Here is my trio of vases inspired by my "Leaf it up" story in the June issue of Better Homes & Gardens. Each tiny arrangement features at least one cut succulent paired with foliage from a similarly-colored perennial.

Sometimes all you need are a few pretty leaves to conjure up a gorgeous tabletop arrangement or centerpiece. I have my talented friend Susan Appleget-Hurst, former senior associate garden editor for Better Homes & Gardens, to thank for producing a story that illustrates this idea (with several cool designs).

Susan, who now blogs at Cake in the Garden (check it out!) designed the lovely, leafy bouquets and co-produced the story with art director Scott Johnson. Then I was lucky enough to be asked to create the accompanying text. Pick up this month’s BH&G or click here for a peek at the story.

A turquoise vase gets the cool touch from lemon-lime and chartreuse ingredients.

The idea of using leaves as cut flower ingredients is nothing new. But it’s always nice to see someone else’s twist on the technique. One of the things I love about Susan’s designs is her use of white vases in several different sizes. The white really offsets the leaves and focuses the viewer’s interest on the form, texture and scale of the various cut foliage. I also loved the monochromatic and contrasting combinations of leaves.

After writing the text, I kind of forgot about this story until I opened up the June issue and saw how beautifully it turned out. I decided to try my own version of this floral design project (I can’t get more “seasonal, local and sustainable” than my own backyard!).

Looking around my landscape, I realized how many awesome succulent plants grow here. Even when a sedum, aeonium or crassula stem breaks off of the plant or gets bumped when someone pushes a chair out from the patio table, I try to “rescue” the severed piece and put it in water. Inevitably, a few roots will emerge and I can plant that cutting. So clipping a few succulent pieces for the designs you see above didn’t kill me. Once these pieces root, in water, they will be returned to the potting soil or garden bed.

My idea: To showcase the amazing color diversity of succulents. For each of three color schemes – silver-blue, maroon, and lime green – I looked for perennial foliage to match with the companion succulent. Unlike Susan’s white vases, I tried to pair the foliage hues with my slender colored-glass bud vases. I have owned this trio in green, tangerine and turquoise glass for several years. I think they came from IKEA.

These designs look sweet displayed on my block-printed cotton table cloth (it’s nice that each picks up on the botanical pattern and palette).

Here is what I included in each:

Orange vase with silver-blue ingredients.

Deep purple-maroon ingredients look dramatic against the vibrant green vase.

The Orange Glass contrasts beautifully with three silvery-blue ingredients. The succulent element is called Senecio mandraliscae. Here in Southern California, people grow this shrubby, South African succulent as a groundcover. I actually have some in a pot and I love its slightly curved blue-gray leaves. Softer textures come from my other fave silvery garden plants. First is Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’, which has lacy foliage. I clipped the taller stems from Westringia fruticosa, also called coast rosemary. It’s from Australia, has a rosemary-like texture, and looks just gorgeous growing at the base of my fruitless olive tree.  

The Green Glass is a perfect foil for the deep purple-maroon ingredients. My succulent starting point was to add two small Aeonium rosettes. Not sure of the cultivar because I inherited this plant when we moved here in 2006.  Almost like a touch of embroidery, the dark plum version of sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas) spills from the neck of the slender vase.

The Turquoise Glass gets a fresh accent from lime green and chartreuse stems. I started with an un-named lemon-lime sempervivum that has pretty pointed leaves. These bold forms have a fluffy collar of chartreuse dead nettle (Lamium galeobdolon).

My challenge to you is to walk outside, clippers in hand, and create a foliage bouquet with what you have growing in your garden. Don’t overlook the unexpected ingredients. Hey – maybe that awesome artichoke leaf in the vegetable patch is worthy of a starring role in a vase. Or perhaps the conifers could stand in for my succulent ingredients. Have some fun! The best part? It means you have a lovely centerpiece for free!

A pretty stunning aloe-as-sculpture in one of Joseph Marek's gardens.

Scott Shrader turned an ancient millstone into a succulent planter

Garden Scouting: It sounds so luxurious, doesn’t it?

Spending four days scouting some of the most beautiful and unique residential landscapes in and around Los Angeles! 

