Announcing my new book...

A stand of cape rush adds a semitransparent layer of privacy between sidewalk and front garden.

Joel Lichtenwalter and Ryan Gates of Grow Outdoor Design, based in Los Angeles, have introduced me to some really creative gardens they have designed. And what strikes me when seeing these mostly small, urban landscapes, is how well plants are used as architectural elements within the spaces they reside.

Designers Joel and his client Scott can be seen in the distance, conferring on some of the planting designs.

You won’t see fluffy cottage gardens with English-inspired perennial choices in Ryan and Joel’s gardens. Yet even when they design for bungalow-scaled residences, some of the same intimate, cottage garden experience occurs for the humans who occupy them. That emotional sense of being surrounded by plants, layers of textures – and even color in a tonal, modern sense –happens in their gardens.

I wrote about one such place recently and you can follow the links to the Los Angeles Times story here, including an extensive web gallery.

For those who ask: What plants are appropriate for a lush, low-water landscape? I think you’ll appreciate Ryan and Joel’s plant list for their clients’ lawn-free front yard now filled with native and Mediterranean grasses, shrubs, ground covers and trees, many of which display multi-season beauty:

A shopping list of California native plants and their Mediterranean companions
Natives:
Ceanothus griseus horizontalis Yankee Point
Cercis occidentalis
Arctostaphylos ‘Howard McMinn’

Arctostaphylos ‘Emerald Carpet’
Leymus condensatus ‘Canyon Prince’

Muhlenbergia rigens
Platanus racemosa
Carpenteria californica
Eschscholzia californica
Juncus patens
Sisyrinchium montanum (Blue Eyed Grass)

Non-Natives:
Arbutus ‘Marina’
Agave bracteosa
Leucadendron ‘Safari Sunset’

Agave vilmroniana
Olea europaea
Chondropetalum tectorum

Materials:
Composite decking (raised deck and boardwalk)
Square pre-cast concrete pavers
Poured-in-place concrete bench
‘Del Rio’ gravel
Decomposed granite (DG)
Shredded tree mulch

As some of you may know, I’ve been working on a book about local and seasonal floral design for several years, since 2007 to be precise. My collaborator, photographer David Perry, and I have been using the working title, A Fresh Bouquet.

But that’s all changing now, with a new title from our new publisher, St. Lynn’s Press. The words evoke just the right idea we want to communicate: The 50 Mile Bouquet: Discovering the World of Local, Seasonal, Sustainable Flowers.

Nice, huh? Our publication date is April 2012 and I’ll be writing lots more news about it soon.

Since all I’m doing these days is interviewing flower farmers, eco-couture floral designers and gardeners who grow their own cut flowers, my head is swimming with beautiful blooms.

And somehow in all this flurry of work, I’ve failed to post the out-takes from my floral design story that ran a few months ago in Better Homes & Gardens. So today, I’m taking a moment to get to it.

Backyard Bouquets - in BH&G's July 2011 issue

How great that 7.3 million readers of the July 2011 issue were introduced to the timeless notion of gathering flowers from the garden, a local farmer or a market stand – IN SEASON – and creating a simple, yet sumptuous arrangement that’s of the moment!

I have my editors Eric, Doug and Gayle to thank, because they believed in the idea and created the perfect opportunity for me to fly to Iowa and design a series of bouquets literally out in the field at Howell’s Family Farm.

I shared some of my on-the-scenes location photos last year, but here, finally, are my photos and recipes of the actual arrangements.

Project One

Project One features a rectangular galvanized container, measuring about 5-by-8 inches and about 5 inches tall. This small vessel was perfect for a compact bouquet with two simple ingredients. First, I filled the opening with four or five luscious heads of ‘Limelight’ hydrangea, the stems cut fairly short, say 3 inches long. To fill the spaces between the hydrangea heads and to add contrasting color and texture, I made miniature bunches of ‘Strawberry Fields’ gomphrena by wiring five slender stems with wire so that each bunch could be inserted as if it were a single flower. This is the perfect arrangement to enjoy while it’s fresh and then let it slowly air dry as an everlasting bouquet.

