How is it that when I type in the keywords ‘creative’ or ‘art’ on Monster.com, I come up with positions like HTML designer, a nightlife cheerleader for Red Bull, a project coordinator, a manager for PetCo, and an e-commerce manager, just to name a few. Who exactly do I send dictionaries to with the definition for ‘creative’ high-lighted in bright red marker?

In my search for dwarf fruit trees, I found a few great sites. So I’m going bookmark crazy…

One that I see has some great info (once I decide what kind of dwarf fruiting or ornamentals I want) will be my go to for keeping my little trees, well, little.

Check out : http://www.dwarffruittrees.org/

I’m a huge fan of this guy’s work in the garden and have his book, The Outdoor Room, and when I found out HGTV would be launching Jamie Durie‘s very own show of the same name – I was psyched! Having spent hours pouring over said book, looking out the window, drawing up ideas, and then going back to the book for inspiration, well you could imagine how important it was to catch the show. After all, with an ample space for a future outdoor room, I’m all over it.

Instantly, the show has serious problems. The show goes out of it’s way to create tension that is totally unnecessary and is completely gratuitous. You compare and contrast this show with a UK garden space show, say Allan Tichmarsh’s Ground Force, and you begin to feel like you are getting a bum deal. What you get here is a 30 minute breeze through of what seems to be a fly-by-the-seat-of-one’s-pants during Durie’s show, with a lot of set up, no middle, and just a grand pay-off with the results at the very end complete with repeated “Oh! Wow! Oh!!” from the new garden owners.

If I wanted to know what that fantastic black stone tile is in the Japanese styled garden – that’s too bad. If I wanted to know what kind of wood was used for the dinning/seating area – tough. If I wanted to know more about the care and feeding of Japanese Maple trees – I’m out of luck. Did they need to amend the dry soil in the yard, was a watering system put in, or how much would something like that cost me – I’ll never know. Just a whole lot of fluff and frippery, look at this, now look at that, ooh and ahh and… done.

Don’t get me wrong, Jamie Durie does amazing work. Stunning hardscaping, lighting, and materials galore, but this show focused more on the personalities and relationships that the carpenter/horticulturist/designer had with each other. A real sense of this is my job, this is your job, and I do the imaginative stuff and you guys make it happen. Thanks, but I know how people work together or choose not , but what about the damn garden!?

Absolutely no attention was given to the making, the real parts where everything comes together and the interesting bits of knowledge that would give the viewer something of value to take away, which makes this show a big fat failure. This is the part where hands get dirty! A gardener certainly knows this, which leads me to believe that the 30 minute time slot and editor are to blame and have no business putting any of this together. If I was Jamie Durie, I’d be really upset, and I certainly hope somebody told those two nice gals with the Japanese garden that those were ornamental peppers in their vegetable garden.

Not responsible for the new look, but I think it’s very detailed and comprehensive. I think it’s a welcome redesign to the site of the college I attended. Check it out!

BooBoo is next to me on the couch snoring and I’m trying not to laugh and wake her. She’s making these high pitched cooing sounds! I know, slow news day around this household.

Elaine on Seinfeld would be happy to know I don’t use the word, “breathtaking”, to describe many things so when I do use it – I really do mean it.

Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture has some brilliant patterns, great use of plantings and materials, and a nice mix of natural and man-made textures. I guess what I like best about it is how unabashedly modern it is. Definitely check out some of the work in the “Selected Projects” section as I’m making mental cues as to what I could easily do myself to really bring my yard to life and set it apart from the neighbors.

It’s been a little while, but I figured I’d let my family and friends that I’m just very busy.

