GardenBook

 I like to look back on gardens visited as the year-end draws near. I'm already done with winter even though it just started today, after a particularly nice fall. We've had an encouraging amount of rain thus far here in wine country (between 9 and 10 inches  depending on your location in the valley) and the frost arrived this week with temperatures dipping into the high 20's. I recognize that my version of cold is pretty tame compared to friends that live on the east coast and midwest, but as I rush around moving plants into the garage and covering those that are marginal,  I am aware that I can drive less than an hour and be in a place like Berkeley that has an enviable, perfect frost-free, heat -free climate.  Artist Marcia Donahues' garden in Berkeley was on Garden Conservancy Open Days in April , and I visited with my friend Gerhard of the excellent Succulents and More . It had be a few years since I visited Marcias' garden and have  blogged about it her...

  The first chapter of  George Little and David Lewis's iconic book "A Garden Gallery" is titled 'Gardening from Within'  -such a simple phrase but infused with the truth of what gardening truly is for many of us. Visceral , and from the gut, bathed in emotion. Joy, frustration, serenity , anger, fatigue-it's all there. My friends and I entered the gate of the Little and Lewis garden on Bainbridge Island and stepped into an intimate world of plants, art and water created by these 2 artists , drenched in atmospere , the canvas for their art. The artists eye and intuition is a wonderful gift when making a garden.  The water features they have created are here are quite lovely, and they were kind enough to explain the how-to  of a few of them, including their wintering over strategies. This serene moss-infused number started it's life as a humble galvanized stock tank. Simple but beautiful . The rain tree ! Signature concr...