Announcing my new book...

STYLISH SHEDS AND ELEGANT HIDEAWAYS: “A charming, happy, very pretty book full of ideas for building, furnishing, and enjoying your backyard shed or writing den.” — Old House Interiors review, July 2009.

My Stylish Shed partner, the very talented Bill Wright, is a frequent contributor to Old House Interiors magazine. His photographs of luscious historic interiors and architecture are always a treat for the eyes. So when we learned recently that editor Patricia Poore planned to feature Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways in the magazine’s July 2009 issue, Bill and I were thrilled.

Patty decided to excerpt a chapter from Stylish Sheds, one about Michelle and Rob Wyles’s dreamy garden shed in Eastern Washington.

We called our chapter “Sun Catcher,” which aptly describes the shed’s design that utilizes ample antique windows to draw sunlight into the 20-by-20 foot cedar-shingle-clad structure. OHI titled the chapter “Garden Hideaway” and I’ve included the edited story here, along with Bill’s images:

GARDEN HIDEAWAY: In Washington, friends meet in this sun-catching sanctuary of glass and cedar, where tended plants thrive amidst old furniture and favorite collections.

By Debra Prinzing | Photographs by William Wright

More summer cottage than glass house, this hideaway in Washington State is the centerpiece of what Michelle Wyles calls her “farmer’s wife’s vegetable garden.” It functions not only as a greenhouse, but also a place for collectibles and friendly gatherings.

Two Gothic windows, which Michelle and her husband Rob hauled home from Hayden, Idaho, are bracketed by fifteen-light French doors installed as windows. Besides being a master gardener, Michelle is an antiques dealer who’d stockpiled architectural fragments. More Gothic millwork appears above a doorway, and vintage stained glass is mounted at the peaks of two of the building’s four gables.

Her design process was anything but logical, Michelle admits. “You can be unrealistic and impractical when you’re making a garden building,” she says.

“The beauty of this one is the juxtaposition of its fanciness with its humility. It’s not supposed to be la-di-da . . . it’s a manifestation of things that make me happy.”

In the summer, doors and windows are flung open to infuse the garden house with the fragrance of roses and lavender.

Rob and Michelle host parties here, and benefits for charities such as the Yakima Area Arboretum, their local public garden.

When the stars are shining above, the music is playing, and revelers are gathered at the large round table, Rob says it’s magical: “people and plants in their glory!”

Mission: Hideaway

Challenge: To build a sun-filled garden sanctuary that emulates a greenhouse – lots of light, air, circulation, and humidity control – without mimicking its structure.

Program [Must-haves]: Big windows, running water, floors of native Cascade mountain rock, display shelves for pottery – and “room for a party.”

Inspiration: A plain, Nantucket-style cottage of weathered shingles with lavender trim.

Design features: Four symmetrically placed gables and four window-filled walls. Salvaged Gothic-style windows and French doors. Hinged panels for air flow, and a ceiling fan for circulation.

The story ends with this sidebar, featuring three other of our favorite Stylish Sheds:

“A room of one’s own” doesn’t have to be in the house. Backyard structures sometimes bear no resemblance to the cobwebby garden sheds of suburbs past; today people are using them as studios, writing rooms, playhouses, dining pavilions – hideaways of all sorts. Look for lace curtains and window boxes, and cedar shingles instead of corrugated walls. Even toolsheds, of course, can be artistic.

A view down the rocky coast of Santa Cruz Island

This won’t be a long post because it has been a long day. But I have some images to share from today’s field trip to Santa Cruz Island, which is part of a string of eight small islands forming the Channel Islands off the California coast (between Santa Barbara and Long Beach). Perhaps the most famous is the glamorous Catalina Island. But since I wanted to see nature and take a break from the freeways and noise, the remoteness of Santa Cruz was appealing.

My companion Paula Panich has ventured to Santa Cruz twice before by herself. She suggested a day trip over the holiday weekend and we both arranged to be away from our families for a good part of the day. It started by booking our passage through a commercial boating company called Island Packers. We each spent $48 for the round-trip journey. The boat left the Oxnard Harbor at 9 a.m. We boarded and sat up on the top deck, along with other pleasure-seekers, cameras and small video recorders around their necks. No one was disappointed by the 90-minute crossing, thanks to a playful performance from dolphins, including several that seemed to want to “surf” in the boat’s wake.

With my friend Paula, on the trail

Paula had prepped me for this trip, helping dictate a list of what I should bring: 2 bottles of water; 2 bottles of Gatorade; a fanny pack and a backpack; nuts and dried fruit; a hat and sunscreen; polar fleece and a rain jacket; hiking shoes. I added my fav hiking food – hard cheddar cheese and salami, along with crackers.

