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Now that was strange!

When I walked through the garden this morning, it was like walking through a pop-up book.  Everything seemed to be in super 3-d.  The shrubs stood way out against the fence.  The pathway meandered in a way I never saw before.  I wouldn’t have been surprised if a giant bug had lumbered up and bumped me.

And I wasn’t wearing 3-d glasses.

In fact, I’ve tried 3-d glasses and I’ve never understood what all the fuss is about.  Now, I’ll have to try them again.

I had eye surgery a few days ago.  Seems that in my five decades of looking and seeing, I’ve not been seeing quite right.  A nerve that controls a muscle in my right eye wasn’t talking to that muscle the way it should have been.

I was clued into a problem about 15 years ago.  I went for an eye exam and the eye doc spent an inordinately long time asking me to look down and up and all around.  I was wondering what was going on when he stunned me by asking “Do you get seasick?”

Seasick!??  When I was working on my PhD in marine science, I spent weeks at a time out on research cruises (sounds far more glamorous than it was). Everything swam before my eyes. I threw up over and over again. Nothing helped.  Not looking at the horizon, not those purple pills you buy over the counter, not the scopolamine patches (they made me hallucinate).

It was pretty discouraging, not to mention humiliating.

And here, more than a decade later, a doctor was asking me about seasickness.  Why?
The way he explained it, each of my eyes saw in a different plane - one up and one straight ahead.  It wasn’t obvious when you looked at me, and my brain had long ago convinced my eyes that they saw absolutely correctly.  But, they didn’t.

The solution, he said, was a pair of glasses with prisms in the lenses.  Each lens changed my angle of vision slightly to bring them into the same plane.

That was fine until about a year ago, when I realized that I was seeing double when I looked down.  It made walking downstairs a bit challenging - I wasn’t sure exactly where the steps were.  The food on my plate didn’t come into focus very well.  And when I read, I held the book straight out rather than resting it in my lap, and I instinctively closed one eye.  Not real comfortable.

I mentioned my frustration to the ophthalmologist when I went in for my annual check up this year.  He fiddled around with his equipment, fiddled with my eyes, then sent me to a specialist.

The specialist fiddled with his equipment, fiddled with my eyes, then told me that I’d been misdiagnosed.  What I had, he said, sounded like stomboli. Or bismuth.  Or something Latin. As a botanist, I do Latin pretty well but I certainly didn’t understand what he was talking about.  Then he explained the whole nerve/muscle miscommunication thing.  Prismatic glasses are the wrong solution, he said.  He could fix my double vision with a simple (to him), 15 minute surgery!

“How soon can you do it?” I asked.

So, after doing my due diligence, I made an appointment and away we went.  That was last Tuesday.

Doc had warned me (again and again and again) that after the surgery, I would see double for a while - a few days, a few weeks perhaps - but that was part of the process.  Seems that my brain had integrated the mismatch so well for so long, that it would take time for it to unlearn the bad information and re-wire with the good information.
How cool is that!

After the surgery I was pretty wiped out.  The next day was Thanksgiving so I was totally consumed with cooking and company.  The third day, however, I woke with a pretty solid case of vertigo.  That was my brain hard at work trying to figure this whole thing out.
The vertigo was mostly gone by the fourth day, but I noticed that while my double vision had resolved in the near field, I still saw two when I looked into the distance.  “Come for a walk with me,” I said to my husband, “I have to get my eyes and my brain looking far away if I am going ever see straight again.”

I seem to be standing differently, too.  Eye doc told me that I had been tilting my head slightly to the right to compensate for my kooky vision.  “That will change,” he said, “but it will take a while for your neck muscles to readjust.”  Sounded odd, but today, I realized my posture is straighter and taller.  And the muscles at the base of my neck hurt.
Could this be the readjustment he was referring to?

This morning, when I walked down into the garden, I had that 3-d experience.  It was strange, but oddly thrilling.  Makes me wonder how my new vision will change the way I design gardens!

