In the works...

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.

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.”

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.

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:

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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.

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.”

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…)

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A big thanks to Amy Stewart for referring me to flower magazine, a publication I was unfamiliar with until now, for a book-review gig.

A quarterly publication, flower magazine is edited by founder Margot Shaw and managing editor Melissa Brown, who produce a gorgeous, informative, 4-color glossy for flower enthusiasts, floral designs and gardeners. They are based in Birmingham, Alabama.

The fall 2009 issue is just out and because I thoroughly enjoyed the four books I reviewed, I thought I’d share them here. I like the opening text, which helps describe my credentials:

“As a much-published chronicler of home and garden design and a Master Gardener to boot, Debra Prinzing dove into these informative selections on a variety of “green” themes:

The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower’s Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers (Revised & Expanded) by Lynn Byczynski (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008), $35.

Lynn Byczynski is the godmother of the organic flower movement. Little more than a decade after she wrote The Flower Farmer, the rest of the flower world is finally catching up with her visionary ideas and practices. This updated version brims with photographs, planting plans and profiles of innovative cut flower growers, making it the definitive resource for anyone who raises and markets flowers as a commercial venture.

If you’re like me and you want to grow simply for your own enjoyment, this book is equally important. Professional floral designers will find Byczynski’s ideas illuminating, as they advocate establishing relationships with organic farmers and growers to expand a florist’s repertoire.

Writing from Wild Onion Farm, her Lawrence, Kansas-based homestead, Byczynski says she discovered flower farming serendipitously (she planted zinnias among her tomatoes and soon discovered how well they sold at the local farmer’s market). This eco-entrepreneur outlines a gentle manifesto for sustainable practices, asking “Why Organic Flowers?” The answers are revealed in every useful chapter of her 266-page guide. Even if you aren’t persuaded that organic growing practices improve soil fertility and ensure the health of farm workers and their customers alike, the argument for organic is won by the sheer bounty and beauty of the flowers themselves.

Byczynski outlines the most reliable varieties and specific cultivation and handling advice for more than 100 kinds of specialty cut flowers (from Achillea to Zinnia). These blooms are called “specialty,” she explains, “Because they transcend the standard floral fare of roses, carnations, and chrysanthemums. They are considered good cut flowers because they have long stems and a vase life of at least five days.”  Once you’ve grown a collection of fresh, seasonal and local varieties, try Byczynski’s easy-to-follow design ideas. 

“If you really do love flowers, and you find joy in growing and selling them, you will succeed,” she promises. Change the word “sharing” to “selling” and her words are equally appropriate for anyone who plants a row of zinnias.

An American Cutting Garden: A Primer for Growing Cut Flowers, by Suzanne McIntire (University of Virginia Press, 2002), $16.95.

The extended subtitle of Suzanne McIntire’s highly personal volume of flower-growing advice is “. . . where summers are hot and winters are cold.”

Though I live in Los Angeles, McIntire’s guide is still informative and useful, since many of the 200 flowers she profiles will grow in my garden, as well as in her northern Virginia one.

 After addressing important infrastructure decisions, the author gets down to the toughest choice you’ll face – choosing which flowers to grow. “. . . it’s not long before you realize there are many more plants out there than you can grow in a lifetime,” she acknowledges.

McIntire’s writing hints at years getting soil under her nails and dirt on her knees. I like the useful advice, such as: “The gardener who has no yellow is missing something important” or “Red is the surprise that a bouquet often needs.”

Her planting, harvesting, and arranging advice is geared toward the gardener-floral designer. It’s okay to space plants in a cutting garden closer together than you would in a display garden to increase their yields, she says.

She is anything but a perfectionist, a breath of fresh air to those tired of floral designs that seem unrelated to nature. “I prefer to spend only a few minutes to help flowers look their best, and often it comes down to selecting the right vase, choosing good vase companions for a given flower, and adjusting stem lengths by shortening where necessary,” McIntire confides.

If you need inspiration for how to start a cutting garden, the book offers four design concepts, including ones for beginners, small spaces, shady sites and autumn interest. Each of McIntire’s detailed flower narratives is worth losing yourself in. I only wish there were more than the rather limited 28 color images as illustrations. You’ll need a photo-rich plant encyclopedia on hand for her lesser-known suggestions, such as Anchusa azurea (Italian bugloss, a forget-me-not relative) or Kalimeris pinnatifida (Japanese aster). But that’s just a small complaint. Without McIntire’s book, I wouldn’t have found them in the first place.

Green Flowers: Unexpected Beauty for the Garden, Container or Vase, by Alison Hoblyn with photographs by Marie O’Hara (Timber Press, 2009), $24.95.

