In the works...

I competed with a hummingbird to get up close and personal with this gorgeous Manzanita. Katherine has a trio of them, small multi-trunk trees, in full January bloom.

Katherine Greenberg is a passionate native plant expert whose naturalistic landscape in the East Bay community of Lafayette has inspired hundreds of tourgoers and garden club students who have taken her workshops about growing California natives in the domestic environment.

I have known Katherine for about five years through our association as fellow board members of the Pacific Horticulture Society (she is former board president). Although we only see one another two or three times a year at board meetings, there is always a friendly connection as fellow horticulture enthusiasts. And also as writers.

Katherine has just signed on to completely revise and expand a classic title, Growing California Native Plants.  Written by the late Marjorie G. Schmidt in 1980, the guide originally introduced the idea of using native plants as elements of the landscape. Tens of thousands of copies have sold, but over the course of the book’s 30-year run, lots has happened in the cultivation of natives. More growers are propagating and breeding native plants and there has been an explosion of interest in changing how our yards and gardens look.

Katherine's entry garden in winter.

Lucky for California homeowners, University of California Press asked Katherine to create a new version of Growing California Native Plants. Uber-organized as she is, Katherine just signed the contract this past fall and has the entire book mapped out with most of the plant profiles rewritten (with a greatly expanded plant list, as one would expect). She is going to include many of the original illustrations and add up to 200 photographs in the new guide, expected out in 2011. Keep an eye out for its release.

Katherine’s own garden, approximately one-acre in size on a ridge above a seasonal creek called Happy Valley Creek, is a laboratory for living with natives, celebrating the seasons, and encouraging harmony with nature. It was profiled last spring in Diablo, the East Bay lifestyle magazine. You can read “Going Native,” the story, and see Saxon Holt’s lovely photography here.

I love the sweet display of drought-tolerant, cold-hardy hen-and-chicks in tall vessels

I had a quick trip to Oakland this past Wednesday and Thursday and Katherine graciously hosted me for an overnight before I gave a talk to the “Dirt Daubers,” an Orinda-based garden club.

Even though it was dreary and rainy out, I made sure to take a loop through Katherine’s garden. Seeing a native garden in winter is really a joy because the plants in fruit or in bloom are like little sparkling jewels that catch your eye against the silver-grey and green foliage and mahogany and white bark.

In the Diablo magazine article, written by Sandra Ann Harris, Katherine explains her commitment to designing with California natives:

“Gardening with these natural treasures is a way we can play a big role in preserving endangered plants and in making a connection to the place we live,” Greenberg says. “My garden won’t be complete in my lifetime, but it’s a celebration of our natural heritage.”

Here’s a little gallery of wintry photos to calm and sooth you. Thoughts of spring are accelerating as we catch glimpses of new growth emerging on stems and in swelling buds (especially after all the rain California has had – six consecutive days of it!).

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I’ve been contributing to a fabulous daily blog called “Lifestyle Insights. Real Women. Real Life,” which a group of us launched last September. It’s something completely different than my other writing projects and has allowed me to do some fun, memoirish, essay writing in addition to writing about outdoor living and gardening topics. But since it’s still a blog post, I have had to learn how to communicate my ideas in 300 words or less! And in today’s world of bite-sized journalism, I guess that’s a good skill to have.

To work with a dozen incredibly talented women – each highly accomplished in her own field – has been so rewarding and inspiring. Each of us is committed to communicating contemporary trends and ideas for women like us. Together, we have a powerful voice that we hope will inspire and influence how corporations communicate with their audiences.

The group was founded by Robin Avni, a multi-talented, idea-a-minute galpal. I remember reading Robin’s home+technology design stories in the Seattle Times long before I was fortunate enough to meet her – which I recall was on a press preview of the former Seattle Interiors Show in 2004 or so. Thanks to the miracle of LinkedIn, we reconnected last year and got together a few times when I was in Seattle on business or to give a lecture. Robin invited me to join her dream team of 12 lifestyle experts. We are part of a creative media and consulting agency “specializing in consumer insights, trend analysis, research and content for the MOMMY TO MAVEN™ market.” You can read more about the firm here.

I’ve added Lifestyle Insights to my blogroll at the right (under “My other blogs”), so I hope you’ll subscribe to our newsletter and also check in from time to time to discover a fabulous recipe from Jean Galton, our food expert; a perfect organizing tip from Janna Lufkin, our simplicity expert; an insightful parenting tip from Kavita Varma-White; entertaining, beverage and spirits ideas from Kat Spellman; sustainability news from Celeste Tell, our green goddess; technology insights from Molly Martin, our tech-savvy mentor (Molly, a former health and fitness columnist, also keeps us “balanced” and healthy); wonderful stories told by Sherry Stripling, whose words capture the universal connections of women in all generations; explore fashion and twentysomething trends spotted by Alexandra Smith; and get the “big picture” from Robin Avni, who ties it all together with a finger-on-the-pulse instinct about women and their lifestyle choices. Our visual storytellers include photographer Angie Norwood Browne and Valerie Griffith, our video producer. It is an honor to share the page (screen) with these talented communicators.

Here are two of my recent essays, in time for a quiet winter’s read. I hope you enjoy them:

The Scarf Society 

Here are the Italy Gals, with a few of us in our scarves.

My recent visit to a medieval village in Tuscany (where I spent a week with ten of my girlfriends in a rented villa) is symbolized by a soft, colorful scarf.