Walking is strange too, though driving is absolutely fine.  I seem to be walking more on the inside of my left foot now. The outer part of that foot feels like it is walking on a pillow. And I have the constant sense that I am listing to port.

Eye doc told me that fixing my eyes would fix other things too. I should no longer be so sensitive to bright lights (that will make my husband happy) and, I should be more photogenic.

That’s all great but I have to wonder -  will I also lose 20 pounds and be able to dance the samba?

Thanksgiving leftovers are almost eaten, my guests have all gone home, and it rained last night.  It was the first rain of the year.  Granted it was only a tenth of an inch, but to my rain-deprived brain, it sounded like a deluge.

The skies have been gray all day, which, combined with sweatshirt temperatures, propelled me into the garden to prune.

I have a love-hate relationship with pruning.  I know, that if I want abundant crops of apples, nectarines, pluots, apricots, peaches, grapes, and figs, I have to prune.

Beautifully pruned grapes at Copia

While there is a certain satisfaction that comes from snipping and cutting and shaping trees, I have so many to do (about 20 at last count) that the prospect of  annual pruning is totally overwhelming.

And it isn’t just the pruning that’s the issue.  There’s the disinfecting too.

Peaches and their relatives in particular are very susceptible to pests and diseases.  If I’m not careful, my pruning tools can transmit them from one tree to another.  To avoid that kind of contamination, I disinfect my tools as I finish pruning each tree.  Tools get dipped in a 10% bleach solution or spritzed with spray or foaming bathroom disinfectant, then wiped with a dry towel.

The foaming disinfectant is definitely more fun.

Because pruning is such a huge task, I tend to take it in stages.  Figs are far and above the easiest trees to prune thanks to their soft wood.  I hardly ever need to use a saw, just pruning shears, a lopper, and my favorite pruning tool, a Fiskars pruning stick (no, they don’t pay me to say that).

Fiskars Pruning Stik - I love it!

There is another reason I like to start with figs; I want to prune them before they develop next year’s fruits.

Shortly after I pick the last, succulent fig of the year, tiny green orbs begin to form at the  tips of each fig branch.  Those orbs are next year’s fruits.  If I wait too long, I’ll prune off those developing fruits and voila!  No figs next year!

I learned this the hard way.

Today, I started my pruning with the ‘Brown Turkey’ fig that stands aside the stairs to my vegetable garden.

'Brown Turkey' Fig

I first pruned off all the branches that were growing too tall. I cut off some dead wood and then I worked on the arch I’ve been directing over the stairs.

I started the arch several years ago.   It is slowly taking on the shape I want - one that will eventually allow me to reach up and pick figs as I walk down the stairs!

My post-pruned fig  doesn’t look beautiful now, but when the new leaves come out in the spring, my tree will be gorgeous!

'Brown Turkey' Fig Post-Pruning

In a future blog I’ll explain how to prune to control the direction of branches.  But before it gets dark, I have to head out to the garden and finish one more task.

Rather than composting the branches I pruned off my figs, I’ll cut them into 8″ long lengths and pot them up.  With a protective cover (i.e. a loosely tented clear plastic bag), they’ll root over the winter.

By next spring, I’ll have baby trees to share with my fig loving friends!

One of my greatest honors is to have my work inspire others.  When students email me with stories and photos of their water-wise gardens inspired by one of my classes, for example, I am thrilled.

Imagine my delight, then, to discover that my book, California Gardener’s Guide vII inspired a gorgeous mosaic mural!

A few months back, public artist Christie Beniston invited me to the dedication of her tile mural as it was unveiled in its permanent home at the main entrance to  Flower Hill Mall in Del Mar, California.

The images in Christie Beniston's mosaic mural are based on photos from California Gardener's Guide vII

Christie’s 5′ x 9′ mural features oversized flowers and critters in fantastic colors.  She designed it and assembled it with the assistance, she tells me, of many hands “The mural was created by members of the community” she says, “under (my) design for ‘Arts in Bloom 2009‘ sponsored by the Solana Beach Art Association and Flower Hill Mall.”