The thing is, Santa Cruz is one of four northern islands that make up the Channel Islands National Park. The only amenities on this rocky, isolated destination are a few port-a-potties and potable water. You can plan ahead to camp or kayak here but everything you bring in . . . you must pack out.

We got off the boat at 10:30 a.m. and checked our watches: Four Hours. Before hiking, we wandered through the historic displays that covered Santa Cruz’s background dating to the first indication of human life there 2,000 years ago. Those humans were probably the ancestors of our local Chumash Indian tribe. European settlers had their moment in time here, too, unfortunately. This island was home to sheep, cattle and pig ranching over the years. Paula and I kept asking ourselves: Who would transport livestock to this island to “farm” when there was still a ton of good, undeveloped property on the mainland a century ago? Ridiculous.

The restored black smith shed

A relic of undetermined provenance

But, of course, we were tickled to see the remains of a few “sheds.”

There you go. Sheds are everywhere.

The natural beauty of Santa Cruz, though, made everything man made look uninspired. The terrain blew our minds. I kept saying: “It’s otherworldly.” Finally, Paula said it reminded her of Iceland, an otherworldly place she visited last October. When we hiked up to a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean to the southwest and the Santa Barbara Channel to the northeast, I was struck by how varied the geography is here.

This blooming pinkish succulent carpeted the earth

On land, it’s desolate, dry and hilly (the livestock ate most of the native vegetation, but there are efforts to reintroduce native plant species). On the perimeter, it’s rugged, weather beaten and dramatic, where the sheer face of the island exposes itself to the sea.

Here’s a paragraph from the National Parks brochure we picked up:

Santa Cruz Island: Here are pristine beaches, rugged mountains, lonely canyons, grass-covered hills, and some animals and plants that you have never seen before. This paradise is Santa Cruz Island, a miniature of what southern California looked like more than 100 years ago. The largest island in the national park, with 61,972 acres, Santa Cruz is 22 miles long and from two to six miles wide. A central valley splits the island along the Santa Cruz Island fault, with volcanic rock on the north and older sedimentary rock on the south. Today, the Nature Conservancy and National Park Service preserve and protect the island.

Rocky outcroppings, perhaps formed in an earlier millennia

We spent most of our time just staring at the rock formations and speculating about what force of nature had shaped them in which millennium. The trails were narrow, single-file style, and perilously close to the edge of cliffs and bluffs. But we felt more exhilarated than frightened.

Our clock wound down to 2:30 p.m. and we had to make our way back to the pier to re-board the return boat. This morning, I worried about what on earth we would do to fill 4 hours on an island, one with no tree cover, few places to sit but on the ground, and lonely views of water and rock all around us. But breathtaking scenery, good conversation with a close friend, a zip-lock bag filled with nuts and dried fruit, a few cheese-and-salami bites and – wow – time flies.

I can’t wait to schedule a return visit. Just think, only 30 minutes away from home is the boat that will bring me back to the wild place called Santa Cruz.

A collection of custom outbuildings to suit your lifestyle

I only check my P.O. Box once every week or two, usually to find a lone press kit or alumni association mailing. Rarely does any personally-written correspondence show up.

Then a few weeks ago there was an envelope. The return address read “ARTISAN SHEDS.” Well, that certainly warranted opening! I opened it up to find a four-page, lovely hand-written letter from Lynn Weber.

Lynn is the owner and architectural designer of Artisan Sheds (the company’s tagline is alluring: “A collection of custom outbuildings to suit your lifestyle.“) She designs the small outdoor dwellings; her husband, Michael Weber builds them.

Artisan Sheds and Lynn’s personal story get filed under my ever-growing category: “The ones that got away.”

They are on my list of great shedistas who have come to me, each with an unique point of view, a personal narrative as to what inspired them to create a P-O-D (personal outdoor dwelling) and, of course, a fabulous little structure that I wish with all my heart that we would have discovered in time to include in Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways! Several days after reading her charming note, I called Lynn. We enjoyed a friendly chat, swapping ideas and stories over the line, three time zones away from one another.

Since she and her sheds are in North Collins, N.Y. (about 30 minutes south of Buffalo), I won’t be able to personally visit the Weber family’s garden showroom – yet. But I can share their story here with you. Lynn gave me permission to use excerpts from her letter. The photographs are courtesy of Artisan Sheds.

