Blog

A recent assignment took me to a very special magnolia in a very special, private garden.  The resulting photo was to be a surprise gift, and I was only allowed access during one afternoon when the owner was away. I previously wrote about this adventure on Gardening...

Sometimes the less said about the creative process, the better.  Sometimes I just want to do my work and move on. If you like this computer altered photo of dawn at the beach in North Truro during my recent trip to Cape Cod, I will...

Grasses - Versatile Partners for Uncommon Garden Design was my first book with Story Publishing and the first time I teamed up with a writer to author a book.  And boy, was I glad to team up with Nancy Ondra, the extraordinary gardener and...

"Between 'reality' on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there's a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is a space...

These leaves were photographed last autumn when I visited my cousin in Vermont.  I drove all across the state looking for fall color and then found this scene by a pond behind her property in rural Proctorsville.  Something to be learned about not driving...

When Gwen Steege, my editor at Storey Books, asked if I would be interested in a succulent book, I could hardly believe my ears.  I live in California where succulents have become a staple of gardens.  Many a great fine art photographer has studied them. ...

It is somehow appropriate that I add to Mental Seeds with a post about seeds themselves.  Seeds hold the promise of renewal and after months of insignificant distractions and artificial deadlines I need to re-invigorate. My left eye continues to be blurry, now with a...

I am a member of the Lawn Reform Coalition, a group of garden designers and environmental advovates who are promoting new ways to think about the American fetish for lawns.  Since my own particular advocacy is for sustainability, and most recently, meadow gardening specifically,...

Let's actually do something about climate change.  The Green New Deal is an actual plan.  Support it. The climate has changed: recent fires in California, early hurricanes in the Gulf, Canadian ice shelves breaking off into the sea.   Let's stop wringing our hands. When young...

The Sea Ranch is legendary in the annals of California Coastal development.  In the early 1960's, ten miles of the Sonoma Coast was designated for development, in an era before there was any regulatory agency overseeing coastal development. Now, and as a result of such...