I do it all the time – visit and tour gardens that might just make it onto the pages of the magazines and newspapers to which I contribute. And yet, achieving the “get” is not always that luxurious. It’s fun and rewarding. But also hard work. 

Successful garden scouting requires lots of telephone calls to set up appointments. It means I have to lean on my personal connections to cajole invitations from reclusive garden owners or rock star designers. And it demands that I put way too many miles on my Volvo odometer. A lot! (Thank goodness for NPR.) 

Most of all, this job means being extremely open to everything I see, while also keeping out a discerning eye for that magical glimpse of a perfect story. 

It’s alot like being on a treasure hunt when you don’t know the ending, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! 

Jenny Andrews, executive editor for Garden Design, one of the magazines for which I am contributing editor, was in Los Angeles a few weeks ago for a four-day scouting marathon. As she put it, it felt like we were college roommates for four days . . . probably because Jenny ended up staying with me for most of the time. She got to experience the craziness of the Prinzing-Brooks household with kids, dog, schedules, and more. And, we put 700 miles on my car in four days. We were both exhausted by the end. 

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ATTENTION Better Homes & Gardens readers! Thank you for visiting! Click here to see my gallery of circles, orbs, spheres, and globes in the garden. 

The Summer 2010 issue of Nature’s Garden (a Better Homes & Gardens title edited by the very talented Jane Austin McKeon) features two articles by me. Here’s a sneak peek at those stories. 

The fist one, titled “Got Nectar?”, is about naturalists and nursery owners Steve and Donna Brigham. 

The story, produced by Andrea Caughey and photographed by Ed Gohlich, describes how the Brighams created a 1/4-acre Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden at their former nursery in the San Diego area. 

Buena Creek Gardens is now owned by Steve and Shari Matteson, and you can visit year-round for a great selection of native and wildlife-friendly plants. You can read the full article, here. 

If you’re inspired to attract more hummingbirds and butterflies to your backyard, take a gander down these two lists, shared by Steve Brigham. 

You can meet Steve and hear him lecture in Pasadena on Septemer 25th, as part of Pacific Horticulture’s symposium, “Style and Whimsy in the Sustainable Garden.” Steve will speak on “Attracting Birds & Butterflies to Your Garden and Keeping Them There.”  

”]Top Nectar Plants for Hummers 

Brazilian verbena (Verbena bonariensis); 3-6 ft., summer 

*Butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii and hybrids); 3-10 ft., spring and summer 

Bottlebrush (Callistemon citrinus and hybrids); 10-15 ft., spring and summer 

Coral bell (Heuchera sp.); 1-2 ft., spring to fall 

Firecracker flower or cigar plant (Cuphea ignea or C. llavea); 1-3 ft., spring and summer 

*Flowering sage (Salvia sp.); countless varieties in perennial (1-3 ft.) and shrub (2-5 ft.) forms, spring to fall 

Fuchsia (Fuchsia x hybrida), 3-6 ft. or trailing type for hanging basket, summer 

Grevillea (Grevillea sp.), shrub form (3-8 ft.), summer 

*Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), 3 ft., summer 

Penstemon (Penstemon sp. and hybrids), 1-2 ft., spring to fall 

Peruvian lily (Alstroemeria hybrids), 1-2 ft., summer 

Torch lily (Kniphofia hybrids), 2-5 ft., summer to fall 

Butterflies and lavender - a scene from Epcot's International Flower & Garden Festival

Top Nectar Plants for Butterflies 

Butterfly flower (Gaura lindheimeri), 2-4 ft, spring to fall 

Gloriosa daisy (Rudbeckia hirta), 3-4 ft., summer 

Heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens), 3-4 ft., summer 

Jupiter’s beard (Centranthus ruber), 3 ft., summer and fall 

Lantana (Lantana hybrids), 2-5 ft., summer 

Marigold (Tagetescultivars), 2-4 ft., spring and summer 

Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia), 2-3 ft., summer 

Pincushion flower (Scabiosa columbaria), 2 ft., summer 

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), 3-4 ft., summer 

Shasta daisy (Chrysanthemum maximum), 2-4 ft., summer and fall 

Tickseed (Coreopsis grandiflora and cultivars), 1-2 ft., summer 

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium and hybrids), 2 ft., summer 

Here’s how to find Buena Creek Gardens: 418 Buena Creek Rd., San Marcos, California, 760-744-2810; www.buenacreekgardens.com 

Three native plants + one terra cotta pot to satisfy hummingbirds

My second story is part of the magazine’s “Weekend Project” – an easy-to-accomplish design idea created by Patty Roess of the Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano, California.

