by Terry's broken urn

The story of how Janek saved Bauer begins in 1996 when he had a candle-making business. He was working in the film industry and wanted to start a business of his own.

“I started making candles in my basement – in a tiny, little 200-square-foot space,” he explains. Janek used colorful, inexpensive flowerpots to contain his candles. He ordered the pots from California Design Works in Highland, housed in the 36,000-square-foot fruit factory on historic Main Street, where Bauer now resides. 

According to Cristi’s friend Terry Freed (who was part of our group), he urged Janek to stop making pottery in Bauer colors and instead reissue the original designs. Terry used to own an L.A. shop called Fiesta Specialties. “Janek brought me a ceramic planter with a candle in it and I said, ‘forget the candle,’ make the pottery,” Terry says.

Janek shows how the stackable bowls can mix-and-match

Two years ago, the owners, Debbie and Marty, sold their factory – building, machines, kiln and operations – to Janek. They worked with him for several years to develop the Bauer reissues and stills show up three days a week at the factory, which is a pretty cool business transition model. 

Cristi and Terry have befriended and supported Janek by lending him some of their original Bauer pieces as the basis for reissues. We saw the broken shard from a once-gorgeous Bauer oil jar that inspired a wonderful new pot (Terry’s partner Michael broke it accidentally, so they made lemonade out of that lemon and let Janek study and copy it).  The original pots might sell for $800-$1,000, but the reissued ones are $300-$600, depending on the size. Similarly, collector Linda Roberts, another one of our Merry Band, lent Janek a tall, slender Rebekah vase as the model for his new ones. The 22-inch reissued vase is $250.

It’s pretty mind-boggling what this tiny company is doing. Janek says there are 110 styles made in 15 different colors (classic Bauer colors, including Bauer Orange, Bauer Yellow, Turquoise, Federal Blue, Lime Green, Midnight Blue, Mango, Crimson, Teal Blue and Chocolate Brown – and all content to mingle, mix, and match with one another, plus a few new ones that I’m sure I’ve forgotten to list here).

We followed Janek downstairs to see where much of the ceramic casting and molding takes place. To get there, he led us into a freight elevator original to the century-old building. The lift is powered by water, making it the oldest water-operated elevator in California. It wasn’t fast, but it was a smooth ride.

The bottom of every piece has Bauer 2000 on it

Downstairs, we saw shelves and tables and stacked with the unfired pieces. When you observe the “blanks,” without color added, you really can appreciate the graceful shapes and lines of Bauer’s original designs.

Terry showed me one large planter that he remembers seeing in Desi Arnaz’s nightclub on old “I Love Lucy” television programs. Actually, there were two of them because on the set, one planter was turned upside down as a base for the one containing a plant. That reference to “I Love Lucy” gives me a perfect mental picture of the Bauer pottery vibe – then, and now.

My little Bauer-and-Mosaic installation

For those of you in the Los Angeles area, here is the best news. Janek holds occasional sales of factory seconds and samples. He started them last year and when news got out, there were 500 people lined up to buy the cheerful pottery. If you’re wondering whether I got my Bauer fix, the answer is YES. I didn’t leave empty-handed. In fact, I came home with a trio of garden orbs in Bauer colors. These orbs are new from Janek. They were never part of the original Bauer line, but are fired in several colors from the Bauer palette. So the large, 15-inch orb is lime green; the medium, 12-inch is pale blue; and the small, 8-inch is turquoise. I have them grouped in the garden with my lovely mosaic orb by Vashon Island, Wash.-based artist Clare Dohna. The effect is quite pleasing to my eyes!

And finally, a gallery of our visit:

A "specimen grass planter," a prototype glazed in satin white

An 8-inch oil jar and a jumbo urn prototype

The block-and-case is the "master" from which all molds are made

Janek shows us a piece that's ready to be fired

Janek illustrates how a bowl is formed by machine

The raw clay, ready to turn into Bauer pottery

Cristi and Linda with Janek

Thousands of pieces of pottery, ready to be fired (see kiln, right)

A Bauer flowerpot, glazed and ready for the kiln. After firing, it will be the teal color of the sample in Janek's hand

. . . in an intimate, domestic setting illuminated by flames, candles and carnival lights.

The September Issue

Thanks to ample layout space and the 4-color gods, today’s Los Angeles Times HOME section devotes a whole lotta real estate to my feature story about the indoor and outdoor kitchens of hot documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler.  If his name doesn’t ring a bell, I refer you to the The September Issue, the documentary feature film that opened last weekend in New York and opens in Los Angeles and the rest of the world on Friday. The film follows the legendary Vogue editor Anna Wintour and her creative team as they put together the fashion magazine’s most important issue of the year – in this case, the September 2007 issue. The expanded online photo gallery is here.

Debra and R.J. on location in his outdoor dining room

Every good thing that has happened to me since moving to Los Angeles comes through meeting interesting and talented people who, in turn, lead me to more fascinating and gifted ones. I met R.J. through interior designer Lory Johansson, whose studio is called Just Joh. I met Lory indirectly while profiling a Malibu garden designed by Scott Shrader for Garden Design magazine. Lory designed the interiors for Scott’s clients and I mentioned their collaboration on choosing materials for the indoor-outdoor elements in my text (that piece appeared in January, called “Sunset Soiree.”).