Book Works, one of our finest local independent bookstores, invited me to speak at the event, but for some reason, I didn’t get a chance to see the mural that day.

Later, Christie told me that she’d used my book as a reference guide for the flowers.  “The flowers pictured are meant to represent verbena, cape mallow,  California fuschia, matilija poppy, penstemon, and marigold” she explained, “I took some artistic liberties along the way but your book was the guide, it is a beautiful resource.”

How thrilling!

The mural is both colorful and whimsical

I asked Christie how the piece came together.  She said, “Teen Korps volunteers helped supervise and break tiles.  I painted a cartoon outline on the cement substrate to help guide the placement of the broken tiles. We used commercial tile and some handmade tiles from my studio.  The tiles went on with thinset.  I then grouted (with some help from friends!) and the sign company that works with Flower Hill (Mall) donated the frame and helped with the permanent installation.”

Several months back, I had seen the mural in-progress when I visited   the Center for a Healthy Lifestyle at Solana Beach Boys and Girls Club.  Our mutual friend, garden designer Katie Pelisek, who runs the center,  had generously allowed Christie to use her facility to assemble the mural.

At the time, I had no idea that there was any connection to my book.  I just admired its whimsical, colorful, oversized flowers.

The mural’s beauty is the result of Christie’s magical touch, just as she has a magical touch with all the art pieces she creates.  And she creates alot of art!   Murals, sculptures, garden art, and more.

Take a look at her on-line galleries!  Recently, the San Diego International Airport held a dedication for Christie’s installation “Time Interwoven.”  (It also won a coveted “Orchid” award from the San Diego Architectural Foundation’s Orchids and Onions Awards).

I’ve always been fascinated by mosaics, though I’ve yet to try my hand at making any (anyone want to invite me to a mural making session?  I’d like to learn!).

I’d love to have one of Christie’s pieces in my own garden, but for the moment, I’ll have to live with having my garden in her art instead!

Visit Christie’s Beniston’s mural at the main entrance to the lower level of Flower Hill Mall , 2720 Via De La Valle, Del Mar, CA 92014-1923

I’ve read dozens of books, visited museums, seen countless exhibits, heard many many stories about the Holocaust.

Still, each time I encounter the realities of what the Nazis did to millions of innocent people just like me, a deep pit develops in my gut, along with feelings of anger, horror, and angst.

Those feelings visited me again this afternoon when I toured Fabric of Survival at the Oceanside Musem of Art.  The exhibit is the nexus of primitive art and native Holocaust story telling.

Fabric of Survival is a series of 36 fabric art scenes from the life of Polish Jew, Esther Nisenthal Krinitz (1927 - 2001) who, with her younger sister Mania, were the only members of her family of six to survive the holocaust.

Krinitz used mostly embroidery and applique to depict snapshot memories of her life, starting in Mniszek, a small village in Poland around 1937.   Twelve year old Esther lived with her parents, three sisters, and brother on her family’s farm.

Esther Krinitz's family farm in Mniszek, Poland early 1930s

First in the exhibit, is a group of scenes documenting what life was like for Esther and her family - tending to  crops, caring for cows and geese, swimming in the nearby river, celebrating Jewish holidays with their neighbors.

One notable image shows community Matzoh-making at the village shoemaker’s home.   Esther’s mother mixes the dough while a tableful of women roll it out into rounds.  The shoemaker perforates the rounds on their way to his son who tends the oven.

How different from today’s experience of strolling into the supermarket to buy a box of square, factory produced Matzoh!

Community matzoh making

The rich, close life of Esther’s family and their community is depicted in other ways.  A scene shows her grandfather and a neighbor, the community patriarchs, leading high holiday services.  The men are draped in pure white prayer shawls that frame their salt and pepper colored beards.  Her grandfather holds a shofar, the ram’s horn that he would blow to announce the new year.

Behind them is the ark, home of the community’s Torah, a table with a wash basin, a important part of the holiday, and a grandfather’s clock.  The latter has no religious value but makes it clear that they are praying in a home, not a synagogue.  The town was too small for a proper synagogue.