Project Two

Project Two features a tall, square, modern green glass vase with a neck opening that’s smaller than the base. So of course, to make it look abundant and full, I had to create volume and height. The starting flowers here are sultry-looking zinnias from a new seed mix called ‘Queen Red Lime’ – I love the terra cotta, mauve, and reddish blooms with a lime-green center. Once I had those in place, I thought: We need dark foliage. And lucky for me, the folks at Howell’s, like many cut flower growers, have discovered how well basil performs as a cut ingredient – especially purple basil! Think about it: when you harvest basil from your garden and bring it indoors to keep in a jar on your windowsill, have you ever noticed how long those cut stems last? Of course basil is a great cut floral ingredient! The third element here is one of those happy coincidences – common foxtail grass, which some consider a ditch weed, that perfectly echoes the green vase, and catches the late summer sunlight just beautifully. Three simple ingredients in perfect harmony.

Project Three

Project Three is one of my very favorites, because of the mix of colors and textures. Contained in a vintage pitcher, I absolutely love the playful combo of velvety cockscomb (the crested form of Celosia ) with all the lime green contrasting forms. Here’s how I made this bouquet. First, I filled the pitcher with soft greenery, a white mugwort (Artemisia lactiflora) that fills the opening and becomes the supporting structure for all the subsequent stems. Second, I stripped foliage off of 10 maroon and coral-hued cockscomb flowers; then I cut the stems pretty short and inserted each into the fluffy base, making sure that you can’t see the stems showing at all. Third, I added some ‘Green Envy’ zinnias, which echo the pitcher’s green quite nicely. For a sense of movement, as a final touch, I inserted taller stems of quaking grass (Brizia maxima), so they seem to hover above the bouquet. Casual and the epitome of summer!

Two other projects fell on the cutting room floor, so to speak, so you get to see them here! Actually Project Four showed up in the iPad edition, along with a video interview filled with my eco-savvy design tips. You actually have to download the July edition to see the entire interview (filmed by David Perry) on an iPad.

Here’s a rough-cut edit of the video:

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

Project Four

Anyone can replicate Project Four, a fun trio of mini-arrangements, which are displayed in a row or grouped together on the table as a centerpiece. We used three yellow tumblers that art director Scott Johnson brought from his kitchen cupboard. The simple idea was to showcase several varieties of black-eyed Susan flowers (Rudbeckia sp.) with a mix-and-match of foliage choices. The daisy-like Rudbeckia varieties include, from left: ’Indian Summer’ and ‘Denver Daisy’ with zebra grass (Miscanthus sinensis ‘Zebrinus’); ’Irish Spring’ with lamb’s ears; and ‘Prairie Sun’ with goldenrod (Solidago). This type of design works well when you only have one or two of anything in bloom at a given time – voila!

Project Five

For Project Five, the last arrangement, I had to rise to the challenge of creating flowers that wouldn’t fall out of the wide, saucer-like bowl. Similar to cutting the hydrangea stems short in the first design, I cut lots of Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ in their unopened stage. A this point, they still look pretty green because the buds are tight. When you cut the stems short, say at 2-3 inches, you can really cram a lot inside an opening. To me, they almost look like heads of broccoli! But the tightly-packed sedums create a foundation through which other stems can be inserted. And in this case, I inserted old-fashioned love-lies-bleeding (Amaranthus caudatus) and Queen Anne’s lace. The tassels cascade over the edge of the shallow bowl, and while it’s kind of quirky, I really love the effect of textures and colors.

Together, these five designs demonstrate the diversity of the cut flower world – and ways to arrange blooms without using florist foam to stabilize the stems. Have fun playing around with these ideas using your own vases and garden flowers.

Check out pages 122-128 for my "Evergreen Appeal" story featuring Jean Zaputil's container designs

The October issue of Better Homes & Gardens features a container design story that I created with my talented BFF Jean Zaputil of Seattle-based Jean Zaputil Garden Design.

This story began when I pitched the idea of a feature about using ornamental and dwarf conifers as the focal point of a fall container . . . that will then transition nicely through the winter months. My editor in the garden department, Eric Liskey, and his art director Scott Johnson liked the idea. But then they asked me to find a good location for photographing the fall story.

I immediately thought of Jean’s intimate Seattle garden, which is planted for all-season interest and has beautiful seating areas both in the front yard and back garden.

Once Scott and Eric signed off on the location, our challenge continued. Scott thought that a purple palette was both uncommon and a great foil for the evergreen needled foliage. So, needless to say, much of my energy producing this story was spent scouring the greater Seattle marketplace for plum, lavender, aubergine and purple containers. We ended up with a grand total of three pot styles – a small lavender ridged pot; an egg-shaped pot (in 2 sizes) and a classic olive jar shape (also in 2 sizes).