The full spectrum of green is the backbone of any garden scheme. Green is also the essential ingredient in any floral arrangement. But often these verdant elements are taken for granted, or, worse, not thoughtfully incorporated. Think about the prosaic green shrub practically ignored in a landscape. Or, consider the generic “filler” foliage that might be shiny or fluffy in a bouquet, but quickly forgotten in contrast to a Stargazer lily or the classic red rose emerging from all that green.

Green Flowers offers a lovely alternative and a reminder that green is, indeed, a color! Both writer Alison Hoblyn and photographer Marie O’Hara live in England, but many of the flowers they profile are available in North America (although none are commonplace).

I like that Hoblyn – who has worked as a designer, illustrator and painter – offers an artistic explanation for green’s usefulness. Not only does green have neutral and restful qualities, but it also unifies any palette. “On the colour wheel, it occupies that middle land between the hot hues of red and the colder climes of blue,” she explains.

Gardeners and florists usually cast green as supporting player in their designs, as foliage. But there are plenty of extraordinary plants with green flowers or flower-like bracts and modified leaves. Each plant profiled in the book is paired with an attractive, full-page photograph (although sometimes the images are so tightly focused on the bloom it is impossible to envision the size or form of a mature plant). I appreciate the inclusion of other recommended cultivars, as well as sidebars including little-known traits about each plant.

For example, the seeds of Amaranthus caudatus ‘Viridis’ (love-lies-bleeding), an exotic, tassel-like flower that looks beautiful in a container garden or as a cut flower, are a good source of iron, magnesium and fiber. Moluccella laevis (Bells of Ireland), has been cultivated since the 16^th century, is in the mint family, and has its origins in Turkey, not Ireland.

After falling in love with Green Flowers, you’ll want to grow and design with Mother Nature’s favorite color as revealed in her blooms, blades, and leaves. Whether the star of your bouquet (or border) or a harmonizing design element, green will never again seem ordinary. 

The American Meadow Garden: Creating a Natural Alternative to the Traditional Lawn, by John Greenlee with photography by Saxon Holt (Timber Press, 2009), $39.95.

“Meadows are far more satisfying than either a lawn or traditional border, combining the best attributes of both: like a lawn, a calming place for the eye to rest, yet with the richness and complexity of a border.” John Greenlee’s opening lines are so compelling to read, because they open up the imagination to the practical and eye-pleasing alternatives to a monochromatic (and water-hogging) sea of turf.

“Unlike lawns, meadows are better for the environment, a safe habitat for beneficial insects and pollinators, a place where native ecology can thrive,” he continues. Yet meadows aren’t like a roll of sod that can be unfurled across a patch of soil. They need to be properly designed, installed and maintained, which is reason enough to read and emulate the ideas in Greenlee’s book, available in November.

Owner of Greenlee Nursery, the oldest grass nursery in California, the author has created grass ecologies in gardens since 1984. Greenlee (the “Grass Guru”) pioneered the use of native grasses in ornamental landscapes and advocates for a redefinition of American yards. The American Meadow Garden offers homeowners a new model – a mini ecosystem friendly to children, pets and wildlife. That it requires minimal resources and zero mowing is yet another argument in favor of this anti-lawn.

Saxon Holt’s evocative photography is equally persuasive, for when you see the way sunlight plays off the seed heads and wildflowers that compose Greenlee’s meadows, “dream-like” is the only word that comes to mind.

“A meadow can be quiet and green, or filled with riotous displays of flowers and color,” Greenlee expounds. Non-green grass varieties are listed, such as those with silver, blue, yellow, gold and white hues. Flowers, too, play a large role in the meadow tapestry. The diversity of flowering bulbs, daisies, penstemons, salvias, poppies and ferns that Greenlee likes to sprinkle through his meadows will amaze you.

I love the detailed lists of grasses for fragrance, groundcovers, great flower heads, seasonal effects, background and “fillers.” Then there’s “grasses for billowy or cloudlike flowers,” which plays right into my dreamlike notion of growing a meadow of my very own.

 

 

 

 

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Sometimes, if you’re open to the experience, you meet the most amazing people in the unlikeliest of places. Earlier this month, artist Linda Ann Vorobik was my surprise encounter.

This is Part 2 of my Lopez Island story. We went camping on July 4th weekend on a lovely little island called Lopez, in the San Juan Islands of Washington State.

My friend Jennifer Cargal, who organized the camping trip, mentioned that the Farmer’s Market on Lopez was a real treat. Imagine, getting to poke around booths, sample jams and nuts, talk with artisans – all while ostensibly on a camping trip (I must add that Jennifer made the most of our visit to Lopez because we also managed to have a “mom-only” tasting at the Lopez Winery, while her husband kept an eye on all four boys – what a champ).