Hello Debra,

Late last summer, while browsing the web, I came upon your Shedstyle web site. I ended up reading about and purchasing your book, “Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways.” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Here was someone writing about something that had been an interest of mine for so long and who clearly had the same philosophy as I – the importance of an aesthetically pleasing building that one could call a place of their own; a place to escape to. Since my childhood, I’ve had a fascination with little outbuildings. . . Your book . . . convinces me, more than ever, how important in our hectic times a place to retreat to is.

In the winter, the artful potting shed is your landscape's only architectural focal point

Lynn continued by sharing her story. Originally, she planned on converting the second level of her barn-style garage into an art studio-home office-gathering place. Then she saw a few magazine articles featuring re-purposed potting sheds and something took hold in her imagination:

“. . . my thinking shifted from renovating the barn to the idea of designing and building a smaller, separate structure.”

Soon, Lynn was entertaining the notion of starting a cottage industry to create, build and share her shed designs with others.  “With my education and background as an artist and designer, and my husband’s craftsmanship in building, I knew we could turn out some incredible things,” she wrote.

Lynn and Michael Weber created a finely-crafted shed using traditional homebuilding materials and methods

Lynn and Michael spent an entire summer on the first prototype of a potting shed, a 12-by-12 foot structure . “We moved it to a spot near the roadside and put up a sign: ARTISAN SHEDS. We had a great response from the public,” Lynn continued. “People honked their horns and shouted out compliments and gave us ‘thumbs up’ as they drove by. Apparently, they had been watching our construction progress all summer and were just as excited to see us finish as we were.”

Like many of the very special havens we profiled in Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways, the ones designed by Artisan Sheds provide small-scale backyard shelter. But they also nurture one’s spirit, inspire the inner artist, and encourage the dreamer in all.

Lynne wrote this text for her brochure – it strikes a chord in my heart: “Experience the charm of a guest cottage complete with a platform bed, storage drawers and bookshelves; or a lakeside house for boating equipment that doubles as a beautiful summer bunkhouse. Perhaps an artist’s or writer’s studio with upright storage for canvases, a sink for brushes, or a desk area for your office equipment, comfortable chairs and a built in coffee bar. The choices are almost endless.” (more…)

The Cozy Shack, Designed by Scotty Thompson and Suzanne St. Pierre of "Living in the Garden," a cool Pullman (Wash.) garden emporium

I love it when I receive surprise “Shed-Mail” from Shedistas like Suzanne St. Pierre. Suzanne and her husband Scotty Thompson own Living in the Garden, a cool nursery/emporium in Pullman, Washington. We’ve swapped a few emails, originally prompted by Suzanne’s note saying she loves Stylish Sheds as much as I do.

Recently, while planning their own version of a spring flower show, Suzanne and Scotty recycled an old cedar outhouse from their 2-acre property and tricked it out to be a too-cute cottage for their nursery. She sent me a sweet note and some photos and gave me permission to share them with you.

Hello, inspired by your Stylish Shed book, my husband and I jazzed up an old outhouse we had on the property (to use) for a focal point in our Sweet on Spring event at Living in the Garden. It was a hit!! I wanted to thank you for the inspiration and tell you that I enjoy your blog.

I just caught up with Suzanne by phone and we had a good ol’ gab. It felt like I was talking with a long-lost friend. She described how this little structure found its way from humble to haute:

Originally, the cedar “box” was an outhouse over a pit toilet. The couple actually used it while living in their tiny “sugar shack” when they moved to the two-acre property about six years ago. After they built their residence and started running the nursery, they had a “real” indoor bathroom, so the 3-by-3 foot outhouse was no longer needed. “We filled in the pit and just moved the building around,” she says.

With shingles made from flattened tin can lids and hot pink trim, this is an outrageous outhouse!

When preparing for Living in the Garden’s “Sweet on Spring” event last month, they decided to create several indoor garden displays (it’s still pretty chilly out there on the Palouse in March). As Suzanne explains, “We wanted to create our homage to the Northwest Flower & Garden Show.”

Once she and Scotty decided to dress up the rustic outhouse, the creativity exploded. Suzanne told Scotty: “We have to use everything we already have on hand.”

Like most artist-builders (Scotty is “incredibly handy and artistic”), the couple has all sorts of project piles and cool materials had saved for future endeavors. Clearly, they love to re-purpose what others might toss into the landfill.

