Sometimes you don’t realize how starved a space is for plants until you throw one into the mix. (Where have you been all my life? said the bookshelf to the pothos vine.) Do that, and the next thing you know, you’re installing a whole avalanche...
Let's just say that Ryan Benoit, my partner-in-everything-actually, brings a lot to the table. Among them: plants. You might already know that he’s been designing beautiful living tables for some time now. Back in 2008 I’d proposed we create a living wall of succulents after seeing a...
At some point in recent years, the wreath took a leap. It jumped from boilerplate purchase of holiday decor to an ecstatic swirl of seasonal plants. Wreaths became something to make yourself and admire year-round. Local doors have never looked so good. If you’re as excited...
In terms of landscape juju, the iconic California canyon home occupies a wavelength all its own. Its mystique is tied to the idea of backyard as wildlife theater, and to the feeling you get there — a gravity-defying feeling that is, somehow, also very down-to-earth....
Wildflowers. They're sweet alyssum, they're art, and they're also a state of mind. I didn’t fully understand the latter until I met my friend Tanwi Nandini Islam, the Brooklyn-based writer whose debut novel, Bright Lines, will be published by Penguin in August 2015. We first met...
Modeled after the gardens of the Ming Dynasty, Portland’s Lan Su Chinese Garden is — with its smudgy florals, sharp stone edges and tastefully placed calligraphy — a bit like wandering around an illustrated scroll. The garden was our second stop during our trip to Portland,...
Ryan and I can be reclusive when we wanna be — movie nights, bay scallops to go — but I wouldn’t call us homebodies. For one thing, we spend more time in the yard than we do under our actual roof. (So what’s the word...
I was back in Brooklyn and Manhattan earlier this month, which is my favorite month to be in/live in/visit the city. It was a quick trip, during which Ryan was back in California working on a top-secret project that will be unveiled soon. In between...
Something to love about living in/near a busy city: Those moments when you find — amid the concrete hustle and bustle, the glaring hither and thither — a pocket of inspired, fertile serenity. You know, a nook that not only brings you closer to nature...
There is one hashtag that’s singing our heartsong these days, and that hashtag is #FacetheFoliage. Imagined by designer, author and creative-force-of-nature Justina Blakeney, #FacetheFoliage is an open invitation to build whimsical portraits out of leaves, stems, twigs, fruits and flowers — and to join the...