Thank goodness for some wonderful importers here in Western Washington who came to the rescue, including Washington Pottery and Aw Pottery! Our friend Gillian Mathews of Ravenna Gardens was extremely helpful in making those connections for me.

The tiniest pot, measuring only 7 inches, looks quite sweet in Jean's entry garden.

Jean used many of her favorite wholesale and retail nursery sources to come up with the conifer “stars” for each pot, as well as their companion plants.

The idea was to use only two or three accent plants in the container so as to show off the Hinoki false cypress, juniper and other conifers in their full glory.

We hope that this piece inspires readers who never before viewed a conifer as a container plant to do something fun and different this fall. I quoted Jean in the story saying:

“Use the golden glow or silver shimmer of an

ornamental conifer to catch the fall light.”

And Jean color-coordinated with her pots!

Here are some of the tips we outlined:

1. Use a large pot, if possible.

A 12-inch diameter pot is a good minimum size.

2. Start with a small juniper, cypress, or other conifer.

Then combine it with two or three complementary or contrasting cool-season annuals and perennials.

3. Flowering plants might fade after the first frost.

You can replace them with foliage perennials that will last through fall, even well into winter.

Here is the best of the best – from our photo shoot a year ago this month! Kudos to the very talented Laurie Black, who took the magazine photos, such as the one above. The photo of Jean and Pots 1, 2, 3 & 4 are my photos.

Pot 1

POT 1: Sadly, this gorgeous purple egg-shaped pot was left on the cutting room floor! But here is the recipe:

• Juniperus horizontalis ‘Limeglow’
• Japanese blood grass (Imperata cylindrical ‘Red Baron’)
• Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens)
• Chrysanthemum ‘Dazzling Stacy Orange’

Pot 2

POT 2: A miniature garden in a pot – perfect for a side table or the front porch:

• Hinoki false cypress (Chamaecyparis obtuse ‘Verdoni’)
• Japanese sweet flag (Acorus gramineus ‘Minimus Aureus’)
• Bluestar creeper (Pratia pendunculata ‘Little Star’)

Pot 3

POT 3: This might be my favorite! We photographed it on Jean’s front porch, against her beautiful green screen door:

• Hinoki false cypress (Chamaecyparis obtuse ‘Gold Fern’)
• Tiarella ‘Sugar and Spice’
• Vinca minor ‘Illumination’
• Gazania Gazoo Mix

Pot 4

POT 4: This copper red “turnip” pot is one of two Jean already owned and we thought the color and shape looked autumnal, while also complementing the purple pot tones:

• Juniperus horizontalis “Limeglow’
• Moss (Schleranthus biflorus)
• Sedum hakonense ‘Chocolate Ball’
• Chrysanthemum ‘Dazzling Stacy Orange’

A few more tips, from the story:

When, and whether, you leave containers out all winter depends on where you live. In Zones 8-10, most conifers and cool-season annuals will survive outdoors in pots. In Zones 7 and lower, few annuals will overwinter in pots, and some evergreens won’t either, depending on hardiness. So before the ground freezes, transplant them to the garden or move the pot into a shed or unheated garage. Water pots as needed to keep soil moist throughout the winter. For outdoor winter use, pots should be glazed, hard-fired clay. Terra-cotta and soft-fired clay do not withstand freezing.

Isn't this border pretty? Corn, sunflowers, zinnias - all in a row!

 A few weeks ago, at the invitation of the Whatcom Horticultural Society, I spent a relaxing 24 hours surrounded by gardens, flowers and nature – as well the company of like-minded plant-lovers. 

“Why don’t you come up to my house on Wednesday morning and we’ll go see some gardens before you give your lecture?” my friend Dawn Chaplin suggested. With established Bellingham landscape designer Susann Schwiesow, Dawn organizes the monthly lectures for WHS. This is the third time over the years that the society has invited me to speak. It’s always enjoyable, especially since the drive to Whatcom County and the enticing gardens and kindred spirits make my trip north so pleasurable. 