Each woman had in common a friendship with me; some have been pals since my early twenties, while others are more recently dear. Individually, we couldn’t have been more different from one another. Throughout the week, though, we bonded as a group. We spoke with a familiar friendship-language, punctuated with laughter, and enhanced by delicious food, good wine and unforgettable scenery.

And there was something else: Our Italian scarves.

Street vendors in Siena and Florence offered a tempting array of scarves – cashmere-and-silk textiles woven of gold and maroon; apple green and sapphire blue; solid or paisley-patterned. Pretty soon, most of us had joined what I called the Scarf Society. It was October, so the soft cocoon of fabric draped over the shoulder was appropriate. But it wasn’t all about getting warm.

The scarves, shawls and pashminas made us feel sophisticated. Even the less-flamboyant women in our group gravitated toward the look. Wrapped once or twice around the neck; used as a shawl around the shoulders; or worn asymmetrically with the ends twisted together, these lengths of fabric had a way of making even a t-shirt and jeans look glamorous.

Was it the scarf or the place? Was it the mutual experience of kindred spirits or a fashion statement? I’m not sure. But now that I’m back at home, I feel elegant when I wear my woven tapestry with threads of pale yellow and dark green. And I will always remember the warmth of my friendships.

You could call it a fringe benefit of an unforgettable vacation.

And this one, called Labryinths:

I was so moved by watching the labyrinth walk at a "God in the Garden" conference that I spoke at a few years ago.

Centuries, or perhaps millennia old, the labyrinth is linked to both mythical and religious practices of many cultures. Where a traditional maze is designed with dead-ends and false pathways, a labyrinth is made of concentric rings, interconnected to form a single, continuous journey.

In modern times, the labyrinth is used for meditation and contemplation – a device to slow one’s step and encourage quiet, inward focus. I’ve walked on grass labyrinths shaped by a lawn mower, pebble beach labyrinths designed by unseen hands, and carved concrete labyrinths installed in church floors and on the forest floor, surrounded by trees. Intricately made or constructed for temporary use, the labyrinth is a gift to be cherished.

To walk a labyrinth, I am required to step away from the chronological clock and get lost in the moment. I enter and follow the path to the circle’s center. I pause to say a prayer or quietly murmur “thank you” or “peace.” Slowly, I retrace my steps, returning to the beginning. I discover that time has almost stood still. I feel a spiritual connection to nature and a lightening of the heart.

I once met an artist who required the use of a wheelchair. He meditated with a “visual” labyrinth. Installed in the center of his garden was an 18-inch-square miniature mosaic labyrinth. This incredible man journeyed the labyrinth with his eyes, beginning and ending at the same point, and experiencing the same meditative benefits as when I walked a full-scale labyrinth.

The return of this ancient pattern is really no surprise. We are busy people, with a lot on our minds. Consider how hard it is to unplug, silence internal or external chatter, and isolate ourselves long enough to listen to our inner voice. Perhaps you, too, will find peace by walking the labyrinth path.

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Note: A version of this Q&A appeared earlier this week in “LA At Home,” the Los Angeles Times’ daily home and garden blog.

Mary Ann caught one glimpse of the awesome coat and matching socks . . . and said - Hey, that's Keeyla Meadows!

Los Angeles native Keeyla Meadows lives in Berkeley where she makes art and designs gardens. Her cheerful, 50-by-100 foot city lot is a living canvas packed with life-sized female figures and not-so-perfect vessels, hand-built in clay and glazed in a palette of turquoise, apricot and lavender.

An exuberant color palette that few would dare to use - here's Keeyla's Berkeley bungalow and street-side "sunset" garden

No surface here is left unadorned. Whether it’s her swirly ceramic paving, custom metal benches or sculpted walls, Keeyla artistically places favorite objects and plants with a carefree confidence that few of us can master.

Fans of Keeyla have long admired her award-winning gardens, including a ‘Best in Show’ at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show a few years back. Her beautiful first book, Making Gardens a Work of Art, was published in 2004 by Sasquatch Books, a Seattle imprint that also published my first book, The Northwest Gardener’s Resource Directory.

Lorene and me ~ gal pals in Keeyla's garden

In 2008, I lucked into an impromptu visit to Keeyla’s personal wonderland when my girlfriend Mary Ann Newcomer boldly followed her into Café Fanny’s in Berkeley, an Alice Waters bistro, and snagged an invite for our group of breakfasting garden writers.

Lorene Edwards Forkner, Mary Ann and I hopped in the car and followed Keeyla to her bungalow, a few blocks away. It is fair to say we were hyperventilating!

“You can take photos, but don’t publish them until my book is out,” Keeyla requested. It was the least we could do, having feasted our eyes on her botanical paint box, imagining how we might try her playful ideas in our own backyards.

Her new book, Fearless Color Gardens: The creative gardener’s guide to jumping off the color wheel (Timber Press, $27.95), has just been published. Filled with Keeyla’s photography of design projects, as well as her doodles and sketches, it reads like a colorist’s memoir, complete with a muse named Emerald.

Strong on fantasy, it’s also a useful workbook for garden owners who need a nudge toward the more vibrant end of the color spectrum. I recently asked Keeyla about the book.

Q: How do you teach students to feel confident as garden designers?

Keeyla's color sensibility is in her DNA as evidenced by the orange side of her house punctuated by a tree-inspird sculpture

A: A lot of people have this mantra that says, “I’m not a creative person. I’m not an artist.” Our lives are built around the practicality of what we have to do everyday so many people shut those doors to creativity a long time ago. I suggest you treat garden design like something you do all the time. The physical activity of placing plants in a space can be as easy as folding laundry and putting it away, or setting the table, or baking a cake.