This detailed photo illustrates how they used flattened tin cans, layered like gingerbread shingles, to clad the upper portion of the structure. Scotty added a window and the arched doorway, plus the cool corbel-style brackets and scallop-trim fascia board around the shed roof.  It even has a skylight! I’m dying to see an indoor shot (maybe Suzanne will send it to add here!) because apparently she decoupaged the interior walls with pages from old gardening books someone had given them. I guess Suzanne broke her own rule about using on-hand materials when it came to paint. She confesses that she did actually buy the hot pink paint as a finishing detail. Fancy!

Cute Outhouse (left) outside the gorgeous conservatory, built by Scotty Thompson of Living in the Garden

I love this couple’s philosophy of truly LIVING IN THE GARDEN. Suzanne grew up in a family nursery and purchased and ran her parents’ former nursery for 12 years after graduating from college with a horticulture degree.

“But I burned out. I was never getting my hands dirty,” she confides. Several years (and a career in the wholesale plant trade) later, Suzanne realized how much she missed retail. “I just wrote on a piece of paper what the perfect job would be: Work from home. Work with Scotty. Work 4 months of the year for 4 days a week.”

Wow. How seldom do any of us have such an honest conversation with ourselves? Guess what? For the past six years, Suzanne and Scotty have been doing exactly what she wrote down on that page. “My commute to work is just 113 steps,” she jokes. “We’re working on our farm and making people come to us. It’s really wonderful.”

Living in the Garden's green roof

Living in the Garden is open from March through June (Thursdays through Sundays). Earlier in the season, beginning in February, Suzanne starts work in their production greenhouse, growing geraniums and plants for their own hanging baskets. By summer, the couple is off on trips in their camping van (complete with solar panels on the roof!) and touring around the Northwest and beyond to see other nurseries and commercial greenhouses.

They believe in “marketing with a cause,” so during the summer months Suzanne and Scotty encourage local charities to use their extensive and beautiful display gardens for fund-raisers or donor-appreciation events.

By September, just about the time Suzanne is “missing” her customers, Living in the Garden opens for one spectacular autumn weekend.

When you arrive, don’t be surprised to hear the mellow sounds of Gregorian chants drifting through the garden and conservatory. “Gardening is my religion,” Suzanne concludes.

Check out the nursery in person or read more at Suzanne’s blog, Living in the Gardens.

a morning. a mug of tea. breakfast inside a greenhouse. perfection.

I have a backlog of cool ideas and discoveries that I want to write about. Too many inspiring thoughts and insights swirling around my head. Too little time.

Since returning from my crazy Jan-Feb-March travel (seven out-of-town lecture trips in something like 10 weeks) I have been trying to carve out time to return to Shedstyle.com. It is the writing forum I love the most, but family demands, and the need to actually make some money, have distracted me. But I’m back on track, friends. I promise.

One of the places I visited on my many journeys is Terrain at Styer’s.

I recently wrote about my early March trip to lecture on stylish sheds and other small abodes in a talk called ”Your Personal Escape” at the Philadelphia Flower Show. But my side trip to Terrain was great fun and I don’t want any more time to pass before writing about it.

Terrain is the darling of the home and garden media. As a hot, design-oriented gardening emporium outside Philadelphia, Terrain appears in shelter magazines as often as its west coast “kindred spirit,” Flora Grubb’s. How cool that I visited both plant- and style-savvy destinations within a few weeks of one another.

You all probably know the back-story about Terrain. If not, I’ll give you the short version here, beginning with Terrain’s own words:

“Lifestyle merchandising is our business and our passion. The goal for our brands is to build a strong emotional bond with the customer. To do this we must build lifestyle environments that appeal emotionally, and offer fashion correct products on a timely basis. Our customers are the reason and the inspiration for everything we do.”

Founded in 2008, Terrain transforms the local garden center into a celebration of nature. Our flagship location . . . was inspired by the idea of merging house and garden to create an experience for the senses, catering to our customer with a curated assortment of plants for all seasons, as well as inspired items for the home and garden. Situated in a luxurious indoor-outdoor environment, our on-site nursery is flanked by a cafe and garden terrace, providing the ideal environment to host events and workshops. [from the Urban Outfitters corporate web site]

(more…)

The filming and editing are finished and we’ve posted a short excerpt from “Peace by Design,” my new outdoor lifestyle television show produced by Robert Schauf and Tisha Fein of Branch BR3.  

We developed “Peace by Design” to bring a new level of inspiring and informative garden and home stories to the consumer. With the theme of “creating your own peaceful place – indoors and outdoors,” the show will feature my visits to and interviews with top celebrities in film, television, music and sports. We will single out stars who are passionate about their own environmental activities, sustainable practices and related themes such as living in harmony with the natural world. Each program will be supported by ideas, tips and other takeaways for the viewer who yearns to turn their own backyard into a harmonious and serene environment.