After meeting up with Dawn, who lives on a beautiful bluff outside Stanwood with her husband David, we hopped in the car and traveled to Fir Island, a small, bucolic place that’s reached by a bridge, so you barely realize you’re crossing over Skagit River to a real island. We toured the timeless garden created by Lavone Newell-Reim and her husband Dick. I’m hoping to publish as a magazine story in the future, but I can’t help but treat you to a few of the luscious images from this very special, lived-in and loved-in landscape: 

To me, this is a perfect vignette, camera-ready for a magazine. Lavone and Dick have a natural gift for placing plants in community with ornamentation and salvaged materials.

A circular patio with a thyme garden at its center. Inviting!

Chartreuse at its finest - in twin conifers and a potted succulent.

  (more…)

On location in Los Angeles with Jamie Durie - photographed by Edmund Barr

On his popular HGTV show The Outdoor Room with Jamie Durie, stylemaker Jamie Durie uses interior and architectural design tricks to amp up dreary backyards.

By the end of a whirlwind 30-minute episode, you’re energized and inspired. Of course, nimble edits have compressed a couple of days of dirt, sweat and (possibly) tears into a dreamy landscape for the small screen. But still, there’s always a takeaway, a “lesson” that catches the viewer’s imagination. “I could try that,” you say to yourself. “Oh, what a simple way to disguise that ugly wall,” or “That’s brilliant!”

Some of the projects conjured by Jamie and his design team are complicated and require professional assistance to execute. But many others fall into the DIY mode: affordable and requiring only a discerning eye to add polish, such as using color, texture or materials to unify otherwise disparate objects.

That’s one reason why I really wanted to see Jamie’s garden firsthand. When I visited his Los Angeles outdoor design laboratory (aka his humble backyard) last spring I loved what I saw.

My assignment was to interview Jamie and help produce the Better Homes & Gardens “Stylemaker” story that appears in the September issue – out on newsstands right now.

Art director Scott Johnson and I both flew into Los Angeles to work on the story. We were very fortunate to team up with LA photographer Edmund Barr and LA videographer Adam Grossman for the shoot. You can see my article and Edmund’s photos in the September issue; you can watch a fabulous how-to video with Jamie shot by Adam on BH&G’s digital edition. And a special thanks to Edmund for snapping this cozy portrait of Jamie and me, lounging in his outdoor living room. Fun, huh?

Many of Jamie’s best design concepts are ones he previously tried out for clients of Durie Design, his studio in Sydney, Australia, and Los Angeles. Some have been executed on previous episodes of The Outdoor Room, or in the pages of his new book by the same name.

We zeroed in on the ideas that move plants away from the obvious “ground plane” and onto other surfaces, such as living walls, green roofs and in the unexpected niches of garden structures. Jamie’s passion for plants is contagious – and you can see it spill over onto BH&G’s pages. Here’s an excerpt:

Outer Sanctum: HGTV star Jamie Durie uses unexpected designs to turn the barest backyards into green oases. 

“Once you create an outdoor room, you’ll fall in love with your backyard again,” says Jamie Durie, the star of HGTV’s The Outdoor Room.

A popular designer and TV personality in his native Australia as well as North America, Jamie encourages everyone who has a small patch of earth — or even just a patio or deck– to re-imagine their exterior environment as a functional, eco-friendly living space.

Jamie combines a passion for plants, sustainability, and the outdoors into a zeal for landscaping. He grounds his designs in green practices, using local materials, plants that tolerate the region’s climate, and clever techniques to put plants in almost every imaginable nook and cranny. Hanging planters cover his fences and walls, and pergolas support green roofs. Surrounding yourself with nature this way “can improve your health and inspire positive thinking,” says Jamie, who meditates every morning on the patio outside his bedroom.

Check out Jamie's new book for more tips and ideas.

Recently settled in Los Angeles, Jamie used the same advice he offers clients: Increase living space by creating more rooms outdoors rather than indoors. Instead of enlarging his modest 1950s house, he coaxed his once-ordinary backyard to live larger, with outdoor spaces variously designed for cooking, dining, lounging, and chatting. “Your spaces should accommodate your life,” he says. “Not the other way around.”

 ”I have a new outlook when I open the doors,” Jamie says. “This house feels bigger than it is, since the lush garden is part of my home.”

The popular HGTV host and landscape designer shares his ideas, techniques and recent projects in Jamie Durie’s The Outdoor Room (Harper Collins, $25.99), a guidebook to creating beautiful exterior spaces.

Do your containers make you happy? SCOTT EKLUND Photograph, 1997

Do you find container design a frustration?