Q. How can I make a landscape project feel less overwhelming?

Mary Anne Newcomer, Keeyla Meadows and Lorene Edwards Forkner

A. I suggest you divide your space up like a series of photographs or like windows.

Decide what “picture” you’re working with, where it starts and ends. Start with looking out the kitchen window and use plants and art to fill the frame.

Q. Where does your color inspiration come from?

A. A lot of my color sense comes from growing up in Los Angeles and living with its “colorfulness” – the light, tile work and Catalina Island all inspired me. Right now, I’m designing a new garden for the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show in March. It’s a habitat garden and the colors I’m using come from the red-headed garter snake, an endangered snake from the San Mateo coastline. It has a read head with a turquoise and red stripe down the back, so it’s providing my design motif, my imagery and my color combination.

Jump off the conventional Color Wheel and play with Keeyla's Color Triangle

Q. How do you suggest people “jump off” the color wheel?

A. The traditional color wheel makes my head spin. I use a color triangle, which is so stabilizing. I put blue at the top of the pyramid – it represents the sky. The other two points are red and yellow. Between the three primary colors are the secondary colors. On either side of any point is a harmonic chord of color. You’ll never go wrong if you take one of the points – red, yellow or blue – and use one of those chords of color on either side of it.

 Q. How do you balance artwork with the plants in your garden? 

A checkerboard of color in a patio installation

A. Art gives me a constant relationship to plant against, a very stable feature to move through the seasons with.

Art creates so much focus and orients the whole space so one is not always reinventing. It is like a stage setting.

The artwork and hardscape set the stage for your plants to really become the stars.

Here’s a quote from Keeyla’s book that seems apropos:

“In my gardens, color refers to everything – absolutely everything. I don’t just make a bland holder, a neutral vase, for colorful plants. Color includes the rocks, the pavings, and the artwork. It also connects up with the color of the house and the sky above. So it’s really like bringing the camera to your eye. When you take a photo, you are looking at everything in the frame. In creating color gardens we will look at everything that is part of the garden picture. . . “

More photos to share from our visit to Keeyla’s magical garden:

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Don't you love this giant red trowel, called "Plantois"?

On Nov. 30th, I took one of the only direct flights from LAX to Des Moines, Iowa (on Allegiant Air), arriving in the Midwest around 8 p.m.

Susan picked me up at the airport and whisked me off to her cozy home where we sipped wine and reminisced about being in Tuscany together only four weeks earlier.

We indulged in sentimental memories, of course. The week in Italy – in a village called Montisi – was life-affirming, especially because it was to celebrate my big Five-Oh.

Susan on a sunny Tuscan afternoon at La Foce

The 10 women who joined me, including Susan, are some of my dearest friends. I would do anything to recapture that week we had together. We’d all love to return as quickly as possible!

The Italy week was an amazing “new beginning” for Susan as she dreamed about her next venture, a culinary destination she plans to open in rural Iowa. Stay tuned for news on “Applehurst Farm,” the project Susan is developing as I write this.

Doug Jimerson and Eric Liskey, BH&G's garden guys

On Tuesday morning, Susan dropped me off at the world headquarters for Meredith Corporation, publisher of Better Homes & Gardens and a million other home, garden, food and lifestyle titles.

I was to spend the day as guest of Doug Jimerson, group editor of all Meredith’s “outdoor” content (books, mags, online) and Eric Liskey, deputy garden editor of Better Homes & Gardens magazine.

It was hard to be businesslike when I kept running into the friends I’ve made and worked with over the years:

They included James Baggett, editor of Country Gardens; Nick Crow, art director of Country Gardens; Jane Austin McKeon, editor of Nature’s Garden magazine and her art director Jarrett Einck; Denny Schrock, a talented editor and past fellow Garden Writers Association board member; Justin Hancock, BH&G web garden editor;  and David Speer, editorial manager. Hugs and high-fives ensued. These are people I would rather be friends with than spend my time hustling for assignments.

Doug and Eric and I brainstormed about possible ways I can get more involved in BH&G’s editorial pages. Then we met up with Gayle Goodson Butler, editor-in-chief of the mothership!

Wow – what a great experience. Gayle, Doug, Eric and I had a delicious lunch during which we tossed around story ideas and discussed outdoor living trends. It looks like I will join the BH&G family as a contributing editor for gardening and outdoor content in 2010. I couldn’t be more excited!!!

I'm posing with BH&G garden editor Eric Liskey

I also posed with Doug Jimerson, Meredith's Group Editor for Garden & Outdoor Living

After lunch, we took a tour of the Meredith “campus,” which includes an incredible, larger-than-life sculpture of a trowel called “PLANTOIS.” The pop-art style of this sculpture reminded me of the 19-foot eraser at the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, called “Typewriter Eraser, Scale X.”  Turns out, BH&G’s trowel was also designed by Claes Oldenborg .

A site plan of BH&G's gorgeous test garden

Doug and Eric also showed me Better Homes & Gardens’  Test Garden, a beautiful walled oasis in the heart of the corporate campus. Here’s a plan of the garden (right) and a company description of how it is used:

It is an outdoor studio for our photographers, a venue for corporate entertaining, and a meeting and lunch spot for employees. While inner-city, the garden is landscaped in the style of someone’s backyard. Or, actually, several someones’ backyard. Because anywhere you take a look in our garden, if you turn ever so slightly, you will have a whole new vista. Because anywhere you take a look in our garden, if you turn ever so slightly, you will have a whole new vista. And so will our cameras, as we set about photographing how-to sequences and plant portraits, and documenting the performance of new plants. In all, there are 22 distinct areas in the Test Garden.