The image is all blue and red, with a sense of three dimensions created by the timbers that support the roof over the mens’ heads.

Esther’s grandfather appears again in a scene that portends the future.  It is 1939.  Esther and her friends run to the road as the first Nazis arrive in their village.  Clearly, they have no idea what the men’s mission is.  But when the soldiers drag Esther’s revered grandfather from his home, rough him up, and cut off his beard (a symbol of his position as a respected elder in the community), it is quite clear that these are not friendly strangers.

Nazis rough up Esther's revered grandfather, 1939

From that point on, the scenes become more and more disturbing, more and more poignant. The Nazis continue to terrorize the town.  They construct “labor” camps in their nearby forests.  Life generally becomes more and more difficult.

And then….

October 15, 1942.  The Nazis ordered all the village Jews to the train by 10 am.  They are being relocated.    Any Jew found left in the village will be shot.

There is an scene of the family gathering in tears on the last night in their home, and one from the morning as they and their neighbors board horse carts for a ride to the train station from where, we know, they will ride to their deaths.

Esther describes how she desperately begged her parents to allow her to flee and take her younger sister Mania with her.  Isn’t there anyone, she asks, who would take us in?

Her father responds “Maybe Stefan,” a gentile farmer friend who lives in a different town.  Esther and Mania’s mother hires a woman to escort them to Stefan’s.  Esther remembers her mother’s last words to them, “Goodbye my dear children.  Perhaps you will survive.”

Those words stopped me in my tracks.  Clearly, Esther’s mother feared her fate, along with the fate of her husband, other children, siblings, extended family, neighbors, the entire community that made up her life.

She also understood that she would never again see her daughters, whether or not they survived.

As a mother, I tried to imagine saying that to my own children.  As I did, my heart felt as if it would burst.  Could I let some children go, flee as Esther and Mania were doing, to some unknown fate?  Or would I want to keep my family together, even knowing that it likely meant their deaths?

And what would it have been like to be in that line of horse carts, an entire community of people being carted off to die.  Would I be scared? Angry? Hopeful that it was all a big mistake? Wanting to believe the Nazis’ promise of food and comfort at the end of the trip?

Or would I have shut down, terrified of what had happened to that point and even more terrified of what was to come?

Questions that we all hope we never to have to answer.

As you probably realize by now, Esther and Mania do survive, thanks to their determination, some clever thinking, and plain old fate.

They find Stefan but it is too dangerous to stay with his family for the long term.

Cast out on their own, they travel to a community where they are not known, and masquerade as Catholic school girls separated from their families.  There, they are taken on as domestics and work, though not without incident,  until the Russians liberate Poland

Finally free, Esther goes back to search out the fate of her family.  She finds the camp she believes they were taken to.  Tragically, there is no trace of them, just piles of worn shoes amid the “showers,” crematoria, and giant cabbages growing in piles of human ashes.

Esther searches for her family's fate

Esther joins the Polish and Russian Armies to help with the liberation. One scene shows truckloads of Russian soldiers (Esther’s battalion) passing down a road where a battle was recently fought.  On one side, bodies of Nazi soldiers lie helter skelter in a field.  On the other side of the road, bodies of Nazi officers dangle from the trees.  It is a chilling scene in all respects.

When the war ends, Mania and Esther go to a displaced persons’ camp where each meets her future husband.  Esther and her husband Max move to America.  Mania and hers go to Israel first, to America several years later.

The last group of scenes are of life in America.  The final one struck me as the most touching and hopeful.  A tiny, blond haired girl explores the bark of a tree in a park.  In the caption, Esther addresses her granddaughter using a Yiddish term of adoration, “Mami Sheine,” beautiful little girl.

Esther's grandaughter, a free, safe generation in America

It wasn’t until 1977 when Esther, then 50,  created her first amazing fabric picture.  Over the next 20 plus years, she stitched and painted to create the touching narrative that hangs on walls of museums across the country today.