A terra cotta heart-shaped container, filled with succulents.

Recently, Andrew Buchanan, a photographer friend and former Seattle Post-Intelligencer colleague, told me that Slides.com is the best value for scanning 35mm slides into digital files. It costs about $1.00 per slide, which is a good bargain compared with $2.50 per slide that local labs charge. 

As an experiment, I sent 44 cardboard- and plastic-framed slides that have resided for years in a Kodak carousel tray to Slides.com to see what they could do.

Kay at Slides.com emailed the files to me today – just in time for tomorrow’s lecture.  As it turns out, the digitals seem crisper and brighter than the originals…and they can be manipulated, cropped and re-sized. Pretty handy! 

Happily, my talk’s opening slides look great. And they are very sweet. The little boy you see above as a baby and at left as a bored toddler who I dragged to a container plant trial is now 14 years old, about to begin High School in the fall. Time certainly flies – in the garden . . . and with children!

 Note: a version of this story appeared in the print edition of last Saturday’s LA Times HOME section and in today’s LA Times @ Home blog.

Jennifer Gilbert Asher and Karen Neill of TerraTrellis

This is their beautiful "Gracie" arbor, inspired by the shape of nursery hoop houses

Instead of a spindly, mass-produced support for your rose or bougainvillea, why not give that over-achiever a sturdy structure on which to climb? And why not train those vines and tendrils on a framework that’s both artful and functional?

Los Angeles landscape designer and artist Jennifer Gilbert Asher has reinterpreted classic garden ornamentation into modern, colorful – and durable forms.  Her TerraTrellis collection of steel tuteurs, arbors and wall trellises offers a stylish alternative to the type of generic (and often impermanent) metal and wood pieces you might find online or at big-box stores.

The pod-like 'Toki,' which Jennifer says was inspired by a Faberge egg!

“Playful architectural forms and compelling colors in the garden are what’s behind this collection,” says Asher, who also creates more expensive works of modern outdoor sculpture through TerraSculpture, a studio co-owned by Karen Neill. Pieces in the TerraTrellis collection range from $279 to $579.

Like the studio’s larger sculpture pieces, TerraTrellis’s pieces are fabricated by Mario Lopez, who runs a metal studio in south Los Angeles. The steel pieces are hand-welded and use stainless-steel hardware and cables. They are oxide-finished or cloaked in a joyous array of powder-coated colors like kumquat, berry and leaf.

Familiar forms from public gardens and even the agricultural landscape inspire the designs.

Here's the lovely color palette ranging from oxidized steel to powder-coat finishes

For example, the lines of TerraTrellis’s “Gracie Modern Arbor,” which looks like a 76-inch diameter double-circle emerging from a pathway, echo the shape of hoop houses that dot Southern California’s plant nurseries. The 58-inch high “Lazio Vase Trellis” is a scaled-down homage to the giant rebar artifices that contain riotous bougainvillea at the Getty Center’s Central Garden.

“These pieces are designed not only to support a plant, but to integrate with it,” Asher says. “This union ultimately forms a work of freestanding, living art in the landscape. We want people to tap into their inner landscape designer and have fun exploring interesting combinations of plant with trellis.”

Pot-ted (www.pottedstore.com) in L.A.’s Los Feliz neighborhood will carry the TerraTrellis collection. You can also order the pieces online at www.terratrellis.com

Here are some other designs in the collection – perfect for your stylish potager or rose border!

Lazio, trellis inspired by the majestic rebar structures that hold bougainvillea vines at The Getty Center

Ina, like a picture frame, for your wall or fence.

Akoris, a leaf green French-style tuteur, with a sculpted wire orb on top.

Detail, showing stainless steel cabling.

How about a pair of vertical trellises for your fence?

This one stands freely, like an artist's easel

Is pink this year's unexpected surprise color for the garden?

This view takes in the two cabanas on the left and the dining pavilion at the opposite end of the pool

I joined Jamie Durie, of HGTV’s “The Outdoor Room,” for brunch and an interview in LA

I’ve been after celebrity garden designer Jamie Durie for more than a year to let me come and do a story about his personal Los Angeles backyard. I sensed he was stalling because, like many of us who make gardens (or write about them) for a living, our own outdoor environment is the LAST thing to receive our attention!