“Sweeten the Pot” includes all the steps you need to attract hummingbirds to your patio or deck with a container full of nectar-rich native plants. 

Here are the ingredients: 

• a decorative container, at least 18 inches in diameter, to accomodate three plants
• broken pottery shards
• good-quality (organic) potting soil
• native plants with features hummingbirds appreciate (tubular blooms, hot or bright colors, lots of nectar); Tree of Life suggests Dudleya edulis, Mimulus aurantiacus and Salvia clevelandii.
• natural accents, such as stones and branches

1. Use one or more pieces of broken pottery to cover the drainage hole. 

2. Fill approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the container with high-quality potting soil. Tree of Life Nursery uses a special fast-draining mix developed for native plants. To make your own mix, combine equal parts regular potting soil and commercial potting mix formulated for desert or cactus plants. 

3. Arrange plants in the container, placing the tallest plant toward the back. Add soil until it reaches 1/2- to 1-inch below the pot’s rim. Add decorative accents, such as mementos you have gathered in nature. Water thoroughly. In warm climates, you can transplant these California natives to a sunny garden as soon as they finish blooming.

Enjoy!

A dreamy landscape in the sky, designed by Lauren Schneider

If you pick up the June issue of Sunset magazine – the one with skewers of salmon on a cobalt blue plate on the cover – turn to pages 51 and 52.

There, you will see a short (and I mean short!) story by moi. It started out much longer, but is now not much more than the length of a photo caption.

As these things go, I can’t complain. Thanks to the way we communicate these days, full-length magazine articles now read like Cliff Notes versions of themselves. The photo tells most of the story and then a few captions and call-outs do the rest of the heavy lifting.

In this case, the story called “Lush Look, Low Water” was inspired by a rooftop garden owned by Mike McDonald and Jill Martenson, a visionary young couple who built Margarido House, the first LEED-H Platinum home in Northern California.

The “green” home and its eco-friendly landscape have received a lot of press, but the Sunset story really gives readers the specifics on designer Lauren Schneider’s approach to the roof garden. A special thank you goes to Sunset’s Julie Chai for shepherding this story from our initial conversation to the final publication.

Check out the attractive clumps of Libertia periginans, a New Zealand iris relative valued for its bronzy-orange blades and vibrant color.

Surprisingly dreamy, soft and fluid, despite its exposure to the harshest of elements (wind, sun, saltwater, for example), Lauren Schneider’s design can be replicated in similar rooftop or in-ground conditions. The photos you see here are mine. I included the original full-length story in my articles section.

Eight hardworking native and Mediterranean plants create the central elements of Lauren’s design:

Echinocactus grusonii, Golden barrel cactus

Lewisia cotyledon ‘Sunset Strain’

Nassella tenuissima, Mexican feather grass

Sedum spathulifolium ‘Cape Blanco’

Lavandula multifida, Fernleaf lavender

Libertia perigrinans

Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’

Sedum spurium ‘Voodoo’

Take a seat. A succulent seat, that is.

Voila! My sedum-planted wicker chair as garden art

If you’ve ever admired the charm and whimsy of a planted chair, you’re not alone. I’ve always liked plants combined as a design element with furniture. When my mom passed along Grandma’s 1940s wicker porch set, I knew that the slightly unraveled rocking chair was destined for a new role in my garden. So two weekends ago, on Mother’s Day, I started creating a sedum seat for the cherished rocker.

After giving Grandma’s wicker chair a fresh coat of herbal green paint, I was ready to turn the family hand-me-down into an ornamental garden feature. Here’s Part Two of my Mother’s Day gardening project, which illustrates how to prepare and plant the chair. 

Step One

Step One: Using a sheet of 1/4-inch wire mesh and a pair of wire clippers, I cut out a seat-sized section to fit into the chair’s base. A staple gun came in handy to secure the mesh to the piece of wood bracing.

