Last year, I went to Copenhagen for the first time. It was late May and the city was at peak bloom. I also ate and ate and ate. Rolling our bags from the Nørreport metro station to Ibsens Hotel, it felt like my friends Anthony, Brian...
Last fall, I (Chantal) moved to a new place. It's in LA's no-longer-so-hidden gem of Atwater Village, which Barbara Bestor in Bohemian Modern calls "a funny little flat neighborhood just across from Silver Lake." My place has a garden out back with four lofty camellia trees, a...
You know that feeling a garden can give you—when you're wandering around and suddenly you have to remind yourself what town/city you're even in? That's the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Just outside Los Angeles, its campus encompasses a library with more than...
My mom is an artist, a grandmother, an insurance agent and a gardener. I've always appreciated my mom for all her talents and enthusiasms, but it has only been over the past six years (since I've taken a more profound interest in plants) that I've...
Earlier this month, we spent a day guiding ourselves around home gardens all over L.A.'s Eastside and San Fernando Valley. They varied in size, design and mood, but here's what united them: All the gardens primarily grew native plants—flora indigenous to this region. Yes, it...
Mad about manzanita? Will you walk for miles to spot a bleeding heart? This spring, you can see some of California's most spectacular native gardens and plants taking place in the Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, East Bay, Sacramento and Santa Clara areas. The California...
Sure, we can grow camellias in Southern California, but our camellias will never burst against a tangy orange bald cypress, and you won't find them lingering beneath the edges of ancient live oaks draped with Spanish moss. Our daytime visit to Airlie Gardens in coastal Wilmington, North Carolina, preceded the evening...
Behold — our favorite garden on the tour. How did this home spread its vines in our hearts? We love this place — one of six stops on the La Jolla Secret Garden Tour; read Part One here — because it’s a living example of how you can add...
For the weekend we headed east — traded our cushy garden sofa and aloe hammock for a campsite in Joshua Tree National Park. Objective: to see clear skies, to clear our minds and to bond with friends we barely ever get to see. And to check out the...
Today I start a new job (!) and have my first big deadline of the semester, and also — what’s that? — Ryan has just informed me that the Super Bowl is happening this Sunday. (If your yard isn’t covered under two feet of snow...