Interestingly, the sequence in which the scenes were created is different from the sequence in which each event occurred.  It made me wonder whether Esther created each one at the time she remembered it, or whether she had a grand scheme for what she would create and when she would create it.

And since Esther was not a trained artist, her technique developed over time.  I quickly came to connect each image to the era in which it was created, simply by noting its style.    Those Esther created first, for example, were more like tapestries  where she primarily used yarn and intricate embroidery.  Over time, she relied more and more on applique, eventually, creating fabric collages by paying attention not just to the color of each fabric, but also to its pattern.

In one scene, for example, flowers are depicted as giant pansy blooms, each cut from a pansy patterned fabric and appliqued whole onto the background.  Eventually, Esther incorporated fabric paint to darken skies and establish mood.

At the same time, Esther’s characters became more refined.  She focused on creating expressive faces, and action through the positions of arms and legs and bodies in space.  She also learned to create perspective and dimensions.

There is a 13 minute video of Esther and Mania recalling the past.  Unfortunately, I only caught the end of it at the museum, but I found it online at Art and Remembrance, the organization that Esther’s daughters created “that seeks to change people’s hearts and minds by illuminating the experience of war, oppression, and injustice through the power and passion of personal narrative in art.”

The site also includes a gallery of all 36 fabric art pieces, along with audio narrative of Esther’s daughters describing their mother,  background to the events depicted, how Esther created her art, and more.

The online exhibition is well worth visiting

But, there is nothing like seeing Esther’s creations in person.

Hidden Pleasures

Plants are so amazing….

Last night, my husband and I took an evening stroll and as we stepped out the front door, I was struck by a sweet fragrance.   I couldn’t quite pinpoint its source, and since my husband was already half way up the street, I scrambled after him rather than taking the time to find it.

Upon our return, however, I stopped him before he made it to the front door.  “Honey,” I said, “do you smell that?  Lets figure out where it is coming from.”  I happen to have a better smeller than he does, but I like to involve him in my plant escapades from time to time.

I know from experience that the biggest smells often comes from the most demure or subtle blooms.  In fact, it is a common strategy for plants whose flowers aren’t very showy to make a big smell.  We humans may think that the fragrance is for our enjoyment, but in truth, that’s how the plants attract pollinators.  And the fragrance isn’t always sweet.

In the case of Stapelia, for example, the genus is known for its off-color, star-shaped  flowers that nestle deep among succulent branches.  It would be pretty challenging for an insect or bird to find their blooms by sight.  But the flowers emit a terrible odor, like rotten meat.  And guess what their pollinator is…   flies!  What better way to attract a fly than to smell like rotten meat?

Pale colored flowers are often fragrant too.  Angel trumpet (Brugmansia) for example, has lovely, huge, dangling trumpet-shaped flowers, typically in ghostly white, pale, yellow or pale pink/coral.

Beautiful white flowering angel trumpet is fragrant from afternoon to evening to attract its pollinator, a night flying moth

These big-blooming South American natives are pollinated by moths at night.  So, how do the moths find their targets in the dark?

If you grow angel trumpet, you’ve probably noticed that they emit a wonderful floral fragrance starting in the late afternoon and lasting through much, if not all of  night time hours (I’m never awake long enough to figure out when the fragrance abates).  The moths simply follow the scent.

By the way, hybrid angel trumpets are selected for more intense-colored flowers.  And the  cold-tolerant, Andean red angel’s trumpet, Brugmansia sanguinea blooms deep orange-red with a yellow throat.

One of my favorite species gladiolas, Gladiolus tristis (South African marsh Afrikaner) uses the same strategy as the angel trumpet. These January/February bloomers have tall, narrow leaves and the palest of yellow flowers.  Starting late afternoon, their perfume fills the air, just in time to attract their own moth pollinator.

But this time of year, the angel trumpet has yet to flower and the gladiola is long past.  So what was so fragrant?

Amazingly enough, it was a Sansevieria, a plant whose unfortunate common name is mother-in-law’s tongue.