Turns out that the Lopez Farmer’s Market was a 2-day affair over the holiday weekend, so we went Friday and Saturday. Amid the vendors of artwork, yarn spun and died from local sheep and alpaca, jewelry, pottery and photography, I spied Linda’s display of botanical artwork.

Linda is an incredibly gifted scientist and illustrator whose work has documented highly regarded field guides and botanical reference manuals. She considers all three west coast states “home,” but has returned to her family property on Lopez to live and draw and work on myriad research projects. As we spoke, I realized how broad and deep are her talents. She pretty much has the entire west coast flora population covered in her knowledge.

With a PhD from the University of Oregon, Linda conducts field research and teaches in the Siskiyou Mountains of southwestern Oregon. She also visits Berkeley on a regular basis, where she is a research associate at the University Herbarium at UC-Berkeley.

Linda is the principal illustrator of The Jepson Manual: Higher Plants of California (an expanded, updated version of which will be issued next year) and The Flora of Santa Cruz Island. She has contributed many illustrations to scientific, botanical and horticultural publications.

We started talking about Santa Cruz Island, which is the tiny, remote island I visited in California’s Channel Islands this past May with my friend Paula Panich. Linda’s illustrations of native California species that grow on Santa Cruz are just spectacular. I think we’d have to go earlier in springtime to see some of them growing in situ. But the next best thing are her watercolors. I had to purchase a set of note cards to send Paula as a reminder of the day there.

The set included Dicentra formosa (Western bleeding heart); Dicentra spectabilis (Garden bleeding heart); Calochortus catalinae (Catalina Island mariposa lily); and Calochortus splendens (Lilac mariposa lily). Check out Linda’s web site to see the incredible detail of each plant and its parts. All four of these flowers are available as cards, prints – and even a few of the original paintings are available for purchase at what seems like a pretty affordable price for original botanical art.

Okay, so the Channel Island note cards were in my basket. What next ? Oh, I couldn’t resist two cards for my new friend Marie Lincoln, owner of the Chocolate Flower Farm on Whidbey Island. Having just met Marie a few days earlier, I was thinking about her when I saw two beautiful cards with patterned fritillaria, which Linda rendered in sultry, luscious “chocolatey” hues ranging from soft green to deepest plum. Fritillaria affinis (Chocolate lily) appears in several coastal Pacific Northwest locations. As Linda writes on her web site: “If you are lucky enough to encounter them, take a peek into their enchanting nodding bells to see six bright yellow stamens with a background of green and brown checker-painted petal color.”

Finally, all this gift-giving for my garden friends made me yearn for something of Linda’s to bring home to my Southern California walls. The perfect print was there in her little open-air gallery. It symbolized the happiness I experienced on Lopez, as I enjoyed nature, good companionship, the laughter and boisterous activities of children, eating food around the fire, and pure summer.

Linda’s print: “Spring Wildflowers of Lopez Island,” features several of her botanical watercolors together: Zygadenus venenosus (Death camas – prettier than its name suggests); Dodecatheon pulchellum (Shooting star), Camassia leichtlinii (Camas) and the two gorgeous chocolate lilies. Just looking at this print today makes me smile.

If you have any inclination to learn more about botanical art, you’ll be pleased to know that Linda teaches workshops all around the west, including classes scheduled for the Berkeley area this September. Read about them here.

It’s these small souvenirs that become touchstones for so many of our memories. That’s why I brought home a pocketful of smooth pebbles, gathered from the shore of Lopez Island. They are piled on my nightstand where I can be sure to see them – at least twice a day.

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Flowers lovers understand me when I talk about the disconnect that’s going on between the demand for organically-grown food and the miniscule desire for organically-grown flowers. I guess the argument goes: As long as I’m not EATING those flowers, why should I be bothered that a few chemicals were used on them in the field or after they were harvested?

Gardeners and flower fanatics alike have Amy Stewart and Flower Confidential to thank for heightening our awareness of this contradiction. The idea that we can enjoy the beauty of a bouquet’s stems and blooms while knowing that the growing process may have harmed the earth and those who grew the flowers is crazy! How can we honestly enjoy flowers in our homes or as symbols of our most sentimental occasions when they were drenched in chemicals or shipped thousands of miles on a jet flying across the ocean?

Thankfully, there is a burgeoning “slow flower” movement afoot, and I urge you to join me as we use our pocketbooks and consumer influence to encourage reversal of flower-growing practices that use herbicides, pesticides and non-organic fertilizers. I hope the momentum continues and becomes an ever-present conversation between flower purveyors and flower consumers. I can’t tell you how many times I witness friends ask a waiter if the fish on the menu was “wild catch” or “farm raised.” Similarly, when I buy flowers, I want to know: Were they were grown organically?