Turns out, Jamie and his producers of “The Outdoor Room” on HGTV  were cooking up big plans for his hillside property in Los Angeles’s Laurel Canyon.

Jamie reimagined the long-neglected yard, dominated by a vintage 1950s swimming pool, into a gorgeous series of outdoor living spaces. The magical transformation occurred over a three week time, and became the debut episode of The Outdoor Room’s season three, which aired earlier this year (you can see a schedule of re-runs of this episode by following this link).

In late February, I received an out-of-the-blue phone call from Jamie, saying: “The garden is finished – you’re invited to come see it!” Wow – this guy is good to his word.

Here's a bird's-eye view of the transformed outside living space - photographed from Jamie's hillside deck

We had a narrow window of a couple week’s time in which I could get down to LA for a photo shoot and interview, since Jamie was about to fly back to Australia for several weeks to shoot another show there. Whew. That guy lives a marathon life and makes it all look effortless. But we made it work. Here is my profile of Jamie’s project, which appears in today’s print and online editions of The Los Angeles Times.

The Los Angeles Times sent one of its very best photographers, Irfan Khan, to document the beautiful landscape. You can check out his web gallery of gorgeous shots here. I also took lots of reference photos to use while writing the story, and thought I’d post some of my favorites below.

Jamie asked me to include the many great resources he used to pull together this extreme garden makeover. So in case you’re curious, here is that list:

Resources & Materials

Bath: “The Outdoor Room” craftsman Steve Zimpel created the bath using recycled cedar from Durie’s original design.

Decking: Fiberon composite decking

Doors: LaCantina bi-fold doors

Fire: Escea outdoor gas fireplace; Durie Design Fire Pit

Furniture: Walter Lamb for Brown and Jordan reproduction chairs and chaises from Design Within Reach; all-weather wicker sectional, Durie Design.

Kitchen: Fuego modular kitchen.

Plants: Monrovia

Vertical garden system: Woolly Pockets

Pool Makeover: Jamie worked with Aric Entwistle of Los Angeles-based H2o Development Inc. to replace a conventional chlorine system with Spectralight, which uses ultraviolet light to kill pathogens and waterborne bacteria. The renovated pool is solar heated with a system from Suntopia Solar. A new infinity edge was fabricated over the original coping using carbon fiberglass, resin, high-tensile adhesives and several coats of waterproofing. It’s finished with Bisazza glass mosaic tiles.  

Like a raft floating over the garden, the upper deck provides excellent glimpses of the garden below.

Here's a bird's-eye view of the transformed outside living space - photographed from Jamie's hillside deck

I love this view from above, which shows how the box-beams form planting channels, and how the Roman shades create a canopy roof for the cabanas.

Here's the exterior of two pivoting planted "walls." When opened, they connect Jamie's bedroom to the garden.

A gorgeous detail of the stacked stone contained by one of two 7-foot gabion tree planters that Jamie designed

Here's a nice detail shot from inside the dining pavilion. You can see how the concrete retaining walls hold the hillside back and also form the interior walls where planters are hung and pillow-backs are rested.

A dreamy morning shot of the outdoor living room, featuring Jamie's own all-weather sectionals and a custom fire pit.

Inside the dining pavilion.

A detail showing how the Woolly Pockets vertical wall system adds foliage and flower texture behind the cabana.

The full-size view of the gabion tree planter - one of two in the garden.

At the end of my interview with Jamie, he talks about how much he enjoys living here. And it’s a perfect way to sum up the feelings I also had being in the highly personal garden environment: 

“Life just seems a whole lot more hectic in Sydney,” Durie says. “You can’t say that about Laurel Canyon. All I ever hear are birds. I’ve got squirrels running along the top of my green wall. An owl moved in once I finished the garden, and we’re starting to be visited by a ton of hummingbirds. I may not have kangaroos and koalas, but it’s kind of fun telling my mates back home that I’ve got coyotes in the canyon.”

Thank you for sharing your garden, Jamie. It was a treat! I hope you slow down long enough to really enjoy it~

The Herbfarm Restaurant

Last weekend I was a guest at The Herbfarm, the only AAA 5-Diamond restaurant west of Chicago and north of San Francisco, rated number 1 in the Pacific Northwest for both food and service by the Zagat Guide. 