Sansevieria are evergreen plants of tropical and subtropical Africa and Asia.  They were tremendously popular in the era of  mid-century modern and modernistic architecture (roughly 1940s - 70s) because of their own architecture. Tall, smooth, single pointed blades each rise straight from the ground, some solid green, some pale green, some green with yellow margins, and others spotted.  Some blades are straight while others twist slightly.  Still others fold into themselves to form a solid cylindrical spear.

Sansevieria with spotted blades

Sansevieria with patterned blades

Sansevieria with cylindrical blades

Sansevieria continue their popularity in part because these oddities are able to live in the shade outdoors (in frost free areas) or indoors with almost no water at all, as long as they are planted in very well draining soil.

I have a Sansevieria given to me years ago that was my very last houseplant after the rest died or migrated outdoors.  It sat in my office and was watered about once every six months - when I remembered.  I finally took pity on it and moved it outdoors where it really isn’t as happy as it seemed indoors.

This demure little Sansevieria bloom has the fragrance of fresh Freesias

But last night as I searched my front entry patio, I noticed a very small, very unobtrusive, and unfortunately no longer labeled Sansevieria.  It sat in a small pot where it had produced a tall flower stalk, the source of the evening’s perfume extravaganza.

The funny thing is, I have at least a dozen kinds of Sansevieria, most given to me more than 25 years ago by the late plant explorer Manny Singer of Singer’s Growing Things.  All these years, they haven’t even hinted at blooming, and this year, at least four different types are in bloom.  And all fragrant.

Ah, the wonder of plants!

What’s the surest way to get the most flavor from vegetables and fruits?  Grow em yourself…..from seed!

Starting vegetables from seed was the topic of the talk I gave at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanical Garden’s Festival of Flavors this past Friday. The topic seemed fitting since the huge variety of vegetables seeds on the market offers gardeners their widest range of possiblities!

It always seems so magical to me to start with little pieces of what look like wood; Add with some water, light, and a bit of seed starting mix to make those seeds  sprout and grow into bountiful plants that produce delicious vegetables.

Homegrown veggies always put supermarket veggies to shame.

By 3 pm Friday, the seats in the speakers’ area were full and everyone had a package of gourmet red chard ‘Scarlett Charlotte’ seeds I brought with from my good friend Renee Shepherd of Renee’s Garden Seed.

My dear friend and mentor Jan Smithen, author of Sun Drenched Gardens, introduced me to the audience and away we went.

I love the fact that people are interested again in growing their own vegetables, herbs, and fruits. It only follows that they are interested in starting them from seed. It is a skill that was once commonplace, then nearly lost, but is now coming back around again. Much to my delight!

We started with a lesson on reading seed packets.

Its ironic how important label information is and how little effort most companies put into their labels. Some companies do a great job and Renee writes some of the best. She deftly combines romance and detailed how-to with delicious suggestions for cooking and eating each variety.

Being a frugal gardener (is there any other kind?), I presented several examples of containers for starting seeds – old cottage cheese or yogurt containers, take-out food containers, or plain ‘ole four packs recycled from the nursery.

I prefer four packs to six packs, since the cells in a four pack are large enough to support seedlings all the way to transplant. With six-packs, seedlings can get only so large before they need to be “moved up” to larger containers. Saving that step saves my time, and it also means seedlings develop faster since they don’t have to go through transplant shock twice (once being moved up and the second time when I put them in the ground).

And by the way, someone asked me about using egg cartons. The simple response is: “don’t bother.”

Anything being reused has to be disinfected first, of course, to keep the tiny seedlings free of deadly bacteria and fungi. I give containers a good soak in a 10% bleach solution (one part bleach to 9 parts water). While I’m at it, I throw in plastic plant labels so I can reuse them, and I give my pruners a dip too (I dry and oil them afterwards).

Fresh seed starting mix is important as well. As compared to potting soil, Seed staring mix is more finely milled so the tiny seedlings have an easy time pushing up through the surface. It is also pasteurized to kill the pathogens. Black Gold seedling mix is one of my favorites. I had the purple-and-black label bags with me on Friday.