Step Two: I layered sections of dry Angel Moss over the mesh. A highly-absorbent variety of sphagnum moss, Angel moss is a nifty product that I discovered last month while teaching four container and hanging basket design classes for Gardening How-To magazine. The moss hails from the bogs of New Zealand and, because of the way it is farmed and harvested, is considered a renewable resource. You can purchase pre-formed liners to fit into wire hanging baskets or flat sheets to use for projects such as mine.

Step Two

As dry as a piece of brittle cardboard, Angel moss changes its character dramatically when exposed to water. It’s a fabulous medium for baskets, window boxes and the mesh seat of my wicker chair because the moss proves itself to be an excellent material for holding soil and plants. It doesn’t dry out as quickly as the kind of coco-fibre or woodland moss we’re used to here in North America.

Step Three: On top of the Angel moss I spread approximately 3 inches of my planting medium. I’ve learned that the best environment for growing succulents (especially in containers) is to mix equal parts organic potting soil with cactus mix. Erin Taylor, owner of Botanik, a great garden emporium in Summerland (near Santa Barbara) taught me this recipe soon after I moved to Southern California. One look at her shop’s awesome succulent containers and I knew she was speaking from experience.

Step Four: My friend Jean Zaputil, who I call my garden muse for the 25 years of design, horticulture and landscaping knowledge she’s shared with me, was visiting from Seattle last weekend (along with our mutual friend Jan Hendrickson).

We had a little free time on Sunday morning so Jean offered to do the planting layout for my chair. She worked with about 14-16 small succulent plants of varying colors (ranging from silvery-white to lime green to red-burgundy).

Step Four

Before planting the “seat,” we tackled the tricky gap in one of the chair’s rolled arms.

Plants in the "arm"

A total negative from my mother’s point of view (the shredded wicker arm reminded her that a childhood dog had gnawed on the arm and practically ruined it for comfortable use), I decided to use the gaping void as a spot for more succulents.

Jean fashioned a shallow tray with the 1/4-inch wire mesh sheeting. We fit it under the arm and wired it into place. Just as with the seat, we inserted some pieces of Angel moss and poured in some soil. The chewed-away openings now hold three succulents, including the very pretty Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’. Its chartreuse-color and fluffy form will drape over the arm and soon obscure the mesh tray.

Jean Zaputil, as always, my garden muse

Jean arranged the sedums, sempervivums and other succulents to create the planted seat.

Even though the root space appears shallow, these plants will do just fine. They are ideally suited for my project – able to withstand extended periods of drought.  A quick “shower” every week or so will give the plants enough moisture to take root in the soil/Angel moss and begin to spread, eventually filling in the seat.

And pretty soon, I’ll have a lush, succulent “cushion” for my grandmother’s wicker chair.

Now I’m looking at a modern wicker chair – a Pier One version with leg bent from too many teenagers leaning back in it while playing X-box games – and thinking about giving that chaise a new life in the garden. It’s currently natural colored, but maybe a coat of paint and a new planting theme will give it the necessary style to move outside.

Wonder what plants belong in that chair? Maybe I’ll paint it peacock blue and do an all-white flowering scheme! Stay tuned.

Agave attenuata - the most sculptural and simply perfect form in the Southern California garden

Joanne White leads the way along the rose-laden path in Marylyn Ginsberg and Chuck Klaus’s garden

I have spent many moments this past week reliving the wonderful experience of leading the Northwest Horticultural Society’s “LA Garden Tour” last weekend.  

It was a lot of work for the group’s tour co-chairs Gillian Mathews and Renee Montgelas and me, but we agree that the four-day excursion was a huge success (well, we won’t discuss the bus fiasco on Saturday night – no fault of our own!).  

I said “yes” to planning and leading the tour after several years during which Gillian and I fantasized about putting together a weekend trip.  

Gillian and I have known each other since 2000 or 2001 when I was still reporting on retail trends for Puget Sound/Eastside Business Journals in Seattle and she had just launched her garden emporium, Ravenna Gardens. From there, we not only helped each other with our respective auction projects, but we became friends. Gillian, in fact, is responsible for me assuming the editorial duties for the horticultural society’s Garden Notes, a quarterly newsletter that I edited for a few years on two occasions.  