I’ve not done much illustration, painting and whatnot with the day job and the house to cater too but I guess I’ve just refocused some of my energy elsewhere. In rather good news, the house has all new plumbing with the cast iron pipes gone and the bathroom sink and the bathtub are now fully functional! Also, the giant dirt pile is gone, gone, gone! With all the basics done now, I can start figuring out color palettes for the rooms, paying off some credit card debt, and tending to the garden and succulents in the back yard. The stumps are an on-going project though and are a bit of a challenge. I have 3 left to pull out and then the new fence goes up between us and the nice neighbors next door, but a concrete mixer will need to be purchased. This will come in handy for when we redo the kitchen as I think we want concrete countertops.

Currently - what the house looks like

I got slides and my acceptance letter for college from my parents the other day and couldn’t believe that was how I got accepted to art school. Seems like a totally different person used to inhabit my body and it crosses the line into embarrassing territory. I really don’t have much to say on this except that I’m glad I got accepted to art school and nobody will ever see the acceptance letter I wrote.

I did manage to make it to Comic Con this year and enjoyed hanging out with friends and checking out all the preview stuff for shows I enjoy or plan on enjoying. I’m so glad I bought my tickets months in advance as the whole event was sold out, including the day passes.

Not exactly a lyric from a song from Blondie, but it describes my weekend. It was filled with lots of hard work and labor. Now that my driveway is done (note to self: upload some pictures when you find the damn cable for the camera), I’ve moved on to some other time consuming projects: killing the plant life in the yard. 

This may not sound very green friendly, but we are heading headlong into a drought, and a yard without grass and water hogging plants is not only a preference but a necessity here in southern California. The electric chainsaw, weedwhacker, and lawn mower all made an appearance cutting the ‘grass’ in the backyard and removing 6 shrubs from the side and front of the yards. This coming weekend will be spent digging out the stumps, seeing how well the turf comes up, and germinating the ornamental grass seeds in peat pots – much to my neighbors disappointment.

How do I know? Well, when my partner let one of my neighbors know what we were doing to the lawn, he dropped his shoulders, sighed and went back inside. It won’t take nearly as long as the driveway job (at 8 months due to weather and work schedules) but at just over 2 months once the plastic is laid down to solarize and cook the turf and earth underneath.

When that’s done, all the really crap lawn bits and turf will be laid with the ornamental grasses and cement forms to create a modern look. This will be rather temporary as in roughly 2 years, the front of the house will come off and all the windows replaced. I can imagine my neighbors face then!

Last Saturday, I went to a local library to see Patrick Anderson give an excellent and comprehensive talk on the amazing varieties of succulents that one might consider for a garden. There was a slide show showcasing aloes that came in a riot of colors, agave and their massive sculptural forms, and the smaller and no less showy ones that were perfect for potted plants.

Patrick has a two acre garden up in Fallbrook, where he has laid out some stunning displays, with the aloe variety being his favorite. I took notes between the oo-ing and ah-ing over several striking specimens, writing down some types I’d like to get for a future garden plan and to cultivate in pots in preparation and making note of several books I knew I would want that were suggested.

I didn’t manage to find two of the three books – but was very glad I found the one I could find a the local book store: Designing with Succulents, by Debra Lee Baldwin. It’s a very hands-on read for anyone who has an interest in designing with these low maintenance and striking types of plants.

With my DIY driveway nearly complete and my central air and heating paid for, this might be a great project for me to begin planning. I’m certainly head-over-heels for succulents and cacti as I have already begun a list of plantings I’d like to use, making notes on color palette, maximum height, width, sun and soil type.

Succulents and cacti make an aesthetic impact that, in my opinion, other types of plants just can’t match. The natural repetition and geometry in the leaves and the unique forms they come in make for instant interest. You couple that with the color varieties, relatively low water and care, and lack of many serious pests make a succulent garden for me a no-brainer.

It’s alive! It’s ALIVE! It’s Signs-of-Character.com!

I’ve been working non-stop on this website for weeks now and I’m relieved to see it finally up and running. Basically, every school has a character education program and these banners and signs all suppliment the messages that any successful character education program needs to visually reinforce that said program. Check it out and let me know what you think! Better yet – go buy some of the products for your classroom, school or community center.