Yes, a rose was still in bloom on Dec. 1st

Mind you, this was on Dec. 1st in Des Moines, USDA Zone 5 or something like that. But several roses were still in bloom and the garden looked almost ready for its dormant winter phase, with lots of fresh mulch spread around, grasses and perennials cut back and everything tidy.

I was particularly drawn to the green shed, of course. I found out from David Speer that the plans for this potting shed are a free benefit of joining BH&G’s new Garden Club.

I do love this green potting shed with gabled roofline

For $9.95, you get the shed plans and other cool resources. Check out how to sign up here.  

If you find yourself in Des Moines, you can schedule a tour with garden manager Sandra Gerdes on Fridays from noon to 2 p.m., May through October. The garden is located at 1716 Locust Street, Des Moines, IA 50312. The phone number is 515-284-3994.

Here are more pics of the beautiful Test Garden:

By the way, the original test garden is on Doug Jimerson’s farm outside Des Moines. I got to visit that evening and join him and Karen Weir Jimerson, his writer-wife, for a delicious dinner.

Okay, doesn’t it make you feel better to know that the guy who heads up all of Meredith’s garden/outdoor living content is basically a gentleman farmer? In addition to their lovely farm and century-old farmhouse, Doug and Karen tend to six dogs, at least six cats (I lost count), a flock of sheep, a huge family of chickens and roosters, donkeys and horses. Before dinner, Doug gave me a tour of the Jimerson Farm in the waning daylight. I thought about how much I could love living on a farm in Iowa. Never mind. I’m just going to visit Susan and Jerry when Applehurst Farm gets up and running.

As for BH&G, my first contributions won’t appear until May 2010, but you can be assured that lots of creative storytelling will occur between now and then.

I’m excited – and grateful – for this cool opportunity!

Let’s see what 2010 brings!!!

A Post Script. I flew home from Des Moines on Dec. 2nd. While I was there, the weather was beautiful, with brilliant blue skies, sunshine and balmy (for Iowa) low 50-degree temperatures. One week later. . . yes, only one week later, my friends were buried in 16 inches of snowfall that practically shut down Des Moines. I heard that something like only 17 out of 60 flights were allowed to depart from the Des Moines Airport.

Whew. I totally lucked out. Thank you to the weather gods!

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Sharon Lovejoy and me

In the middle of last week, when I really didn’t have the time to do it, I drove northbound, to central California, where I spent 24 hours with talented writer-illustrator-naturalist Sharon Lovejoy and her smart and kind husband Jeff Prostovich. I met Sharon a little over two years ago when Nan Sterman and I drove to the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show with our friend Joan Bolton of Santa Barbara Garden Design. It was our Garden Writer Caravan and Road Trip. First, Nan took the train/bus from San Diego to my neck of the woods (Ventura Co.); then, the next morning, we drove to Santa Barbara to pick up Joan. Another 90 minutes north of Joan, up Hwy. 101, and we arrived to visit Sharon and Jeff. They fed us, feted us, and hopped in their car to follow the caravan.

A collection of Sharon's charming and inspiring books

Sharon is a total rock star in the Garden Writing Galaxy and I was so excited to have a chance to spend time with her and Jeff.

She has had a huge following ever since she started writing “Heart’s Ease,” a monthly naturalist’s column for the former Country Living Gardener magazine. Sharon’s blog is fun and highly personal -- it’s read by friends and fans around the globe.

Her illustrated books about gardening, gardening with children, gardening for wildlife, gardening with food — oh, there are so many and they are like little love letters — have sold hundreds of thousands of copies over the years. In our world, that is unparalleled, I tell you.

If, like me, you love the way Sharon involves children and their grownups with the natural world, be on the lookout for her next book -- out in January 2010! It’s called Toad Cottages & Shooting Stars (and it features her sweet artist-granddaughter, Sara, on the cover).

Sharon and Jeff and I had a magical 24 hours in which we basically talked, ate, drank, cooked, went to see the Lone Pine Arboretum and the plant nursery at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, admired nature, and compared notes about our industry (?) and the “new media” platforms we’re all learning to navigate.

We had to force ourselves to go to bed last Tuesday night . . . the fire was burning in the fireplace and we had so much to say to one another. But we drifted off to sleep and rose on Wednesday morning in time for me to join Sharon at her writers’ group, during which yet another sparkling facet of this talented writer was revealed to me (hint: she is writing a wonderful young adult novel and I can’t wait for it to be completed AND published!).

A sweet retreat in the heart of Sharon's garden

It was nice to do something very spontaneous (and very nice that my own husband Bruce held down the fort at home so I could take the trip). I’ve been anxious to see Sharon’s new garden shed.

I had a sneaking suspicion I would be able to persuade Sharon to let me interview her on camera, so I asked -- and lucky for you -- she said yes. (And there was Jeff, the smart marketer, egging us on and actually directing us at one point.)

We made this totally rough-and-rugged video with my little Flip camera and gave the footage to Shirley Bovshow of Garden World Report. Shirley cleaned it up and used a portion of my tour with Sharon on today’s show. You can watch it here, along with contributions from Ken Druse and Ellen Zachos, two of my favorite garden writer-designers on the east coast.