In addition to the essays in Flower Confidential, I have Erin Benzakein to thank for my education about seasonal, sustainable and local flower-growing. Erin owns floret flowers, a Mount Vernon, Wash.-based micro-farm where she uses organic practices to raise beautiful, unusual blooms for bouquets, floral designers and wedding clients. Erin is featured in a recent issue of Sunset magazine, along with my short Q-and-A and a gorgeous photograph by David Perry.

For David and me, the desire to meet, interview, photograph and document organic flower growers has been under our skin for a few years now. Other creative projects, family demands, and sheer marketplace apathy have slowed us slightly. But we both keep returning to the subject of organic flowers. I can’t let go of the notion that this is an important topic – one that needs to be shared in order to educate, inform, inspire and – change – the relationship people have with the flowers.

While in the Northwest two weeks ago, I had a wonderful chance to visit yet another organic flower farm: Jello Mold Farm. The project of Diane Szukovathy and Dennis Westphall  is an example of priorities put into practice for a commercial venture. As they write on their beautiful web site (you’ll see many of David’s photographs there), “Our flowers are safe to sniff.”

My cohort, David, an amazing photographer with whom I’ve been on this occasional journey, drove me north to Skagit Valley. We had a few stops along the way, including a sandwich at a cool roadside deli and a quick visit to Christianson’s Nursery to feast our eyes upon the cottage borders (Christianson’s is one of my favorite charming places – where plants happily coexist with weathered farm buildings).

We arrived at Diane and Dennis’s place as they came home from a day of making deliveries to customers in the Seattle area. They deliver a heady array of fresh, field-cut flowers every Monday and Thursday to Seattle area designers, event planners and retail florists.

Time to sit down for a cold one and a good gab around the kitchen table, as we all got to know one another and talk about the flower biz.

Here are some snippets from our four-way conversation. It will give you a flavor for the longer feature story we want to publish about them:

+First things first. The name Jello Mold Farm is a curious one that always invokes a question. It is an offshoot of Diane and Dennis’s gardening business, Jello Mold Landscape, which got its name from a crazy building in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood that Diane once covered with 400 copper-hued jello molds of all shapes and patterns. Read that history here.

+Diane and Dennis have converted an 8-acre farm and its former horse pastures into a bountiful flower farm. They grow 150 varieties of blooms . . . with many, many more on the way.

+After years of estate gardening, Diane yearned to put her energy into a venture that combined her obsession for plants and her values. “I needed to do something else with my energy for my living. (Estate gardening) doesn’t fully feed my soul.”

+They started selling flowers last year and 2009 is their first season to have scheduled deliveries to wholesale customers. Diane emails an “availability list” to a growing group of flower buyers twice a week.

+In Seattle, you can find their flowers at Best Buds (Madison Park), Ballard Market, and several floral studios, including Terra Bella, an organic florist in the Greenwood District.

+They like to use the term “sustainably grown,” rather than organic. “Quality is our best calling card,” Diane says. “Fresh and local sells.”

+This is hard work, requiring 14 to 16 hour days. “There’s a whole romantic idea that we are so lucky to work on a flower farm,” Dennis admits. “People have no idea how hard we work.” Yet the couple believes they can make a decent living growing flowers rather than food, a lesson they learned after volunteering with a local CSA farmer. “There’s no way we could make a mortgage growing food,” Dennis points out.

+Making bouquets is extremely time-consuming, so Jello Mold often sells straight bunches of a single type of flower, such as dahlias. But when they do make bouquets, “I always try and put in something unique, to create a following,” Diane says. As an example, she showed me a simple bouquet with five dark pink peonies gathered within a pillow of lime-colored Alchemilla mollis (Lady’s-Mantle). They also use a lot of food in their bouquets, like berries, vines and fruiting branches.

+Organic growers are not able to command a higher price for their cut flowers. They have to meet the same market prices charged by growers using standard, non-sustainable practices.

+Slowly, over time, this may change. But only when consumers value the health benefits (to themselves and to the planet) of bringing home an organic, sustainably-grown bouquet. “It’s in the food movement already,” Diane says. It’s only a matter of time for the floral trade (and their customers) to catch up.

+This is an emotion-based business. One of passion and conviction. Diane and Dennis take delight in seeing people make an emotional connection to their flowers. They want to take care to grow sustainably in a world where such practices don’t make financial sense to larger growers.  “Ours is a better way to grow a business,” Diane says.

