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What Happened to Winter? February in the Garden

I love to wander around my yard and see the small things: the arrival of bees (or aphids), the changing of leaves, the first spring flowers. I’m…

Four Tips for Choosing the Best Gardening Tool (and a Free Bonus!)

Choosing The Best Tool For The Job I’ve collected a lot of garden tools over the years. Some I have purchased. Some my dad left to me when he pa…

Easy Steps to Grow Your Vegetable Garden – FREE Webinar

Hi Garden Friends! Have you always wanted to grow a vegetable garden, but don’t know where to start? How cool would it be to step outside and ga…

I’m So Happy With You – Sunflowers

Companion Planting Sunflowers With Corn And Cucumbers One in an occasional series on Companion Planting. Did you know that plants can have friends in …

Soil Preparation Matters If You Want Your Plants To Be Healthy

In what way does soil preparation aid for better growth of plants Angela Thomas from NY City Pest Control is our guest blogger this week and gives so…

My Yard Looks Like S#*&!!! (The Cleanup)

I’ll admit it, I spend so much time making beautiful gardens for my clients that I often neglect my own garden. You know, the cobbler’s ch…

How To Keep Your Garden In Top Shape In November

Hi Garden Friends! Thanks so much for sticking with me. November in Southern California usually brings more fall-like weather (cooler temps, low cloud…

Baby It’s Cold Out There (Or Not)

December In The Garden So the snow has started falling, and the ground is frozen…cue sound of needle scratching across a record. Actually here …

January in the Garden – Resolutions

Garden Resolutions When our gardens are healthy via good soil, sufficient water, and appropriate plants for our climates and property, they thrive. Pe…

5 Fabulous Facts About Ladybugs (Shhhh, they’re not really even bugs!)

Happy Valentine’s Day! Ladybugs remind me of little Valentine hearts scurrying around plants. But, instead of shooting arrows of love, they pref…

Basil, King of Herbs (and a cocktail, of course)

Somehow in my series on culinary herbs and how to use them in cocktails, I left out one of the best known and most widely herbs: basil. You would thin…

December in My Garden

Happy December! I worked in retail for two major companies for a really long time, so the holiday season for me involved looong hours, not much time w…

Garden Lifestyle – Color

I had the great opportunity to work with the very talented designer Caitlin McCarthy of Caitlin & Caitlin on a patio garden in the Silver Lake nei…

My Garden Goals

Happy New Year, garden friends! I don’t really do New Year’s Eve as I can barely stay awake past 10:00PM, but I do love champagne. I also …

Help Me, Help My Garden!

I have always been a huge admirer and fan of advice columnists like Dear Abby, Ask Amy, Dear Prudie. When I was still in Human Resources, I was thrill…

How cute are these guys? Not so cute if they are in your garden munching away on your Hydrangea… Deer Proof Plants Q: I love seeing deer in my …

Help Me! Help My Garden! #3 Bugs and Berries

Today we tackle aphids, and planting strawberries and blueberries. Bugs on my roses! Q: My roses are starting to bud, and I can’t wait to …

From Garden to Vase- 8 Favorite Flowers for Your Cutting Garden

Confession time…When I was little, say 10 years old, my neighborhood friends and I would grab a pair of scissors to wander our neighborhood and…

Bursting with Flavor! 6 Tips for Growing Your Own Herbs

I remember the first time I ate a salad with herbs in it. Amidst all of the typical lettucey (not really a word, but I am going for it anyway) flavors…

Colorful Shade – Ways to Bring Color to a Shade Garden

Green is a color. In fact, when you look at just about any garden, I bet you can pick out several shades of green. As I am sure you know, gardens can …

Jardesca Verde…What I’m Drinking this Week

A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of being introduced to a lovely California aperitif called Jardesca. Its beautiful bottle and botanical not…

A Good Dill of Herbal Usefulness

The word dill means to soothe, and this herb of Mediterranean and southwestern Asian origin has been used as a medicinal herb as far back as ancient E…

Dilly Martini…What I’m Drinking This Week

I picked dill as the herb of the week, so what would work with dill in a cocktail? I kept thinking of dill pickles, and thought why not? If you can ha…

Treading Into Cilantro Land – Herb of the Week

When I was in my late teens, I went on a backpacking trip in Northern California. The weather was warm, and I clearly remember being on a hike near a …

Grapefruit Cilantro Margaritas – What I’m Drinking This Week

I will say that folks are pretty passionate about their feelings for cilantro. In my very informal and unscientific pole, the cilantro lovers came out…

Lovely Lavender – Herb of the Week

If you had to think of one herb that has been used since ancient times and is probably the most popular scent in a dizzying array of bath and body pro…

Long Live Sage!

“How can a man grow old who has sage in his garden?” ~Chinese Proverb Common Sage (Salvia officinalis) is considered by many cultures to b…

October in My Garden

I think it’s finally fall in Los Angeles. The Liquid Amber trees are starting to turn a brilliant red. The nights and early mornings (the dog wa…

You’ve Ripped Out the Lawn, Now What? 6 Tips for Planting Drought Tolerant Gardens

If you live in Southern California, unless you’ve been living in the dust under a rock, you know we are in the midst of a terrible drought. When…

November in My Garden

While I wait for potential clients to decide whether or not to hire me, I contemplate my own garden. It’s November, and in most parts of the cou…

Welcome to My Garden

“The gardener cultivates wildness, but he does so carefully and respectfully, in full recognition of its mystery.” ― Michael Pollan, Sec…

Patricia’s Garden

I’ll admit that I am an introvert. I’m not shy, but I am pretty much a classic introvert. Situations with too many people drain my energy …

Rosemary is for Remembrance…Herb of the Week

“As for rosemary, I let it run all over my garden walls, not only because my bees love it but because it is the herb sacred to remembrance and t…

Apple Picking

My favorite place to go in August is Sebastopol, California, which is a beautiful bucolic town in Sonoma County about an hour north of San Francisco. …

Honey Kissed Rosemary- What I’m drinking this week

Follow my blog with Bloglovin My goal is to introduce you to a culinary herb each week, and then show you how to drink it. Well, someone (probably the…

This Year, Next Year, Some Thyme – Herb of the Week

Amongst the plethora of puns, I always have fresh thyme in my garden, and a jar of dried thyme in my spice drawer. I use it the most of any culinary h…

Community Lemon – What I’m Drinking this Week

In thinking about this week’s cocktail with the herb of the week – thyme, I got it into my head that the drink needed to have fresh Meyer …

A Garden Etsy Treasury

It’s still 100+ degrees out, and I’m itching to get into the garden to pull out all of the dead and dying remnants of my summer garden. I …

Sage Advice…What I’m Drinking This Week

Not my Circus…Not my Monkeys (Polish Proverb) Oy! It’s been one of those weeks: sick child, 110 degree heat, business drama, etc., etc. T…

Mint Everywhere!

Plants

So you’re a young river nymph, and Hades, the god of the underworld, takes a liking to you. You think he’s kind of hot, so you start a tor…