Sharon promised me a personal tour, and here it is:

This entire experience reminded me of why I love what I do and the people with whom I share this journey.

Since this is Thanksgiving week, I’m thinking about gratitude:

1. I’m thankful that Nan introduced me to Sharon. Nan’s heart is big enough to share her blessings with her friends. I love that about Nan. It’s not the first time she’s opened a door for me, and I hope I can reciprocate.

2. I’m thankful that Sharon and Jeff have adopted me as a friend, and for their generous gift of time, ideas, support, encouragement, shelter (hey, I didn’t mention getting to sleep in the cozy loft at the top of a spiral staircase in Sharon’s art studio!!!) and food (oh, time around the table in their farmhouse kitchen was delicious -- in more ways than one).

3. I’m thankful that there are so many kindred spirits in the gardening world, especially for innovators like Shirley Bovshow who just make things happen in new ways, pioneering the path that we all wish to follow (but when we don’t have a road map….she’s bound to!)

4. I’m thankful for my long-suffering spouse and partner, Bruce. He always encourages me to take these trips and excursions, even though it usually means more work for him. I can’t wait for the time when he’ll be freer to join me (and vice-versa).

That’s it for now.

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A version of this piece originally appeared in my 2005 book, The Abundant Garden (Cool Springs Press), photographed by Barbara J. Denk, a gifted Bainbridge Island-based photographer. 

I recently updated the text as an article that appears in the current Southern California Horticultural Society newsletter.

RHYTHM AND MOTION

In landscape design, you can create a visual flow through the garden with the dynamic element of rhythm.

As a beat is to music, as choreographed steps are to a dance, rhythm animates a garden. Even if the wind doesn’t blow, your garden can look and feel infused with energy.

Raspberry-red spikes of aptly named Persicaria amplexicaulis 'Firetail' erupt in this singular performance of color and form. (Barbara J. Denk photograph)

MOTION:  We experience a physical sensation when something rustles or sways in the garden. We pause to appreciate movements, subtle or dramatic – flowing water, rippling leaves, a billowing banner, or clanging chimes – because they signal life’s evanescent qualities. Such movements resonate as the garden responds to the earth’s vital elements.

By the very act of creating a garden, we embrace the external forces of nature, most of which are out of our control. In addition to rays of sunlight and rain showers, the kinetic presence of wind and breeze in our landscapes is important to channel – as movement – in a planting scheme.

The ball-shaped seed heads of Allium 'Globemaster' are showcased against a rhythmic display of Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster', velvety Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) and Sedum 'Autumn Joy' (Barbara J. Denk photograph)

It’s rewarding to see how climatic changes affect the garden, something we can’t help but notice, whether there are extreme gusts or light flurries flowing through branches and stems. When we intentionally design the garden to capture these movements, we infuse an otherwise commonplace landscape with vitality.

The choices of plants that can catch the airflow, gently dance, or furiously shake are endless. Perennials with tall, slender stems ripple like the fringe on a canopy (think of a vibrant stand of daylilies or a swath of lavender).

Fluffy inflorescences of maiden grass undulate above its finely-textured blades – and the overall effect is a seductive rhythm. The leaves of a California pepper tree shimmer like sequins on an evening gown. Agapanthus seedpods rattle and whisper as autumn arrives. The natural symphony energizes any landscape.

RHYTHM:  Beyond individual plants, the visual suggestion of animation or motion can also be incorporated into the overall template of a garden. The repetition of organic forms, the course of a sinuous path, or the sensual outlines of beds and borders suggest movement. Alternating shapes – the gradual widening or narrowing of a space, the regular spacing of trees – do as well.

Calm white and intense blue join for a duet of gentle movement. A border of creamy white Lysimachia clethroides relates well with a stand of blue-flowering Caryopteris x clandonensis (Barbara J. Denk photograph)

When the tiny stones in a Zen garden are raked into concentric circles, movement appears. When a “stream” of large, smooth, river rocks fills a gully or trench, the sense of running water is implied. The sequence of stepping stones spaced through a cushioned ground cover of fragrant thyme invigorates the scene and helps direct the viewer’s eye through the garden. The scene is emotionally alive and visually pleasing.

Movement in a garden is essential. It’s the organic rhythm, the fluid characteristic that every garden needs in order to come to life for those who enjoy it.

Here are some tips for “animating” your garden:

• Develop a repertoire of plants:

A glass bowl - a modern birdbath - is showcased against a coppery stand of Karl Foerster grass - an exquisite choice for "motion" in the garden (Barbara J. Denk photograph)

Base your plant selection on the scale of your house and the natural setting around it. Once you’ve selected the primary plants – those that provide structure and have multiseason interest, such as ornamental grasses – you can choose a second wave of plants to “star” in specific seasons.

• Create a basic framework for design:

Choose a template and follow it consistently throughout the garden. One method is to mirror dominant lines of your house, such as repeating key architectural shapes in the landscape. Use these as a guide for shaping pathways and planting beds. For example, a home’s arched windows and doorways might be echoed in the contour of a border or patio. Alternately, you can borrow a framework for design from nature, such as the irregular rhythm of distant hills. 

• Consider the vertical dimension:

Hardscape, such as this fabulous pebble "river" running through a flagstone patio, can animate and energize the landscape. This was designed and installed by my Yakima friends Linda Knutson and Ron Sell (Debra Prinzing photograph)

Backlighting is magical, even in my own backyard. I love the morning sun as it illuminates and highlights the various blades, stems and leaves (Debra Prinzing photo).

