Garden of Fragrance


“Stumbling on new smells is one of the delights of traveling.” – Diane Ackerman

In a small conservatory built of red brick with huge copper framed windows and an interior graced with a pair of white doves in an ornate wire cage, pots of fragrant white lilies perfumed the air.  A woman walked in followed reluctantly by a tween age girl.  “Ewww!” the child cried out, “what’s that smell?”  Her mother, perhaps by now frustrated at her daughter’s lack of enthusiasm for this day in the garden, replied, “It’s fresh air.”  The daughter’s reply, “Well, I don’t like it!”...   Continue Reading

Counting Plants


Not everything that can be counted counts, Not everything that counts can be counted. – Albert Einstein

Winding uphill through the streets of Berkeley, we arrive at the University of CA Botanical Garden in Strawberry Canyon.  There we are faced with a decision of paying the parking meter for the number of hours we need to explore the garden.  The garden holds over 12,000 plants including many rare and endangered plant specimens.  Director Paul Licht does the math for visitors.  “If you allow only 2 hours, a 120 min. visit would require that you see 100 different kinds of plants per minute to experience our entire collection.”  Obviously we will need a full day, even then we won’t truly see all of the plants.  Those we do see will be only a glimpse of life of the plants.  A plant today may be dormant, budding, blooming or declining....   Continue Reading

Contemplating Trees


The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago,  the second best time is now. – Chinese Proverb

Arbor Day in the U.S is celebrated on the last Friday in April. In Arizona, we have many good times to plant trees scattered throughout the year so this date is a bit arbitrary in our region.  Still it is a significant day to contemplate trees.  The Arbor Day Foundation’s mission is to encourage us to Plant, Nurture and Celebrate Trees....   Continue Reading

Gardeners Change the World

A Small Garden

The Anthropologist Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world.”  Substitute  “committed gardeners” in this thought and the results DO change our world in immeasurable ways. Master Gardener Park in Port Townsend, WA  demonstrates the power of passionate committed gardeners.  The city’s smallest park, a small triangular shaped patch of earth bordered on all sides by intersecting streets, is now a beautiful garden....   Continue Reading

Our view of nature

A Sense of Place

When our neighborhood was new a family relocating from Virginia moved in next door and quickly put in lawn for their entire landscape.  Another family relocated from MN and installed a pool and planted pine trees all around it. Longtime desert gardeners cringe at these home garden stories.  Today a strong campaign for regionally appropriate plants fills the garden news.  Advocates raise a chorus of voices that sing, “If we live in a desert it is only common sense that we live with desert plants.”  Einstein said, “common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.”  Our common experience of  “place” isn’t so common....   Continue Reading

Garden Gates

Enter Into The New

As the new year stretches out before us fresh and full of possibilities many of us pause to mark the transition with resolutions, lucky foods and personal traditions.  These actions help frame our expectation of what the new year will bring.  We approach the new year nearly holding our breath in anticipation of what will come....   Continue Reading

A Gift of Gardens

A Perfect Gift!

If the December holiday crush finds you making long lists while drinking Tension Tamer tea you need to lay down that clenched pen and go outside for a walk through your garden.  While you are outside shaking off today’s holiday and economic anxieties you may realize giving the revitalizing gift of time in nature would be perfect for everyone on your list!   It is so hard to find a perfect gift, is it one that fits beautifully, or doesn’t need batteries, technical support and upgraded software?  How wonderful to find a gift that can grow more dear over time and may be enjoyed  again and again throughout the year.  So how would one give a gift of nature?  May I suggest  a membership in the American Horticultural Society. This affordable gift will give your favorite people garden admission to over 240 public gardens, arboretums & conservatories throughout North America....   Continue Reading

Filoli, Woodside, CA

Here & There

Returning from my travels this Fall I was unaware that I was suffering from a bad case of “California Garden Delusion” fever.  It set in as I was driving from the Pacific coast home to Mesa.  All along the route I was preoccupied with my own garden imagining where I could redesign the space and insert a profusion of flowers, vegetables and berries. Upon returning home, in I wandered through my garden marking the doomed plants for removal.  Then feverishly with pick axe, shovel and compost the transformation began.  A week later and with every muscle in my body crying out in pain I was finished preparing the bed but the temperatures were still reaching 100 degrees.  My “Garden Delusion” fever broke and I began to rethink the types of plants I would be growing in my newly prepared space....   Continue Reading

Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, CA

What a pot holds. . ..

In my garden there is a large plastic yellow flower pot which I purchased decades ago at the FW Woolworth store.  Its survived several moves from house to new house and years of intense heat.  Throughout the years its been blown over, pushed around and sometimes ignored. I am amazed it is still intact. (“Benjamin, just one word: plastics.” The Graduate) Even as my garden style evolved a yellow pot w/ a scalloped  edge was easily worked into an  arrangement of other container plantings.  Today it holds a group of succulents and it holds a part of my story....   Continue Reading