During the editing process, I received a message from the Garden Design fact-checker saying that Lory would love to show me one of her outdoor projects. We connected by phone and arranged to meet at R.J.’s Hollywood Hills property this past February. It takes a lot of time to scout gardens. It’s kind of like buying futures on the commodities market. You have to spend a few hours on the freeway, usually in crummy traffic, on the off-chance that the architecture, interiors or landscape you’re scheduled to visit will be a worthy candidate for publication. For some reason, after speaking with Lory, I had a hunch the trip to R.J.’s wouldn’t be a waste of my time.

Designer Lory Johansson and me. The photo is a little blurry because it was taken without a flash by candlelight. We're happy that the shoot is over!

The property is just stunning, high in the hills above Beachwood Canyon and literally under the HOLLYWOOD sign we’ve all seen in a million movies and TV shows. It’s a circa 1924 Spanish Colonial Revival home, which R.J. acquired in 2005 and has subsequently restored with Lory’s brilliant design skills. Big but not imposing, the house sits on three-quarters of an acre. There is a beautiful garden with a swimming pool, strolling paths, a lawn for croquet and square-dancing, a secret garden and other intimate spaces. You can’t see that now, though, because photographs of the garden are under wraps until Garden Design’s March 2010 issue (photographed by the very talented Jack Coyier). That’s right. First the Los Angeles Times. Then Garden Design. See how lucky I was connecting with Lory?

At the outdoor pizza party featured in today’s LA Times, freelance photographer Ringo Chiu, who shoots frequently for the newspaper, captured the festivities through his lens. I tried to stay out of the way while also surreptitiously “art directing.” Anyone who has worked with a newspaper photographer over the years (this comment is for you Melanie Munk) knows how impossible it is to get them to do what you want. And even more impossible to style a shot as you would for a magazine or book. However tough that “dance” can be, Ringo at least humored my few suggestions (ie, shouldn’t we light the fireplace? how about the candles? let’s move that dead potted rosemary!). He did a great job and it was fun for me to snap a few shots of him at work, shown here.

Photographer and Filmmaker

You can draw a lot of inspiration from this story for your own garden. The best tip from Lory is to go bold with color. She designed the entire outdoor kitchen, benches, fireplace and privacy wall with a white stucco finish, like R.J.’s house. But when it was finished, Lory says she stood at the opposite end of the garden and looked across the pool to the too-white scene. “It looked like Greece instead of Los Angeles,” she lamented. Lory knew color would lend heightened drama, especially in the outdoor setting.

The day before R.J. was planning to host his first big al fresco pizza party, she couldn’t stand it. Lory went out and ordered gallons of paint – rich, deep, paprika-terra cotta red – and got the crew started painting. When R.J. came home and saw what was going on, she promised him that if he didn’t like the result, she would pay to repaint everything white again. (Can you imagine how many coats of white paint it would take to cover dark red?).

Let’s just say Lory’s gamble paid off. You have to read my story to see what R.J. says of the decision to keep it.

After researching and reporting this story, I have two new items on my own garden wish list. Number one: I need to buy a 100-foot string of carnival lights to suspend around my own garden. Number two: I desperately want my own wood-burning pizza oven. But only if I can have Chef Alberto come over to cook for me!

Here are more of my candid party photographs:

My killer backlit shot of the central path

We now have a backyard that is grass-free. The space has undergone a huge transformation since earlier this summer when a crew removed the last patches of dying turf. With irrigation repaired and new planting beds+borders outlined and populated, we received a delivery of California Gold crushed gravel to carpet the walking areas. I’ve since decided on the very best way to describe this color of gravel. To me, it will forever be called ”Golden Lab.” When our dog Zanny lays on the gravel in the warm Cali sunshine, we notice that her fur blends beautifully – practically the same color.

Our 25th anniversary was last week, and Bruce surprised me with a brand new digital camera, a Canon PowerShot G10. This is a “big girl” camera. No point-and-shoot idiot stuff for me anymore. OK, basically, I have no idea how to do anything BUT point and shoot, but I hope to learn.

The partner-in-crime in this Canon choice is none other than Bill Wright. Bill and I have worked together for years and together created Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways. He knows his stuff. I’m sure he rolled his eyes (privately) about my wimpy camera shenanigans while we were on location together. Lucky for me, Bill advised Bruce on this camera purchase. Oh, and one sweet note. Bruce gave me a 35mm manual camera for a wedding gift on August 24, 1984. It was a beautiful Pentax. I used it for years, but eventually, it broke (OK, it “was dropped,” which is my passive way of saying I broke it) and couldn’t be repaired. That he remembered the wedding gift 25 years ago and wanted to do a reprise was both thoughtful and romantic.  I’m going to get major mileage out of this Canon. That is, when I learn all of its bells and whistles.

Until then, here is my maiden voyage. Photos of the “new” backyard:

Mike Mcdonald, a Green Builder and Visionary

Garden Design magazine asked me to profile one of its “Green Awards” winners for the September-October issue, which is out on newsstands this week.