Select plants that bring height, energy, and motion into the garden, and vary their placement for impact.

Even if surrounded by buildings on every side, your garden will respond to daily and seasonal climate changes. Watch how breezes move through the garden, and capture that energy by placing fluid plants where currents flow. Notice where the sun rises and sets in relation to your landscape, and choose trees, shrubs, grasses, and other perennials that will reflect the morning light or absorb sunset’s glow. Red and purple foliage turns flame-like when backlit. As the sun’s rays shine through fringed tassels of fountain grass or pampas grass, the garden will shimmer in response.

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Author’s note. You know those “contributor pages” that many magazines include at the front of their books? I recently received a request from one of my 805 Living editors to write about “the little things that make life grand” to be included in the November issue’s “Behind the Scenes” section.

I wrote the following tea-drinker’s manifesto (about 500 words) before I re-read Anthony’s email in which he asked for only 50 words! Yikes! Anyway, he used one entire sentence and the rest would have been filed away or deleted had I not decided to go public here, with my personal confession. I don’t think I’m alone, either. While staying our our villa in Italy a few weeks ago, I woke up every morning with a chubby packet — a bag of Peet’s English Breakfast tea — slid under the door of my room (thanks, Paula!). Someone was looking out for me.

I am a tea drinker.

In the world of double-tall lattes and cappuccinos, I realize I am a minority.

So I am grateful for a decent, HOT mug of English Breakfast tea (or two). Honestly, I wake up each morning excited to start my day. But mostly I wake up excited to fill the electric kettle with water and hit the “on” button so I can brew a pot of tea, pour myself a mug and add a splash of milk (not half-and-half or cream). I always drink from my French Apilco porcelain mugs from Williams Sonoma.

I’ve taken to carrying around spare tea bags with me, just in case. Places like Starbucks stock Tazo’s “Awake” and the Tully’s at the Burbank Airport has canisters of “British Breakfast.” I love these teas, too.

Unfortunately, though, at least one time out of 10, these coffee joints are “out” of my tea. You would never, ever find these places running out of coffee. That would be unthinkable. At least I can order a Grande cup of piping hot water and make my own on the fly.

The problem with restaurants and hotels (as well as airplanes) is that you often have to beg for real milk. I’ll take it any way you have it – whole, two percent or non-fat (I especially love steamed milk, which doesn’t cool down my tea). Just please give me milk instead of cream or half-and-half. I am one-quarter English, and I always tell the waitress that the English people use milk with their tea.

And don’t get me started about the stupid carafes of hot water you get at conferences. I’m talking about the vessels previously used to dispense the dreaded coffee beverage. As a result, the entire pot of hot water is infused with that bad coffee flavor. It really shouldn’t be difficult to segregate your carafes so a few are dedicated to only hot water for tea drinkers.

I realize this little meditation on the merits of a good cup of tea sounds more like a rant than a rave. So I will end on a positive, thankful note.

I could not function with out my delicious, satisfying mug of morning tea. It really is the fuel that runs my engine. I love that there are places in the world where tea is grown, processed and packaged for export to the U.S. I love that a few retailers still exist where I can purchase excellent, loose tea in bulk. And I love the moment of calm that drinking tea gives me in the midst of my chaotic, deadline-driven life.

To many more sips!

P.S., A great tea resource is the Teacup in Seattle. You can go online and order loose tea (Malty Assam is my favorite), OR if you are ever visiting Seattle, be sure to go in person for their very excellent tea latte. My friend Jean introduced me to this beverage more than a decade ago. It is a big secret how they make it, but Jean’s theory is that the brewers make a “shot” of a very dense, strong Indian tea and then infuse steamed milk, just like the coffee lattes are made. It is heavenly.

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Sina Pearson relies on regular visits to her island garden in Washington state to inspire her teextile designs.

I met Sina Pearson in 2006 when her publicist Susan Harkavy arranged a visit to the textile designer’s aerie (aka studio, atelier, loft) in SoHo.

I was in New York City with Bill Wright to photograph an amazing glass-and-steel West Village “shed” for Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways, but I took a side trip for an hour to meet Sina and see her work.

She grew up in Washington State and studied art and textiles at the University of Washington. Our common Pacific Northwest roots gave us an easy, mutual language, designer-to-writer, as we talked about her interests, influences and passions.

Recently, Garden Design magazine invited me to profile Sina as “One to Watch,” with a short Q-and-A that appears in the November-December 2009 issue. Due to space, a portion of my interview did not make it into the print edition. So here it is in full, along with some photos that Sina shared from her garden in Washington’s Fidalgo Island (Skagit Valley).

ONE TO WATCH:

Textile designer Sina Pearson may live and work in SoHo but trips outside the city inspire her saturated stripes and vibrant abstracts.

She spends one week each month at a remote island cabin in Washington State, surrounded by a semi-wild garden, just steps away from the 1950s A-frame where she played each summer as a child. Sojourns abroad include idea-gathering places like Scandinavia, France, Mexico and the Caribbean. Collectively, these design “threads” are woven into finished cloth: confident, evocative – and high performance – textiles for residences, hotels, restaurants, offices and outdoor settings.

The designer, manufacturer and entrepreneur trained in fine arts and textiles at the University of Washington before earning a MFA in textiles from Cranbrook and studying at the Royal Academy of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. She launched Sina Pearson Textiles in 1990.

