varieties
Relatively speaking, building a Koi pond is often the easy part. The tough part? Working with clients to select the fish who will call the new watershape "home." I have to say that I've been bitten hard by the Koi bug and have spent countless hours learning as much as I can about these beautiful fish. It's a level of involvement that
In looking back over several recent projects, I noticed that I've been using one particular genus of plants more frequently than just about any other. Its name probably evokes thoughts of petri dishes and bacterial colonies for most of us, but this plant genus - Pittosporum - has truly held an extremely valuable position in most of my plant palettes in recent years and is one of the most useful of all plant types I use. I find myself pointing them out every time I take clients to a nursery to view and select plants, and it seems I'm always trying to find ways to fit one or more of its many varieties into my planting plans. I treasure them for their great variety in
In preparation for creating plant palettes for my projects, I typically spend hours poring over my Sunset Western Garden book. I thrive on finding plants I haven't tried before, and I look especially for those I haven't seen in anyone's garden. Before I'll try any of these discoveries out on someone else, however, I'll pick up a sample plant and bring it home to my own garden - part science project, part proving ground to see how the plants perform away from the nursery. I've had many successes through the years and probably as many failures, but I learn something from every attempt. What I sometimes find are plants that are
Images of waterways almost anywhere in the world are filled with gentle sweeps of free-flowing grasses swaying in the breezes or simply lazing by the water's edge. From a watershaper's perspective, these grasses are arguably the most versatile of all plant materials. In one form or another, they exist and thrive in almost every environment in the world. They can be used by themselves to lend a natural feeling to a stream or pond, next to a contemporary watershape to make a bold statement or nestled among almost any other plants in any landscape style to soften and add texture. One of the best things about grasses (particularly the taller ones) is how gracefully they wave in the wind, adding an element of
When you think of palms, it's easy to conjure visions of Hawaii or some other tropical paradise. These graceful plants evoke a sense of serenity and thoughts of calm tropical breezes - and maybe even memories of a cool mai tai in your hand. Unfortunately for lots of us, palms thrive only in warmer climates. In the United States, for example, they generally do not grow north of the 33rd parallel, which stretches roughly from Northern California on the West Coast to South Carolina on the East Coast. This geographic factor is the main reason I haven't discussed palms before in this column. After three years, however, I figure I'm