The story is about a lovely, sustainable landscape designed to complement the cutting-edge, eco-architecture of Margarido House in Oakland.

Margarido House is the creation of builder-owner Mike McDonald of McDonald Construction & Development, and his architect-brother Tim McDonald of Philadelphia-based Plumbob.  The brothers and their multiple collaborators have created a stunning residence that earned the highest (Platinum) rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. It is the first home in Northern California to obtain the LEED-H Platinum Award (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

What makes this garden and its home sustainable?

1. It’s Permeable : The patio, roof and driveway surfaces are designed to capture all of the property’s storm water runoff. The driveway’s decorative design uses recycled and perforated Pavestone concrete tiles. Water percolates into a 4,000-gallon cistern hidden under the driveway and, when needed, circulates through the property for irrigation and flowing through the Zen garden’s piped fountain. “We’ve created a self-contained water loop,” Mike points out.

 2. It’s Durable: Garden designer Lauren Schneider of  Wonderland Garden and Landscape in Oakland, chose a diverse, drought-tolerant plant palette. She worked closely with local growers to specify California native varieties, as well as plants from many Mediterranean regions, including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, South America and Mexico. She closely observed the garden during its first year to evaluate whether each plant was durable enough to survive Oakland’s dry summer conditions with infrequent water.

 3. It’s Reusable: Recycled concrete is the basis for Margarido House’s über-modern S-curve chaises, tabletops and sleek urns, which contain succulents, bamboo, and New Zealand flax. Created by Bay Area Concreteworks Studio, which also fabricated interior concrete counters, the products satisfy LEED’s “local” and “reusable” criteria. Other outdoor furniture also has recycled content, including Room & Board’s  ”Emmet” Adirondack-inspired chairs, by Loll Designs, made with 100 percent recycled high density polyethylene (plastic).

Margarido House, enhanced by a soft, sustainable garden

One of the key scoring factors in earning this ranking is Lauren’s sustainable landscape design.

Dreamy and naturalistic, the garden is an organic counterpoint to the geometric architecture.

Lauren actually created three distinct gardens – one on the ground; one in the air; and one that climbs an incredible vertical retaining wall and has multiple sections for planting (not to mention a melodic water feature to attract birds).

Photographs of the Margarido’s rooftop garden weren’t included in the Garden Design layout, due to space constraints. I wanted to make sure and show some here. The rooftop is pretty stunning, and not just because it has killer views of San Francisco Bay. It is installed on top of a capillary mat and layer of geo-textile material; over this base are “three inches of horticultural pumice as a drainage medium and five inches of lightweight planting mix,” Lauren explains.

Garden designer Lauren Schneider gave me a personal tour of Margarido House's exterior spaces

The dramatic design includes sedums and sempervivums, golden barrel cactus, lewisia, Cleveland sage, lavender, deer grass, and Libertia peregrinans, a New Zealand iris relative valued for its bronzy-orange blades.

This garden provides top-down insular qualities that cool or warm the home, depending on the season. Flowers and stems of Cleveland sage, silhouetted against the sky, can even be seen through the skylight that illuminates the master bath. The roof garden invites its viewers to look close and study the interplay of plant colors and forms. In an abstract way, they echo the distant scenery where treetops and buildings form an irregular city skyline.

You can read the full story here. And enjoy this gallery of photos that I shot when visiting this past May. You’ll see details that caught my eye and get a fuller sense of this amazing landscape and home.

Kathy Fries, framed by her new gazebo

Most gazebos are a little twee for my liking. If you think of a traditional white latticework structure, the kind that looks as if a gust of wind or a swiftly-kicked soccer ball might knock it over, you probably don’t love gazebos either.

Ever since I started scouting great garden architecture for Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways several years ago, I have changed my tune.

Case in point: When I was in Seattle earlier this summer, my friend Kathy Fries invited me to see her new copper-roofed gazebo. Situated in the heart of Kathy’s prolific vegetable garden, the structure was built by John Akers. I’ve written about Kathy and John’s collaboration before, both in this blog and in the pages of Stylish Sheds. He is a salvage-artist-carpenter who knows how to take Kathy’s grand ideas and construct them into fanciful garden buildings.

It's a lovely addition that enhances the vegetable garden

What I love about Kathy’s new gazebo is that it is both beautiful and functional (not to mention sturdy!). In it, you can gain shelter from rain or sunshine; you can pause while picking raspberries and sit on one of two facing interior benches. You can “gaze out” over the garden, looking through openings on either end or the side walls.

The gazebo’s charming rooftop joins several other turrets, cupolas and domes that populate the skyline of Kathy’s garden. Plus, it gives the vegetable garden a new point of view. When John erected the gazebo, it allowed Kathy to realign some of her paths and planting beds on a main axis. It’s beautiful and I know everyone who sees it will start dreaming about a new sort of garden gazebo.

And did you know that Gazebo is believed to come from the Latin for “Gaze About”? I’ve added definitions from several sources to my Shed Glossary, here.

If you have a Gazebo you want to share, please send me the photo and I’ll post it in the future. Here are a few more photos from Kathy’s garden: