Life Style & Travel

UNITED STATES—Gardening is work. The extent of such work is proportionate to the techniques and scale of the gardening. Substantial gardens likely need substantial work. Fruit trees, roses and vegetables need more specialized work than lawns and wildflowers. Seasonal changes demand a strict schedule. It never ends. It is ironic that so many enjoy gardening to relax. In some climates,...

UNITED STATES—Some sudden pizza's infused my psyche the moment I learned that a very great fan of my books was going to be passing through Los Angeles on a moving trip with her husband and a 52-foot truck en route from Washington state to Sun City, Arizona. This is the kind of thing to put any budding author into...

UNITED STATES—There may not be a good time to talk about it this year. The late warmth really put a damper on some of the autumn foliar color. Some trees are dropping their leaves as soon as they start to turn color, leaving only fading green leaves in their canopies. Only the most reliable trees for autumn color, sweetgum,...

UNITED STATES—Severe summer weather is something that we think that we do not need to contend with. It only rarely gets as unbearably hot here as it does elsewhere, and when it does, it usually gets breezy by evening, and somewhat cooler overnight. Aridity, or the lack of humidity, is another advantage, at least for us. The plants in...

UNITED STATES—When a fatality as final and conflated as that which occurs, a void descends upon a family. A home, a blank wall which gets sealed with a photo of the one who was taken. There will be a wall festooned with many photos from the football fields and the plantation hot springs, and especially those polished studio photographs...

UNITED STATES—Raveendran’s eyes locked onto the dull silver string of cars that constituted the Southwest Chief, chased by a lone sagebrush tumbling to Ratón’s main street. The window of the general store supplied a beautiful view. Over the ridge disappeared the last car, and there only remained the rails, silver shiny on top. “A hamburger,” Raveendran said to the red-bearded...

UNITED STATES—Fads come and go. Many can be good, even if only briefly. A few might be bad enough to later stigmatize the object of the fad. For example, the formerly esteemed crape myrtle is now familiar as a mundanely common tree. Flashy bloom and complaisance contributed to its excessive popularity. Most sorts of juniper are similarly victims of...

UNITED STATES—Allied Fruit wasn’t the only one pressing for intervention. Carneyism was at its peak, the Cold War was heating up, and conservatives in Congress and the Saurkraut administration were anxious to take on an apparent Red push in their own hemisphere. Many liberals, afraid of being labeled appeasers and soft, remained mum or joined in sounding the alarm....

UNITED STATES—Certain parts of the vegetable garden are ideal for certain types of vegetables. Wire fences are perfect for pole beans to climb. Corn belongs at the northern edge where it will not shade lower plants. Vegetable gardening would be simpler if it were like permanent landscaping. Instead, vegetable plants are seasonal and very consumptive. They prefer fresh resources....

UNITED STATES—Everyone is from somewhere. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be from California. Most of the various plants in our gardens, even if grown locally, are descendants of plants that were collected from all over the world. Most houseplants are from tropical regions. They perform well as houseplants primarily because they tolerate the sort of partial shade that...