Click here for Peace by Design’s web site and to view an excerpt of the show. Now the fun begins, as we share the show with potential presenting sponsors who view Peace by Design as a multi-platform marketing opportunity. I think the visuals, the celebrity component and the varied topics come together to create an exciting new show. I welcome your response and reaction to this project. I hope you love it as much as I do!

March 30 to April 3, 2009 

Los Angeles to Seattle to Yakima. Back to Los Angeles, via Seattle. Two snowstorms and lots of rain. Heavy doses of friendship.

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The perky roofline of Michelle and Rob Wyles's hedge-enclosed gardenhouse is seen in relief against an expansive eastern Washington sky, photographed by William Wright

Spring may have arrived on March 20th, but it still feels like winter in the Pacific Northwest and there I was, loving it! But to the person, my gardening pals on both sides of the (Washington State) Cascades are sick of this unfriendly weather (unfriendly, at least, to gardens, plants and gardeners).

I flew out of LAX on Monday, arriving in Seattle around 3 p.m. Not wanting to bug any of my hardworking friends, I hopped an express Metro bus from the airport to downtown’s new transit center. That $2.50 bus pass, which even included a transfer to the Number 14 city bus, got me all the way to Mt. Baker neighborhood, where I walked a few short blocks to my friend Jan’s.

She graciously lent me a bed and use of a car – not for the first time – and it felt like coming home to a place I know so well. I walked these sidewalks with my newborn son Benjamin during the summer of 1992. I feel like I have every front yard, every border, memorized. I love the perspective of the often cloud-streaked sky looming above Lake Washington. I love the tall Douglas firs and the western red cedars, the old, overgrown rhododendrons, the Craftsman architecture. This place holds good remembrances.

But it is cold here this week, colder than when my sons and I visited for the Northwest Flower & Garden Show in February. That week – Presidents’ Week – was sunny and blue-skied, with temperature in the mid 40s. Picture perfect and perfect for one’s mood.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSy75jcIgFA

On Tuesday morning, Lorene Edwards Forkner arrived in her trusty All-Wheel Drive Subaru and we began our 3-hour drive east to Yakima – over the Snoqualmie Pass and into Eastern Washington.

It was raining lightly; the air was cold and damp, for what is supposed to be springtime already. As we passed through North Bend and started climbing up toward the summit, the scene on either side of the freeway was cloaked in white. Beautiful, if you like a Christmas card image of dark blue-green conifers frosted with dollops of snow. But brutal for the driver. We slowed down to a snail’s pace at the peak- where truckers literally stopped in the middle of a lane to put on their chains and the little people (the cars, and their drivers, that is), skulked over to a single lane and crept through the pass at single-digit speeds.

 A DIFFERENT LANDSCAPE ALTOGETHER

Linda Knutson and Ron Sell's magnificent Yakima landscape, photographed on our October 2005 tour

With the snow behind us, our arrival in Yakima was cause for celebration. We stopped at Linda Knutson’s and Ron Sell’s, fellow Northwest Horticultural Society members who have always generously shared their four-acre, arboretum-like landscape with visitors. They participate each year in the Northwest Perennial Alliance Open Garden schedule (if you really want a treat, plan a day’s trip to Yakima to see it!)

Linda and Ron focus on texture, color, form using mostly conifers, ornamental grasses, woody ornamental shrubs, stone and artwork. Lorene and I remember with fondness our visit there in October 2005 when I led the NHS weekend tour to Yakima.

A delicious autumn scene at Linda and Ron's, which to me perfectly illustrates an analagous color scheme in plants and art

The weather was pretty unforgiving (brisk and very windy), but after a delicious spanakopita lunch, we bundled up and took a spin around the place. We stayed mostly on the pathways, but we stooped down to observe new crocuses, species tulips, galanthus, chionodoxa and (possibly) pushkinia bulbs poking their heads out of the soil. “These plants are a month behind my Seattle garden,” Lorene observed. “And my Seattle garden is a month behind its usual bloom time.” That tells you a lot about the vagaries of the Pacific Northwest winter of 2008-2009, but Linda and Ron insist that Yakima has been spared much of the snow-dump that hit Spokane and other parts of Eastern Washington (even still, we woke up to snowfall Wednesday morning, April 1^st!).

Later, we met up with shedista Michelle Wyles at Garden Dance, her adorable “fashion and frou-frou” clothing emporium in downtown Yakima. She has one of the best pair of eyes for spotting innovative apparel and interior styling I’ve ever seen.

