Drought Tolerance Versus Container Gardening
UNITED STATES—There are probably just as many reasons to not grow plants in containers as there are reasons to justify container gardening. Some potted plants consume less water than they would in the ground, but only because their demand is proportionate to their limited size. They only want more water in the ground because they can grow larger.
The most...
How To Tame A Wild Storage Unit (Part 2)
UNITED STATES—An intriguing fact: modern self-storage was born right smack in Hollywood. Built in 1925 during silent movies’ golden age, the 14-story Hollywood Storage Co. was the tallest building in Hollywood.
Located at Highland Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood Storage Co. was also a radio station, and topped by two radio towers for the station in the pent-house, but...
Passion Fruit, A Tricky, But Tasty Fruit
UNITED STATES—I’ll be the first to admit I’m a lover of fruits, but particularly tropical fruits. Mango, papaya, coconut, kiwi are consistent members in my refrigerator. About a year ago, I discovered a fruit that I have come to absolutely adore. Any ideas which fruit I might be referring to? Its passion fruit!
Yep, for most Americans this is a...
Be Careful With Toxic Plants
UNITED STATES—Plants are so much more intelligent than they get credit for. Many use color, fragrance and flavorful nectar to get insects and animals to disperse their pollen for them. Some provide fruit for animals that inadvertently take and disperse their seeds. Others use barbs or sticky substances to attach their seeds to unknowing animals that take them away....
How To Tame A Storage Locker (Part 1)
UNITED STATES—Storage lockers can be seen as the ludicrous but logical extension of our love of “stuff.” Silly fools—we think—to be paying good money to keep all that stuff. So much that one has never had the time to look at, much less use, so much that may be of value, and there it stagnates.
And yet, despite the obvious...
Foliage Can Provide Color Too
Flowers get all the credit for color. They certainly are the most colorful features in the garden, as well as the most fragrant. However, foliage can do so much more than simply provide green. It can be hued with yellow, red, blue, purple, bronze, gray, or variegated with white or yellow. Plants with colorful foliage can range in size...
Sympathy For The Judge
UNITED STATES—My Guggenheim was about to run out, a Guggenheim from the State of California. To add insult to injury, some benefits already provided were being withdrawn because I had not properly noted on the weekly questionnaire that I had worked on when I had worked. Allegedly, I did not note the work hours, but I was sure I had...
There Are Rules To Hedging
UNITED STATES—All the wrong plants get shorn. Mow, blow and go gardeners are known for shearing everything that they can reach into creepy and unnaturally geometric shapes, usually flared out at the top, and bulging obtrusively into otherwise usable space. Yet, functional formally shorn hedges are passe and almost never shorn properly.
First of all, a formal hedge should be...
In Defense Of “Scottish” (Part 3)
UNITED STATES—I am defiantly and unapologetically “Scottish.” I shop for parking meters that still flash green dots, betokening bonus time. I don’t pinch pennies but I pick them up. Right in the middle of Robertson Blvd. I retrieved two silver Roosevelts, one eye riveted on the traffic, the other one on the coins—a wall-eyed sight I must have presented—the...
Fragrant Flowers Often Lack Color
UNITED STATES—It's presumptuous to believe that all the fancy breeding that is done to enhance the characteristics of flowers necessarily 'improves' them. Breeding only makes flowers more appealing to those who enjoy them in their gardens. Most flowers were already quite efficient for their intended function in their respective natural habitats long before humans started tampering with them. As...