Sage Outdoor Designs » landscape design

Even if you have no interest at all in growing your own vegetables, you should still pay a visit to Soggy Creek Seeds website where you’ll find such gems as Pea Seeds for Peace. Strange Squash from Outer Space. Kissing Booth Beets. And my personal favorite: the Hobo Turnip.  Here is their description of the humble Hobo Turnip:

Since these turnips keep well while tramping around, they became popular with hobos who could make many good meals with each one. Still today, tramps trot around with these turnips tied to sticks. The Hobo Turnip has an impatient-sorta way of sitting on the soil rather than settling down into it. This seems to suggest a certain restlessness, like it is some rootless vagrant that moves along with the winds of opportunity. In a sense, these turnips have become like their hobo friends, never to put down roots. (Performs well in poor soil, even trainyards).

And a thank you to Dirt du Jour, for turning me on to Soggy Creek Seeds!

In San Diego, we can’t grow Peony, not in most of San Diego, at least. Well actually, I’ve heard rumors that we can grow some very special varieties that can take our mild weather and lack of cold, but I still have yet to see one in real life thriving in a garden here (hint, hint: for anyone who has tried and succeeded- I want to know about it!). So instead, we have to make do with the few that make it here as cut flowers.

Aren’t they just gorgeous?! So elegant, soft, papery, and just downright summery. They make me want to put on a tea dress and picnic on the lawn. I wish mine would last and last, but like summer, they are so fleeting.

So, for all of you East Coasters and Mid-Westerners who envy our long gentle summers here, just know that there is at least one San Diegan envying your Peonies. Oh, and your lilacs, but that is a whole other rant!

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you all have some time this weekend to relax and enjoy the sunshine. Picture this: you and your friends, a few frosty beer steins, a loaf of crusty bread, a sharp earthy cheese and a balmy summer evening….. wouldn’t it be even more perfect with this fun vintage picnic table? This is the Biergarten Picnic set from Napa Style- you can get it here.

 

 This is a close-up of the top of the secondary wall. See how they have created a well so that the water is forced to spill over the wall in a very uniform way? If you want a fountain that creates this whitewater effect, that’s the way to get it. Otherwise, the water may spill out unevenly.

This photo probably shows the whitewater effect a little better. The other thing I like about this fountain is that the stones are carefully placed in the pond so that people can hop onto them and get close enough to the fountain to touch the whitewater. I love this! Too often, with large public fountain like this one, people have no way to interact with the water, and isn’t that half the fun? The little kid in all of us still wants to play in the water, and I for one vote that we let her/him!

The scale of this feature is obviously too big for a residential garden, but I do think the takeaway lessons here are good ones: 1) texture is an amazing thing, 2) if you want water to spill evenly, you have to make a trough for it to come out of, and 3) let people play in the fountain ’cause life is so much more fun that way.

On a recent visit to Ponte Vineyards in Temecula, California, I was impressed by the restraint used in designing the garden spaces. The palette is minimalist: white flowers, emerald green foliage and a plant list with very little variety. The effect is graceful and elegant, probably very easy to maintain, and a joy to walk through.

Here are the plants I spotted in their minimalist palette: box hedges, white iceberg roses and white flower carpet roses, privet hedges, Italian Cypress, variegated and solid colored Pittosporum tobira, Chinese Elm, Sycamore, White Birch, and (of course) grape vines.

While you are there, make sure to stay for lunch. They have a large outdoor restaurant that is sure to satisfy your foodie leanings.  The fresh chive dip that comes with focaccia bread for dipping is heavenly!