All you have to do is see how Michelle has created and adorned her charming “shed,” photographed by William Wright for our book, Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways, to know what I mean.

Michelle has had a wide and varied career, including raising alpacas (Right now, the attention-getting creatures at Michelle and Rob’s home/farm are the Guinea hens. What funny poultry!)

Bill Wright's photo of Rob and Michelle Wyles, with Chester (July 2006)

Her garden antiques and retail business has morphed into fashion: Garden Dance is housed in Yakima’s turn-of-the-last-century train station. For about an hour, Lorene and I browsed and oohed and aahed to our heart’s content, while Michelle and her girlfriend/sales associate Stephanie helped guests and handled customers. For some delicious (virtual) retail therapy, read Michelle’s lighthearted blog, linked to her web site.

After they closed shop, we walked across the street to Gilbert Cellars, a cool wine-and-cheese bar that you might expect to find in Seattle’s Belltown district or in Santa Monica. A sampling of artisan cheeses and a sip of wine fortified us for delaying dinner until after my 7 p.m. lecture finished!

My lecture, “the Ultimate Garden Hideaway,” was the final of a four-part lecture series hosted by the Yakima Co. Master Gardeners. Held at the beautiful Yakima Area Arboretum, the lecture series was the brainchild of several incredible volunteers and MG staff, including our fellow GWA member Jim Black. The “Outdoor Room”-themed lecture series included Michelle Wyles and Linda Knutson as prior speakers.

We had a great, sell-out gathering of enthusiastic folks, from shed owners who treated me to stories of their own backyard hideaways, to shed wanna-be’s who had big dreams for their future PODs (Personal Outdoor Dwelling).

As always, I feel so at home with these “peeps,” the Master Gardeners of the world who are truly citizen-volunteers, generous, pay-it-forward folks concerned with educating and inspiring everyone to embrace the traditions and skills of growing edible and ornamental plants.

Mastern Gardener Bill Woolman snapped this photo during my talk, "The Ultimate Garden Hideaway."

Thank you to the Yakima Master Gardeners and the Yakima Area Arboretum for hosting me, and to Michelle and Rob Wyles for housing (and feeding) Lorene and me on Tuesday night. By the way, we woke up to more snow and had fun watching the Wyles poultry population racing around in the cold weather. What a hoot! (Sorry, Lorene, about locking you out of the guesthouse while I was showering away to my heart’s content. I’m glad you’ve thawed out!)

Lorene and I made it back to Seattle pretty quickly. Well, that is AFTER we spent close to an hour searching for a hard-to-find address of a Yakima trailer park (North Acres) to track down the good Samaritan (?) who called me on my cell phone with news that he had found my camera in the parking lot of Gasperetti’s Restaurant in the wee hours of April 1st. I will let Lorene have the honor of blogging about THAT experience. I just checked her terrific blog, Plantedathome.com, and I’m surprised (and a bit relieved) that to date, the photos of that “doo dad” decorated residential trailer have not been posted. Given the blackmail potential, that may be good news. I’ll await Lorene’s decision!

Debra, pontificating about Stylish Sheds (photographed by Bill Woolman)

All in all, this was a good trip. I felt like the Energizer Bunny, squeezing in more friends and networking encounters than anyone could imagine. I had a wonderful evening with the Woodinville Garden Club (thank you to Susan Latter for the invitation to speak), and several excellent encounters with creative people (the subject of future blog posts).

I’ve been home in Southern California for about 36 hours and I can’t wait to stay here for a while. I can’t imagine leaving my family or my garden for one more moment. It’s hard to believe, but I have traveled on seven adventures since I went to Orlando in mid-January. As inspiring and exciting and stimulating as these lecture venues, flower shows, press junkets and garden tours can be, I know they just delay me from sinking my roots deeper in the patch of earth for which I’m responsible. So it’s time to stay put for a while.

It’s Palm Sunday and time to celebrate the gift of life, the gift of love and the gift of nature.

Cindy Dole is LA’s home improvement and design go-to gal on the AM dial. You can hear her “Home Wizards” show each Saturday morning for a full hour on KRLA 870-AM. Cindy chooses all of her music openers and transitions – each number is whimsical and creative. The morning I appeared, she opened the show with the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song “Our house is a very, very, very fine house . . . .” - A perfect segue into a conversation about home, haven, design and interiors.