Pearson reinterprets outdoor fabric that looks as if it belongs inside, including terrycloth, chenille and boucle cloth made with Sunbrella® yarns for sunfast, stain-, rain- and mildew resistance. Her newest collection, out next spring, is called Colores de Mexico. Her influence? The orange-striped, hand-woven Mexican curtains that Pearson’s mother hung in the family’s beach cabin. “It has an ethnic, modernist vibe with a serape-like texture,” she says.

 Q. Tell me about your Fidalgo Island garden and how it informs your textiles:

 A. I could not be doing what I’m doing if I didn’t have my garden. It frees my soul and lets me experiment with weaving colors and textures together. The way I work in my garden is very much how I work in textiles. I’ve always maintained that you have to listen to what the fabric wants to be – it’s a wonderfully slow process. Similarly, I have to let my garden design itself. I observe how each plant color works together, how each season is revealed in flower, foliage and blade.  

Q. What influences you as a designer?

A. I can’t separate how I’ve grown up from what I am now. My parents were so visual – my mother was a landscape designer and my father was a photographer. We had Jack Lenor Larson’s textiles in our house. I cannot remember a time when I was not playing with fabric. Family legend recalls me cutting textiles into small pieces and arranging them on the sofa when I was two. At 12, I learned weaving from a Swedish woman and batik design from Ruth Pennington, a very fine metal artist. I created a huge, abstract piece of batik silk with fuchsia pink, bright orange and red colors. We hung it up in the sun and it looked like a stained glass window. Ruth turned to my mom and said: “Sina has a career in textiles.”

Q. How is your Scandinavian heritage reflected in your work?

A. I grew up with Danish modern furniture and I double-majored in Swedish language and literature in college. I also lived and studied in Sweden. When I design, I am looking for “emotion” – the feeling conveyed by yarns, colors and textures in my fabrics. After my last trip to Scandinavia, I created a collection evocative of what my ancestors would have woven to wrap themselves in for warmth: soft, heathery “comfort” fabrics that are hand-crafted, quiet, simple and dignified.

Q. How have you re-imagined outdoor fabric as something more than utilitarian?

A. When I first started in the contract fabric industry in the late 70s and 1980s, everything was rather plain. That all changed when I went to Unika Vaev as president and design director. We introduced the first tapestry for contract interiors. Herman Miller put our tapestries on its new paneling system and broke open the whole concept of patterned fabrics.

The same thing has happened now that I’m designing outdoor fabric with Sunbrella® yarns. I wanted to invigorate outdoor fabrics with modern designs. I’m a big proponent of mixing cool and warm colors together. I also like to use neutrals – sage, taupe, mid-tone brown – with brighter colors to give a reference to nature.

Q. What is the ideal exterior setting for Sina Pearson’s textiles?

A. A space where the interiors blend with nature as occupants move from indoors through a covered area to the outdoors. I love to see complementary fabrics and colors in all three environments. I don’t design my outdoor fabrics separate from my interiors collection. My outdoor fabrics look and feel just like indoor textiles, yet they are made with high-performance fibers for resistance to sun, mold and mildew.

Q. What is on your drafting table right now?

A. I have little piles of yarn sitting on my desk. I’m playing with brighter palettes to create fabrics with clean, crisp colors of summer. I’m also playing with simple shapes, hand-cutting paper into geometric forms – stripes and flowers. I find it very satisfying. I look like a second-grader, sitting on the floor cutting out bits and pieces.

–Debra Prinzing

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While it may seem as if über-hostess Martha Stewart produces a new cookbook every few months, the October release of Dinner at Home: 52 Quick Meals to Cook for Family & Friends felt especially timely.

The 272-page cookbook follows one of her favorite formats: Meals you can prepare in one hour or less including a salad, entrée, side dish and dessert. 

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to do a phone interview with Martha for the Los Angeles Times, just before she came to Southern California for two book-signing appearances.

How does one prepare for such a momentous event? I called my longtime Seattle writer-friend Tracy Schneider, a regular contributor to Amazon’s Al Dente foodie blog, to ask her advice.  A few years ago, after I left Seattle and a design-writing gig at the (now departed) Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Tracy started writing for the newspaper’s home section with a clever shopping column called “Hot Finds, Cool Prices.” She, too, was given a chance to interview Martha by phone, which totally impressed me.

Tracy’s tip? Buy a tape recorder to make sure you capture a perfectly accurate, verbatim interview. Well, I couldn’t pull that off with such a short lead time. Luckily, years of newsroom experience and very fast typing skills prepared me to just take notes. Wearing my headset, fingers poised on the keyboard, and my questions already inserted into a Word document, I did just that.

America’s domestic goddess couldn’t have been nicer. Brisk and businesslike during a 14-minute interview, she answered my questions and shared her advice on entertaining at home during a recession. An edited version of this Q&A appeared in the October 17th edition of the Los Angeles Times Home section and on our LA At Home blog.

Q: Is home entertaining more important than ever?

A: Many people are entertaining at home and cooking delicious food. But they are looking for simple, time-saving recipes they can actually do themselves that are as tasty as restaurant food. I just love the whole idea of using a few ingredients that taste so extraordinary.

Q. What’s an easy way to throw a party at home?

A. I often do breakfasts and lunches. It gets it out of the way so I can do other things later in the day. Last Sunday I had nine people over for brunch for a delicious, homemade meal. It wasn’t expensive food: cheese popovers, beautiful poached eggs with country smoked bacon, two platters of smoked fish, homemade biscuits and fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice.