We spent half an hour going through the how-to process of how to start seeds, both small and large, in containers and as what I like to call “seed sandwiches” (more on that in a future blog).

When we ran out of time to talk about how to do cuttings, the audience insisted on continuing. So, I spent another 15 minutes demonstrating cutting basics a beautiful pink-flowering perennial Salvia chiapensis from Monrovia growers.

The audience was wonderful. They were tremendously enthusiastic asked great questions – always the most fun part of any talk.

During the hour-long presentation, I divulged some of my favorite hints for success …Think I’m gonna give them all away here? No way! But I’m happy to share those secrets when you invite me to speak to your group or event!

When I was speaking at the San Francisco Flower Show a few weeks ago, I  was asked to be on View From the Bay, an afternoon talk/variety show on the ABC TV affiliate in the bay area.

I did a segment with correspondent Lisa Quinn (who is a hoot) where I demonstrated how to start an edible vegetable and herb garden from seeds.   It was great fun!  Take a look.

I just turned the water on.

Is that a big deal?

I’m talking about irrigation water. And YES its a big deal because it has been off since  October. Yes OCTOBER.

How did I manage to avoid watering for nearly six months? Easy! I grow low water plants.

When I started working on this garden in 1992, all the other gardeners I knew labored to create the perfect, flower-filled English garden.  I was planting my back corner with natives. While they toiled over roses, I planted aloes and agaves. When everyone wanted a lush lawn, I went for ornamental grasses set amidst un-thirsty flowering shrubs from Australia and South Africa.

My goal was, and still is, to see how much beauty I can create using as little water as possible.

So how did I do? Judge for yourself. Most of the photos decorating the pages of this website are photos from my garden.  Previous blog entries have photos of my garden as well.

A low water, high flower combination: golden orange South African annual Ursinia anthemoides with 'Dusky Rose' California native poppy

I can’t take credit for it all, of course. I am fortunate to have good advice from designer Linda Chisari who helped with the original design for my backyard (in 1992) and became a valued friend in the process.  Nearly a decade later, designer Scott Spencer, another of my favorite people, got me going in the front yard. I have learned and continue to learn a tremendous amount from both of them.

And then there are the dozens of nursery folk who endure my never-ending questions as I search and research plants to write about, talk about, and of course, try out in my garden.

Not that my garden is entirely low water. I couldn’t live without a vegetable garden (I have a hard time understanding how anyone can live without a vegetable garden).

Late summer harvest in the vegetable garden

Vegetables take a considerable amount of water, but I use drip irrigation to target the water to each plant and drip it directly into the ground above the roots, so it is used very efficiently.
Fruit trees take more water than natives, but probably not as much as you’d expect. Deciduous fruit trees - those that are bare in winter - need water only when they are actively growing in spring and summer.

Evergreen fruit trees need water year-round except when it is raining. Still, their well-established roots are less thirsty than, say, an equal area of lawn.

And besides, if I am going to spend water, I want to spend it on plants that give me something back - like food!

Lots of green, no grass in my front garden

I finally made front page news today!  The San Diego Union Tribune’s front page story was about people removing their lawns as a water-saving measure.  Reporter Mike Lee quoted me as a local expert:

“It’s the beginning of the end of lawn at home,” said Nan Sterman, who teaches a class called “Bye Bye Grass” at the Water Conservation Garden in El Cajon.

Last week, the garden’s managers started a hotline for people to seek advice from Sterman about “water-smart” landscaping.

“It’s not just the early adopters anymore,” Sterman said. “It’s (average) people who are really getting the sense that we have to do something . . . which tells me that it’s becoming part of the mainstream.”
Yes, going grassless it is becoming mainstream.  No longer do people walk by my front garden and scratch their heads, wondering where the grass went, or giving me funny looks when I tell them there never was any grass.
In fact, I just taught a Bye Bye Grass series at Quail Botanical Gardens this past week.  It was a full class of men and women, from all over the county, all of whom came to learn how to get rid of their lawns and replace them with low water plants - and a few with vegetable gardens.