It was so hard to leave with our conversation just getting started. But I’m inspired and encouraged to know these new friends. And to know they are living their passion and convictions every day.

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Here’s what you need to know when ordering flowers online or over the telephone.

Earlier today, I joined Jennifer Litwin, host of “The Shop Cop,” a national consumer advocacy program that airs live every Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific on Voice America Radio.

We discussed ways that consumers can make the most of their long-distance flower purchases, including my tips on avoiding ripoffs, poor-quality product and bad service.

Here’s a link to the 15-minute segment.

Some of the recommendations I shared with Jennifer’s listeners include:

Check local rants and raves on Yelp, the consumer review site (search “flower shops” by city). Find a certified floral designer in your city or in the city where you wish to send flowers at the American Institute of Floral Designers.

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I’m sending a huge *virtual* bouquet of aromatic lavender to the lovely and wise Oregon grower Sarah Bader. Sarah is the subject of a story I wrote for the Summer 2009 issue of COUNTRY GARDENS magazine – out on newsstands now.

Another big bouquet goes to James Baggett, the awesome editor at Country Gardens who asked me to interview Sarah and write the piece. He has an uncanny knack for finding just the right story subjects for moi. And Sarah was a perfectly wonderful plantswoman to profile.

She is the purveyor of Lavender at Stonegate in West Linn, a village about 20 minutes outside Portland. As you’re planning summertime excursions, think about a thoroughly enjoyable detour to Stonegate. Sarah, her children, small staff, neighbors and friends – not to mention lavender enthusiasts from around the country – celebrate the season with several fun events, plant sales and u-pick opportunities. Just think, an aromatic escape that feeds your eyes, fills your head, and and nurtures your spirit. One step onto this farm and you’ll be cramming your hatchback full of dozens of lavender varieties. [UPDATE: Lavender at Stonegate's "opening day" for the summer season is May 22nd. The Summer Lavender Festival weekend is set for July 11-12. You can check the web site for other events and open hours.]

Just to give you a whiff of Sarah’s lavender life, I want to share the opening lines of my story, “Purple Haze.” Laurie Black photographed the story. I’ve had the chance to collaborate with Laurie on a past article and I do love her work! Here it is:

She lives and breathes all things lavender. When gentlewoman-farmer Sarah Bader isn’t working side by side with a few employees to propagate lavender cuttings and harvest armloads of the aromatic herb, she’s walking along hazy purple rows to evaluate her best-performing lavender cultivars. She gardens with lavender, cooks with lavender, perfumes her home with lavender, and is even writing a book about lavender.

Sarah calls her West Linn, Oregon, farm Lavender at Stonegate. About 20 minutes from Portland, the venture takes its name from a hand-carved stone pillar near the entry of her 5-acre parcel. Sarah began growing lavender as a hobby – a way to make her agricultural property productive after its original hazelnut orchard suffered from blight. Inspired by a visit in 2002 to the Sequim (Washington) Lavender Festival, Sarah started with 380 Lavandula sp. plants. She laughs at her beginner’s ambition: “I wanted to try growing 10 to 15 kinds of lavender. I jokingly called that first effort ‘my learning curve field’ because I couldn’t plant in straight rows.”

I called Sarah this morning to see how she thought the final story and photography turned out. She was so pleased.

Pleased, too, that Country Gardens readers from all around the country, coast to coast, have already begun to contact Lavender at Stonegate with inquiries about special events this summer, about buying and growing lavender – and to tell Sarah what an inspiration she is to them.

That’s exactly how I feel every time I talk with Sarah. She is an inspiration.

The final lines of my story capture this woman’s strength, passion and engaging spirit:

Sarah’s philosophy is summed up by a hand-lettered sign that hangs in her greenhouse: “We have the honor of assisting the creator in making little miracles every day.”

Amen.

 

 

 

 

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My “In the Garden” column for 805 Living’s May issue is all about great gardening books to give Mom (or keep for your own shelves).

Grow your garden library: Just like plants, you can never have too many books that inspire and intrigue

By Debra Prinzing

I was on the East Coast recently to lecture at the Philadelphia Flower Show. While sharing gossip and a glass of chardonnay with my NYC-based literary agent, Sarah Jane Freymann, conversation turned to the sorry state of book publishing.

“When I give a gift,” she proclaimed in her always-alluring British accent, “I only buy books.” Her singular gesture of thoughtfully choosing, buying and giving a book (rather than an impersonal gift card) might be an important element of the reading person’s economic stimulus package.

Books, especially when they are hand-picked for the reader, convey as much about the giver as the recipient.