Q. What is the ideal number of guests for a dinner party?

A. I would suggest inviting what you can handle. I’m an experienced caterer so I can have 12 or 14; my dining room comfortably fits 16.

Q. What do you do when your guests outnumber your set of dishes?

A. I suggest you serve a buffet and use stacks of plates from different sets.

Q. How do you feel about potluck meals?

A. When friends get together, it should be a little more orchestrated so you know there is a salad, a vegetable, a main course, and a dessert. The host can provide the main course. You could use my duck breast with fig sauce menu from “Dinner at Home.” One person can bring the braised red cabbage and someone else can prepare the potato pancake or the hazelnut brittle for the ice cream.

Q. If you could only splurge on a few key pantry ingredients, what would you buy?

A. You should have coarse salt, fine salt, peppercorns and a grinder, vanilla beans, saffron threads, unbleached flour, natural sugar and an assortment of pasta. I’m always looking for the imported, rough Italian pasta. (Note: Martha actually used “really good” in describing each one of these ingredients).

BOOK DETAILS:

Dinner at Home: 52 Quick Meals to Cook for Family & Friends

By Martha Stewart

Clarkson Potter/Publishers

$35, hardcover

Here is the recipe Martha mentions. It really sounds delish! I’m going to try it soon and will report back.

DUCK BREAST WITH FIG SAUCE (serves 4)

Duck breasts area available at butcher shops and specialty food shops, as well as many supermarkets. They render quite a lot of fat as they cook. If you like, strain the fat and refrigerate up to a month. Use it for roasting or frying potatoes or making duck confit.

Ingredients:

2 duck breasts (1 lb. ea)

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

1 T olive oil

1 large shallot, thinly sliced

1/3 cup dry sherry

1/3 cup fig jam

1/2 cup chicken stock, home made or low-sodium store-bought

2 t. unsalted butter

1 t. fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400-degrees F

Using the tip of a sharp knife, score the duck breast at 1/4-inch intervals in a crosshatch pattern, cutting deeply into the fat but not the meat. Season duck all over with 1 tsp. salt and a generous pinch of pepper. Let stand at room temperature 20-30 min.

Heat oil in a 10-inch cast iron skillet oer medium low until hot but not smoking. Add duck breasts, skin sides down; cook until browned and crisp, about 5 minutes. Turn breasts, and transfer to oven; roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part (avoiding bone) registers 130-degrees F for medium-rare, 10-12 minutes. Remove pan from oven, and transfer duck to a cutting board; let rest.

Meanwhile, pour off rendered duck fat into a heatproof container. Return 2 T duck fat to the pan (reserve the rest for another use, or discard). Add shallot; cook over medium heat until beginning to brown, stirring occasionally, about 2 minutes. Carefully add the sherry (it will splatter), and cook 1 minute, then stir in fig jam and cook 1 minute more. Pour in stock; cook, stirring, until sauce is thick and emulsified. Add butter; cook, stirring, until combined, 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in lemon juice.

To serve, thinly slice duck diagonally against the grain; divide among four plates. Spoon fig sauce over duck.

Yum.

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A charming Southern garden, Raleigh's Rose Cottage

Tuesday/Wednesday:  

Raleigh here I come.  

Greensboro gardener Lynda Waldrep drove me to Raleigh on Tuesday morning where I checked into the Garden Writers Association conference hotel, dropped off my gear and joined the GWA board meeting.

Nice to get Tuesday afternoon’s and Wednesday morning’s business out of the way so I could enjoy the rest of the conference once it began on Wednesday afternoon after lunch.

Wow, I got to meet heirloom seed wunderkind Jere Gettle of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

After some regional meetings and receptions for first-time attendees, the Garden Products Information Exhibit opened – four hours of checking out the new trends in plants, products and programs for the horticultural industry. The exhibit continued on Wednesday for another four hours.

Next, I joined 50 or more very new (and a few old) friends at a private garden cocktail party for garden Twitter participants. Sharon and Jim Bright, our gracious garden hosts, opened the gates to Rose Cottage, their charming place in a historic downtown neighborhood.

The GWA Tweet-up is in full swing

Raleigh hometown gal Helen Yoest of Gardening With Confidence and Elizabeth Licata of Gardening While Intoxicated/Garden Rant, planned the evening with several other volunteer Twitter friends. Proven Winners (thanks Danielle!) was our sponsor, so we had lots to nibble and sip while admiring the garden’s exuberant cottage plantings, semi-formal vegetable beds (outlined in brick) and more.

Laura Schaub, Amy Stewart and Helen Yoest, real-time Twittering

All those women and men with whom I “tweet” came together for an evening where putting a face to a name was part of the fun. Our nametags had our real names and our Twitter names (I’m “@dkprinzing”).

What amused me more than anything was watching people post comments on Twitter during the party.  I call it real-time garden tour commentary at its best.

My gal pal Mary Ann, busy with thumbs and I-phone

Later that night, I walked all the way across town with a friend to an authentic Carolina ribs BBQ dinner hosted by the Garden Media Group. A chance to catch up with some editor and writer friends, meet several of GMG’s clients, shake the hand of famed BBQ chef Ed Mitchell and eat some of his great Southern food.

Long day, but good conversations all around!

This annual gathering of gardeners is something I look forward to from year to year. Raleigh was my 8th Garden Writer Association event and I’m hooked.

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