I appeared on the March 14, 2009 edition of "Home Wizards" radio in LA

Cindy invited me to be a guest on last Saturday’s show to talk all about my favorite subject: personal backyard escapes (aka SHEDS).  We’d been waiting several weeks to do the program, mainly because at this time of year I have too many Saturday lectures or trips. What a treat to finally arrive at her studio in Glendale early last week and meet Cindy in person. She is vivacious and knowledgeable, serving as both executive producer and host of her long-running show.

We found an instant rapport, along with my fellow studio guest, a Los Angeles floral and garden designer George Woods. George and his partner and wife Evonne Woods own The Woods Exquisite Flowers in Culver City.

When Cindy introduced my segment, she promised that we’d talk about “Man Caves” and “Gal Palaces.” I’ve heard lots about the man-cave movement, both here in the U.S. and also in the U.K. But I really love the gal-palace correlary. Looking forward to using those distinctions in my upcoming talks – it’s often not too hard to tell the difference between the styles.

If you want to listen to the interview, Cindy has it posted on her web site in two parts, about 15 minutes total. Enjoy and let me know what you think! Part One and Part Two.

When I saw George Woods’ beautiful floral arrangement that he and Evonne brought to the studio, I knew they were kindred spirits – people who appreciate flowers in season and who are far from traditional in their design approach.

Cindy Dole with George and Evonne Woods - and their gorgeous arrangement of spring blooms

Displayed in a low, square glass vase, combining a palette of greens and vibrant oranges, reds, and purples, George’s design drew from a wonderful mix of flowers and foliage. 

His fresh, new “happy” spring green came mostly from a surprise ingredient: ephemeral Maidenhair Ferns; plus, Algerian variegated ivy, pale green viburnums and hydrangea blooms. Parrot tulips, ranunculus, roses, anemones and some pretty awesome dark purple and fuchsia-colored sweet peas comprised the brighter hues. So breathtaking. Plus, all the stems of these cut flowers and foliage were hidden in a woven “nest” of just-sprouting willow that George used to line the vase.

A lucky listener won the arrangement, but I certainly lusted after it, too. I can’t wait to see what else George has designed (he promised to take me to a certain garden on a Malibu hillside very soon!).

San Francisco's hottest garden and plant emporium, Flora Grubb

A great gathering of Shed-Fanatics joined me at Flora's

After my exhausting trip to the wintry Philadelphia Flower Show, I returned to LA for a quick overnight to recharge my batteries with my family.

Then, last Thursday, I returned to Burbank to fly north to Oakland.

My friends at the Garden Conservancy invited me to share my fascination with sheds and hideaways at an evening benefit lecture.

Hosted by horticultural celebrity Flora Grubb at her eponymous urban emporium, the after-hours event included cocktails and hors d’oeuvres among Flora’s awesome collection of palms, succulents, Mediterranean and drought-tolerant plants – and more.

Flora and Debra, smiling in this great garden setting

She curates this environment with an eye for design, style and presentation. Furniture selections, displayed among plant groupings really “pop” – from avant-garde concrete chaises to retro-salvaged circle lawn chairs (see below for specifics).

The playfulness with which Flora and her staff have created this plant-centric lifestyle just puts a smile on my face. I’ve heard and read about this cool SF destination nursery for a few years and am thrilled to have been given a great excuse to travel and speak there.

Thanks for the experience begins with my friend Margo Sheffner, who is Flora Grubb’s book buyer extraordinaire. Margo, who is also the business manager for the Pacific Horticultural Foundation (a nonprofit of which I am board member), was an early fan and supporter of Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways. She brought it to Flora Grubb’s and continues to update me about how Flora’s customers “get” the notion of backyard sanctuary, habitat and haven. And that translates into book sales (which is so reassuring in this non-print phase we’re in). Yeah! It makes me happy to see our book in this cool environment.

Here’s a little gallery of Flora Grubb’s Garden. You will love every image:

Credit for my lecture title, “A POD in the Garden,” goes to Garden Conservancy west coast program manager and all-around horticultural go-to gal, Betsy Flack. She came up with the idea of using the acronym P-O-D (as a personal-outdoor-dwelling). I love it! This is my new buzzword. Stylish Sheds includes a chapter about Loretta Fisher’s “Mod Pod” in Austin, so Betsy’s title is apropos. Betsy and her assistant Maria Martinez (along with several Garden Conservancy staff, friends and volunteers) put on a lovely evening. I felt welcomed among so many kindred spirits.

The following morning, I stopped by Dwell's editorial offices to say hello to Miyoko

Before I started my talk, Betsy invited Miyoko Ohtake, associate editor at Dwell magazine, to share a few words. Miyoko is a talented young architect-journalist who joined Dwell last summer after impressive gigs at Wired and Business Week.