For my birthday, my writing mentor, Paula Panich, recently gave me American Writers at Home, by J.D. McClatchy, a fitting tome for a journalist who covers architecture, interiors and the garden – all aspects of the home. When Britt Olson, my best friend from high school, recently wed, she spent hours at the book store, choosing just the right hard-bound volume for each of her attendants. For me, she selected Barbara Kingsolver’s lovely memoir of a year growing her own food, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which fed my spirit and mind alike.

If you’re like me, you can “read” a person by observing the titles that fill her bookcase. So here’s a peek at what’s on my bedside table (a new crop of gardening books). Whether for Mother’s Day, a friend’s birthday, or just for your own pleasure, give the gift of a book. As the author of five books, I thank you.

A Rose by Any Name

By Douglas Brenner and Stephen Scanniello [Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009, 320 pp., $19.95]

I met Stephen Scanniello, president of the Heritage Rose Foundation, in a Chicago radio studio several years ago. We enjoyed our banter with the host of a garden show, but the conversation continued well after the gig was over. His favorite subject? Roses. Scanniello lives, breathes, and designs gardens with roses. Not those scentless, thornless pageant variety roses, but ones with  storied pasts and interesting pedigrees. He teamed up with co-author Douglas Brenner, a former Martha Stewart Living garden editor, to document the origins, history, and lore of more than 1,200 rose names.

Their enchanting narrative follows the trials and tribulations of this beloved flower through the centuries to modern time. The rose has been entangled in love, war, politics, show business, fashion, sports and even automobiles (yes, the ruby-red ‘Chrysler Imperial’ rose was bred in the 1950s, right here in California).

A Rose by Any Name features all sorts of facts and anecdotes about the world’s most popular flower. There is even a chapter devoted to celebrity-named roses, including ‘Barbra Streisand’, a glamorous purple-blushed lavender rose that the star selected from a field of potential candidates. Even we nobodies can have a personalized flower. “As with vanity license plates, anybody can have his or her name officially conferred upon a rose,” the authors write. “All it takes is a phone call and a big check.”

Designer Plant Combinations

By Scott Calhoun [Storey Publishing, 2008, 240 pp., $18.95]

I’m a sucker for artful color combos,and I can often be found playing with paint-chip samples at the hardware store or mixing and matching blooming plants at the nursery. But here’s a guide that color-dreams for me. Designer Plant Combinations features inspiring techniques the pros use to pair color, texture, scale and form in the garden.

Tucson-based garden designer and book author Scott Calhoun is easy to envy for his writing and photography talents. Except that since he’s so likeable and engaging, I end up hungrily waiting for the next installment of his thoughts and images that appear in book form. And this vibrant guide doesn’t disappoint. Calhoun crisscrossed the country visiting the best residential and public landscapes to study and photograph stunning plant vignettes. Each of the 105 design schemes include six plants or less, which will inspire both designers and non-designers in their garden-making efforts. Detailed plant lists and photographs show you how to replicate the ideas in your own garden.

The book’s oh-so-alluring imagery is more than just eye candy, though. Calhoun explains why these perennials, ornamental grasses, annuals, ground covers, woody plants and dramatic accent plants are hardworking ingredients of successful garden design (look for useful designer tips, such as “when using one color, use different textures”).

A consummate plantsman, Calhoun is convinced that non-plant elements are crowding his beloved specimens out of the landscape. He writes, ” . . . good plant combinations are a little like the stanzas of a poem. That is, like the stanza, they are not trying to be a whole garden but a self-contained little part of one.” Whether bold or subdued, the groupings you’ll find here will give your garden personality and elevate it to something more than ordinary.

The New Terrarium

By Tovah Martin (photography by Kindra Clineff) [Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2009, 176 pp., $25.00]

Devoted subscribers of the original Victoria magazine know the work of garden writer Tovah Martin. In her stories, Tovah brings a sense of wonderment to each of her subjects, be they gardens, gardeners or the plants they love.

Likewise, her latest project, The New Terrarium, is a magical tome filled with small, planted scenes, diminutive landscapes, twee still-lifes and dwarf collections – all under glass. This dreamy book is captured on film by photographer Kindra Clineff.

The New Terrarium pays homage to the conservatory gardens of the Victorian era, as they were the first to perfect the art of gardening under glass. According to Martin, in today’s go-go, hard-to-find-time to garden world, the terrarium may be the best way to bring something from nature into your life. “A terrarium is any transparent confine that allows you to nurture the elements of the green world,” Martin writes. “[It] is truly a small world . . . a mini-environment that provides an atmosphere of elevated humidity for all the botanical contents it embraces.”