We first worked on a tour together in 2005 when I led an autumn weekend to Eastern Washington/Yakima area. And only three weeks after I first arrived in Southern California in late August 2006, it was serendipitous that Gillian and Renee brought an NHS group to Santa Barbara and Pasadena. I joined them for much of that tour and honestly feel that it was my happy introduction to Southern California horticulture and landscape design. When I visited some of Santa Barbara’s great public and private gardens and nurseries with the group, I thought to myself: “I am going to be okay down here.”  

Gillian may not realize how directly and indirectly she has influenced and encouraged the course of my career to leave business writing and embark on garden and design writing – but she has!  

Fast forward 3-1/2 years and it was my turn to show off LA to many old and several new NHS friends. Here’s a recap and some photos to introduce the awesome design style of LA’s gardens:

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Gregg Fleishman's "Puzzle Prefab Shelter" and Laura Morton's dog shelter with a planted roof were two features of the New California Garden, designed by members of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers/Greater LA Chapter

During the weekend of April 30-May 2, the 127-acre Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanical Garden presented “Living Green: Essentials for the Home Gardener,” an outdoor flower and garden show that was an essential place to welcome the spring growing season.

The LA Garden Show seems to expand in size and style each year, adding exciting and informative speakers on topics ranging from sustainable design (“Green Architecture: Volume and Shape in the Mediterranean Garden,” by Gary Jones) to edible gardening (“Ten Trees in One: Grafting Citrus and Avocados,” with Darren Butler).

There are al fresco-style gardens, planted in or on top of real soil, just like Chelsea and other outdoor garden shows, which I think is a vast improvement over those dark, fluorescent-lit caverns that house indoor displays.

And of course, while the somewhat aggressive male peacocks are strolling and squawking, the two-legged garden show-goers are chatting with designers, snapping pics, waiting in line for lunch (I loved my chicken tacos, served with fresh cilantro), and, of course, doing some plant- and art-related retail therapy!

One of the Arboretum's resident peacocks strolling the greens

I mention shopping because as far as I’ve been able to discern, the marketplace at the LA Garden Show is one of the very best stops for plants, garden art, accessories and other must-have items for the horticulturally-inclined.

 I only wish it lasted longer than 3 days because I didn’t get around to all the plant-sellers, horticultural societies, garden accessory purveyors and other vendors. I learned that efforts by the Arboretum’s volunteer marketplace managers resulted in nearly twice the number of exhibitors this year over last. It was a well-curated lineup of offerings (thankfully, no schlocky stuff).

The festive and enticing Garden Markeplace - where we all engaged in a little horticultural retail therapy

I checked in with a few of my favorite folks including Pacific Horticulture Magazine, Southern California Horticultural Society, Leslie Codina Ceramics and TerraSculpture.

A tiny tabletop landscape by Smallweeds

 A new discovery: Smallweeds, which designs miniature tablescapes and also sells miniature accessories for making your own tabletop and fairy gardens.

I did a lot of browsing and gabbing with old and new friends, a little shopping, and a lot of note-taking while spotting new products, themes and trends. One of my very favorite picks of the weekend is the powder-coated obelisk series, created by Annette Gutierrez and Mary Gray. The women own Pot-ted, an eclectic, must-visit garden shop on Los Feliz in Los Angeles.

Yowzer! Shiny and bold, the powdercoated metal orbs are the hot, new "objet" for your garden.

As experienced and artistic film industry veterans, the women sure know how to create high style on a shoestring. They also know that it’s often easier to design something themselves rather than wait around for the marketplace to catch up with a need or opportunity.

Thus, the colorful objets for the garden, seen at left. Can’t you just imagine how elegant and artful these spherical shapes would look, grouped one, two, or three on a lawn, a gravel patio, or even tucked into a perennial border with stems and petals weaving in and out of the openings?

Annette and Mary aren’t claiming to have invented the ringed orbs (some of the earliest ones were made from leftover steel straps used to hold wine caskets together). But they do love the way the steel shapes take to easily to the powdercoated color. And since aqua and orange are the Pot-ted purveyors’ two favorite garden colors, they started with this palette. You can visit the shop or call to inquire about shipping. There are three sizes and boy do they look awesome: 30-inch ($169); 24-inch ($139) and 18-inch ($98).

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