She contacted me in August to ask if I could serve as Dwell’s guest expert for a review of prefabricated sheds (February 2009 issue). It was great to finally meet her in person and to also have the audience meet Miyoko and hear her enthusiasm for modern outdoor design. Dwell supported the event and Miyoko blogged about my talk in advance of the evening.

Then, Flora invited her architect-friend Seth Boor, AIA, of SF’s Boor Bridges Architecture, to comment on the city’s zoning issues relating to shed construction.

It was a stroke of brilliance to include Seth on the program. He and Flora (and her partner Kevin Smith) recently collaborated on a very cool planted-wall installation at a hip, new Napa Valley hotel called Bardessono. The project was recently documented by Stephen Orr in the New York Times. So we were in excellent company (oh, and how cool is this? Stephen was in the audience – what a sweet guy to come hear my talk).

Among other remarks, Seth touched on the permit and installation parameters for anyone wanting to add a backyard shed in San Francisco:

• No permit is required if you build an outdoor structure under 100 square feet in size and no taller than 8 feet high.
• The configurations can vary. For example, the structure can be 10-by-10 feet or 8-by-12 feet in size.
• As for height, as Seth pointed out, “Eight-feet-tall is a little short” but you can work with it.
• Working without a permit “frees you up to do anything within that size,” he says
• Also, if the structure isn’t permitted, the typical setback rules do not apply. However, there is the “good neighbor” rule and Seth recommended that shed-builders think about how a 100-sf structure will appear to a neighboring property.

Debra’s note: Creative shed-owners are already aware of this issue. I’ve seen shedistas carefully paint, embellish and artfully adorn the side of their structure that faces a neighbor’s lot. Good shed policy!

Stylish Sheds, a featured book at University Bookstore's display

I’ve just returned from spending three days at the fabulous-but-possibly-final Northwest Flower & Garden Show in Seattle where I saw many, many gardening friends, hung out with my Hortus Posse pals and enjoyed a week of Seattle Sunshine (Seriously, folks. It was raining in Burbank when we flew outta here on Feb. 16th and sunny when we landed in Seattle!).

Of course, I was preaching the message of Stylish Sheds, and I’m happy to say, my “Shedar” (that’s like Radar, but it’s my own version of being alert to shed-spotting all around me) zoomed in on several fantastic garden structures, sheds, arbors, pavilions, shelters and enclosures.

It seemed as if every display garden at the show featured a fanciful structure in the garden. That goes to show you how important it is to design with not just plants, but architecture in mind.

Bill Wright, my collaborator on Stylish Sheds, and I kicked off the week with a Tuesday lecture for his peers in the Seattle chapter of American Society of Media Photographers. We participated in “The Odyssey of a Book,” a panel with two other book-savvy photographers, Dick Busher, of Cosgrove Editions, and Rosanne Olson, creator of a beautiful new book called “this is who I am — our beauty in all shapes and sizes”. The audience included fellow photographers, some of whom are also members of Garden Writers Association (David Perry, Mark Turner), friends Marcia Gamble Hadley and writer Robyn Cannon, as well as my former cohort from Seattle Post-Intelligencer days, Steve Shelton (what a treat to see him in the audience!). While we writers were definitely in the minority in the crowded room at Seattle Central Community College’s photography studio, it was a great experience talking books with kindred spirits.

Rosanne Olson, Bill Wright, Debra Prinzing and Dick Busher

On Wednesday, I took a tour through the Flower Show and snapped a bevy of shots to document the veritable bevy of sheds and shed-like structures featured in the show (see below). I was particularly gratified to see two Modern Shed structures by the talented Ryan Grey Smith and his team. Ryan adapted his awesome prefabricated shed architecture for two display gardens, including Michael Hancock’s “Serene Scapes” garden and Tony Fajarillo’s “Collaborating with Nature” garden.

Bill and Debra at their book signing

On Thursday, I was back on my soapbox, speaking about backyard architecture in “Your Personal Escape,” my lecture illustrated by many of Bill’s awesome photos from our book. Bill joined me for a booksigning afterwards and we’re pleased to say that University Bookstore sold out of copies of Stylish Sheds. Hopefully, they’ll order MORE books next time!

The week went by way too quickly, but upon reflection, it was a perfect moment in time; a perfect experience to savor for months to come.  I’ll close by sharing some of my favorite structures: A Gallery of Garden Architecture from the 2009 Northwest Flower & Garden Show’s designers.