This idea is appealing – and relatively simple to do yourself. Martin presents an array of cool glass containers suitable for planting: Traditional cloches, “Wardian” cases (miniature glass greenhouses), hurricane lamps, recycled aquariums, vases and repurposed glass domes typically used to cover cakes or cheese platters. What to grow under these unique vessels? Martin provides a comprehensive plant encyclopedia, including orchids, ferns, heucheras, begonias, mosses, African violets, bromeliads, ivies, ornamental grasses, and more.

This writer’s enthusiasm for gardening under glass inspired me to buy a small potted fern and contain it under a cloche (also called a bell jar). Living in its charming covered world, the fern, I think, will be happy. And I know I will be, too.

Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love

By Julie Moir Messervy [The Taunton Press, 2009, 240 pp., $30]

Julie Moir Messervy is an amazing landscape designer, author and teacher who teamed up with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma to create the Toronto Music Garden, and with architect Sarah Susanka to co-write Outside the Not So Big House.

In her new book, Messervy asks, “Why do we spend the bulk of our resources on the inside of our house, while settling for so little on the outside?” In response, she walks readers through the process of turning any property into the “home outside” they’ve always dreamed of. If, like her, you believe that the nurturing nest, the place called home, begins at the edge of your property and encompasses everything within its boundaries (the porch, the patio, the lawn where your children play – even the pathways, edges and corners), then Messervy’s book is the ideal reference to inform and inspire your design decisions. If you haven’t thought of the landscape in this way, her design approach is the perfect starting point. It will equip you with both basics and intricacies necessary to create a personal outdoor space that feeds the eyes and the spirit.

Bursting with instructive illustrations and before-and-after photographs of do-it-yourself gardens, Home Outside helps you see a property the way a landscape designer views it. Messervy breaks down the design process into manageable pieces. Take her “Designer’s Personality Test” and learn more about your style of garden-making. After completing the quiz, I discovered that I’m more expressive (versus reserved) and more relaxed (instead of orderly).

Our Life in Gardens

By Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd [Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009, 322 pp., $30]

My aforementioned agent, Sarah Jane, has a saying about what makes a good cookbook. “It must transcend the recipes,” she posits. In other words, we can now find recipes anywhere – in magazines, on the web, in grandmother’s dog-eared “Joy of Cooking.” But what makes a great cookbook resonate is the way it touches our universal relationship with food.

Similarly, Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd, Vermont-based garden designers and authors, transcend the typical gardening book in Our Life in Gardens. Their collection of nearly 50 essays (arranged logically from Agapanthus to Xanthorrhoea quadrangulata) is so engaging, so gratifying to read, that you truly forget it came from the section of a bookstore otherwise filled with “how-to” titles. There is a lot to learn from these celebrated designers, but I think the lesson is more about observing and cherishing everyday life in the garden than about how to grow delicious peas.

For example, in “Pea Season,” a chapter illustrated with one of Bobbi Angell’s charming plant drawings, Eck and Winterrowd philosophize on the rewards a gardener receives outside of the vegetable plot. The chapter opens with these lines: “No one can say that a gardening life is rich in leisured holidays, but a gardener’s rewards are festivals, big and small, though we make little distinction there, for they are all wonderful. There are other activities in which effort and labor are so certainly followed by achievement and celebration, and anyone who takes an active hand in shaping life must know equal causes for joy. We know only our life, which is largely one of gardening.”

Written with passion and honesty, this book is a keeper. Buy two copies. One to delight in yourself and the other to share with someone who needs to be lured outdoors.

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Erin (Keosian) Taylor’s  cool plant and design emporium called Botanik was one of my very first garden discoveries when I moved to Southern California in late summer of 2006.

I have Gillian Mathews, another awesome garden retailer who created Ravenna Gardens in Seattle, to thank for the introduction.

In September 2006, Gillian and Theresa Malmanger created and led the “Los Angeles-Santa Barbara Garden Tour” for the Northwest Horticultural Society. So I piggybacked on that trip and joined all my Seattle pals only 3 weeks after I moved here. I was in for a treat!

It turns out that I needed Gillian and Theresa to be my “guides” to begin to understand my new backyard.

It was the best gift they could have shared. The three-day garden extravaganza gave me a front seat tour to some amazing private gardens, public gardens and retail outlets. It fed my spirit and soul as I got to pal around with several very special, dear friends.It made me begin to realize that I was going to be “okay” living here because I started viewing SoCal’s horticultural and garden design world through the eyes of these savvy Seattle folks. That began my long education as to just how cool my new environs are.

One of our stops was the coastal village of Summerland, where Botanik occupies two cute cottages. Created by Erin Taylor, a fresh, young talent who has an amazing eye for design and a solid footing in horticulture, Botanik captured my imagination for gardening with succulents in a whole new way.