Dining there is a true “culinary experience” that draws food aficionados from around the world. I’ve been fortunate enough to eat at The Herbfarm Restaurant on three prior occasions dating back to 1995 when I dragged Bruce there to celebrate his appointment as Seattle’s deputy mayor. Our friends Jenny Ulum and Tim Gleason actually flew to Seattle from Eugene, Oregon, in order to join us at that meal. 

The menu cover reads: "What was Paradise? But a garden. . . "

The Herbfarm Restaurant proprietors Carrie Van Dyck and Ron Zimmerman hosted fellow writer Robyn Cannon and me for an unforgettable meal last Sunday evening. We’re talking a four-and-a-half-hour, nine-course extravaganza that celebrates locally grown ingredients prepared with innovation and ingenuity. I say unforgettable, in that years after an evening at The Herbfarm, one can instantly recall tasting (perhaps for the very first time) a specific dish or uncommon ingredient. Oh, and did I mention that each course is paired with a Northwest libation selected by Sommelier Tysan Dutta? The wines are chosen to complement and enhance every bite. 

The Herbfarm’s history is long and not without drama (including a fire that destroyed the original Herbfarm location in Fall City, Washington, that was started by Ron’s parents in 1974 as a small nursery, followed by challenges trying to gain permission to rebuild). 

I have such fond memories of the old-timey Herbfarm. When my oldest son Benjamin was little, I used to take him out there to see the herb garden and a few farm animals. We still have the lavender-filled stuffed bunny rabbit, which we found in the gift shop. Those expeditions usually involved bringing along another mom and child to have a picnic in the herb garden. 

Carrie Van Dyck begins each meal with a tour of the garden.

The Herbfarm Restaurant’s current location in Woodinville dates back to 2001 when Ron and Carrie had to pick up and move the entire restaurant. They constructed a charming English-Tudor style cottage that houses antiques, a vintage fireplace, and tables that overlook the kitchen-as-theatre all night long. 

Robyn and I were staying at the adjacent Willows Lodge where we attended the Pacific Northwest Travel Writers Conference. And that’s how we ended up sneaking out of the proceedings late Sunday afternoon to join Carrie as she hosted the pre-dinner tour. The Herbfarm and Willows Lodge share a vegetable and herb garden where raised beds and clipped boxwood balls are interconnected by crunchy hazelnut shelled pathways. 

Carrie picked and passed around some of the edible ingredients that diners might expect to taste that evening — tulip petals, sweet cicely, sorrell, lovage, thyme, fennel and lemon verbena. We stopped to visit the resident pair of Vietnamese potbelly pigs named Basil and Borage, who reside in a pen next to the composting area. That seems appropriate, doesn’t it? 

Once we followed Carrie indoors and were seated for dinner, Ron took the stage to explain a bit more about the menu development. The Herbfarm creates 26 different themed menus each year, based on the seasonal availability of ingredients and the culinary whims of the chef Chris Weber and his team. By the way, Chef Chris is one of the youngest 5-star chefs in the country. Possibly THE youngest. What a talent! (more…)

As you’re tidying up the spring garden with pruning, trimming and other projects, inevitably you will end up with a pile of twigs. Yes, they can go into the chipper or the compost bin, but these pliable, young branches can also be pressed into service in the garden.

I wrote about “saving twigs” for my Debra’s Garden column in the upcoming May issue of Better Homes & Gardens (you can already find it on newsstands). All you need is a clean, sharp pair of secateurs (pruners) or loppers and a pair of gloves to protect your hands while working.

Spring pruning projects usually produce armloads of branches and twigs. Give those cuttings a new purpose and build simple, natural-looking plant supports. Use twigs to stake young seedlings — just poke sticks into the soil a few inches to anchor them. Lash three or more branches together at the top to form a tee-pee trellis for sweet peas or edible peas. I also curve thin branches into a half-circle shape — stick both ends into the soil and overlap several of them to create scalloped edging for veggie and herb beds.

Here are some photos to inspire your next pruning project:

Designed by landscape architect Joseph Marek, these zesty veggie garden teepees are made by painting twigs Chinese red and lashing them together.

Twigs are bent into a half-circle, with each tip inserted into the ground; when these "scallops" overlap each other, they create a tidy edging along a path or planting bed.

P.S., someone asked about my reference to “lashing together” on my Facebook page. I do not know exactly how the teepee was lashed together, but having made similar structures in the past, I can say that I’ve used anything handy – twine, garden twistie ties, wire and even rubber bands. Use your ingenuity!