Are vegetable gardens lower water than lawns?  I get this question all the time.  It isn’t that easy to answer but generally, when you water a vegetable  garden the idea is to target each plant.  A lawn, on the other hand, is blanketed in spray. And most vegetable gardens are smaller than lawns.
Either way, as I like to say, if you are going to “spend” water, spend it on something that feeds you.

Click here to read the entire story.

And by the way, if you are interested in getting rid of your lawn, the next series of Bye Bye Grass is April 1 and April 4 at the Water Conservation Garden at Cuyamaca College. The next series at Quail Botanical Gardens is May 13 and 17.  To register (which is required) for either series, click here.

The class travels too… in case you have a venue where you’d like to have me teach it!

Yesterday, I visited Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens in anticipation of the program I am doing there next Sunday, March 15.  For the Ides of March, I am leading a stroll through the brewery’s wonderful gardens.

I remember the first time I visited Stone.  It was September of 2005 when CEO Greg Koch toured me through the not-yet-open brewery. 

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 I was totally taken by the amazing facility.  A plane Jane tilt-up building was being transformed transformed into a beautiful, striking structure, adorned with local rocks, boulders from on-site, worn brick from a historic building in downtown San Diego, and slabs of granite leftover from a quarry not far away that makes tombstones.   Countering the gray and black, and white textures were vast surfaces of coppery rusted steel.  But that would not be finished for a while.  Click here for a photo log of brewery and garden construction

Inside the brewing facility were two story tall stainless steel silos -

or so they looked to me - where the brewmasters soon would be doing their magic.

An enormous glass wall stood between the brewery and the soon to be bistro.

The bistro itself was a vast space with soaring ceilings, bamboo planted water features, a long bar (of course), and a huge, outward slanting wall of glass with roll up glass doors that when open, erased the line between inside and outside.

At that point, however, I had to wonder why anyone would want to go outside.  Greg pointed past the construction zone he called a dining patio to a HUGE hole in the ground.  It looked like the entry of Journey to the Center of the Earth.

The hole, Greg explained, was the detention basin for the entire commercial development around Stone Brewing.  If or when, there would be a 100 year flood, all the water in the surrounding properties would rush into the big hole where it would enter an enormous culvert and diverted to who knows where. 

What I saw as a hole, however, Greg saw as a garden.  He talked about making it the brewery’s backyard by filling it with fruit trees and natives. He envisioned boulders and seating areas in a garden where patrons would learn where their food came from.

Who was doing the design, I asked.  Well, Greg said, he’d talked to some landscape architects and some other folks, but he was thinking he’d just do it himself.

Honestly, I thought he was nuts.  But then again, I it was the first time I’d met Greg Koch.

Today, the hole in the ground is indeed a lovely garden filled with fruit

 trees, natives, bamboo, and other plants that together, create the brewery’s backyard.  There are lawns surrounded by groves of fruit

 trees, natives, and bamboo.  A stream running through the center is filled with cattails and other aquatic plants.  It flows into what looks like the most wonderful swimming hole, thanks to strategically placed boulders and cascading waterfalls.  Of course, it isn’t a swimming hole.  It is the big hole that I once imagined leading to the inner world.

This coming Sunday, I have the honor of leading folks on a stroll

 through the garden, pointing out its

amazing and fantastic features.  The fruit trees are coming into bloom, the natives are thriving, the pine forest (not native but pretty darned impressive) of formerly distressed trees, the fantastic agave hill, and

more.

It is a lesson in success that comes from not listening to the experts (though there are some features of the garden that I know Greg will eventually live to regret, like planting running bamboo without a root barrier), a lesson in sustainability, and a lesson in following one’s heart.

Come join me in Stone’s garden at 1 pm on March 15.  Come early and eat lunch, have a beer (but not too many), and then mosey on over to the patio bar where we will be gathering.