Since then, over the past few years, I’ve visited Summerland whenever I could (it’s only a few miles south of Santa Barbara off of Hwy. 101). Erin is inspiring, creative, and refreshingly casual in her design approach. She and staff designer, Molly Hutto create succulent displays like I’ve never before seen. Their creations are oft-copied but never surpassed in composition – with delicious succulent textures, colors, forms and patterns.

In 2007, Kate Karam and I produced a story about Botanik’s luscious succulent designs for a future Cottage Living story. We had such a great time working with Erin and Molly that day. The designs they came up with were to die for! Sadly, as you all know, Cottage Living ceased publication after the December 2008 issue and we all miss it (we miss garden editor Kate, too!) Who knows where that film will surface or whether it will at all (I’m hoping Sunset picks it up, since it’s a sister magazine).

Not one to sit around and wait, I was recently fortunate to interest another editor in Botanik. Well, that’s not fair to say because I haven’t met an editor or publication yet NOT isn’t interested in Erin and Botanik!

But, earlier this spring, Erin graciously agreed to let 805 Living create a story around her natural design philosophy for interior and exterior spaces.

My story appears in the April issue of 805 Living, with photographs by Gary Moss. Here it is for you to read and enjoy. And for those of you planning a Garden Pilgrimage to Santa Barbara (Lotusland, Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens, etc.) don’t leave town without stopping in Summerland to visit Botanik. (more…)

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A few weeks ago, I interviewed a hot Santa Barbara floral designer for a story that will run in the May issue of 805 Living, our local shelter glossy.

While telling me about the fresh-from-the-garden arrangement he created, the designer mentioned that the lilacs came from a farm in Antelope Valley.

I know of Antelope Valley because it is the famous home of the California Poppy Reserve (which I am kicking myself for NOT getting to see last month when the ubiquitous yellow-orange flowers were in bloom). That flower fact is filed away for future reference . . . but suddenly, the idea of LOCAL lilacs is tickling my fancy in a big way. Some of my best childhood moments were experienced with my face buried in wild, unkempt but intoxicatingly fragrant lilac shrubs: first in the backyard of a Connecticut rental house in the mid-1960s and later in a historic Massachusetts town square where lilacs grew with abandon in the mid-1970s.

In the late 1990s, we planted a Syringa ‘Sensation’ in our Seattle garden. My dear friend and former college roommate (and longtime garden muse) Karen Page selected the plant for us while helping with several landscaping projects. It grew tall and robust and blessed me and my garden alike each June, producing voluptuous trusses of darkest-purple florets edged in pure white. Too beautiful! It now lives in my memories.

So today, while racing through the Thousand Oaks Farmers Market near closing time (to pick up a half-dozen hand-made tamales for dinner), I stopped dead in my tracks at this little scene: a row of white plastic 5-gallon buckets FILLED with pale and deep lavender clusters of lilacs. Two women were working out of the back of a pickup truck, clipping and bundling lilacs: gorgeous, fresh-cut, real lilacs. I overheard one of them telling a customer that she grows the lilacs in Antelope Valley.

The connection was made! I introduced myself to Elizabeth Kilcoyne of Kilcoyne Lilac Farm and her neighbor-assistant Marie. I asked: “Do you sell lilacs to S. R. Hogue in Santa Barbara?” Her face broke into a lovely, warm smile: “Yes.”

I told Elizabeth and Marie about the 805 Living article and they already knew about it -- my editor Lynne Andujar and her photographer Gary Moss had shot scenes of Thousand Oaks Farmers Market flower vendors a few weeks ago -- for our upcoming flower story.

Without thinking, I switched into Debra-as-Reporter and started quizzing the women about these awesome, California-grown lilacs. Wait!!! I raced to my car and grabbed my little Flip video camera and returned to see whether Elizabeth would let me tape a short interview with her. She agreed and here is the interview:

I came home with a lovely bunch of Elizabeth’s lilacs and have promised myself that come next spring, I will visit her farm and display gardens filled with 150 lilacs. Plus, I need to find an outlet to produce a magazine story about Kilcoyne Lilac Farm.

The varieties seen here are: ‘Charles Jolie’ (or ‘Charles Joly’) and ‘Ludwig Spaeth’ -- two dark reddish-purple lilacs (‘Charles’ has a tiny white spot -- Elizabeth calls it a ‘B’ - in the center of the floret); and ‘Michael Buchner’, the pale lavender French hybrid. Before I filled a jug with the blooms, I made sure to clip the bottom of each woody stem and then slice the stem in half, with a 1-inch cut. This technique helps the stems drink more water and stay fresh.

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