Dream Porch

Dream porches are a recurring topic in my life.    I especially love these low slung chairs from Viva Terra, but at $575 for the pair, I think I'll just enjoy dreaming about them on my imaginary front porch.

Al Fresco

photog unknown

via Apartment Therapy via Dwellings

Vermont Morning

Photos by Polly Montgomery

This morning, as she went to hang the hummingbird feeder, she glanced down and saw the electric green moth still sleeping. 

A Moth is Born:  a friend is made.

The garden is a-hum

And I especially liked this guy's face.  The bugs were loving the bulbine yesterday.  More pics to come of some interesting bees that were humming around it.

South African Bulbine is one of my favorite plants.  Although it is not a native, it does extremely well in bad soil with little water.  The feathery long flowers look beautiful when they catch the light in the late afternoon.  Don't be confused by the name Bulbine, though.  These plants are not related to the onion family or bulbs.  They spread by rhizomes (and make for easy propagation), and their leaves are used medicinally the same way as Aloe.  Apparently Rastafarians make tea from its juicy leaves.

This book was kept by my bed at my grandmother's house and obviously inspired my forays into the spirited woods.

Artemesia and Rosemary

In the garden today

I'm a sucker for anything in waxed canvas.  Found here: Archival Clothing.  Perfect for gathering in the woods or on beaches.

Nature Styling

I love the styling of natural elements in these shots.  The tiny succulent terrariums, the strewn seedpods, the beautifully cluttered window sill (I love window sills).  As for the scarves in the images, I am a big fan of the tousle haired, wrapped in soft natural fibers, woman in the woods look.  Notaire is now on my radar.

Scarves and photo styling by Sarah Van Raden, photographs by Eric Rose.

Mudlarking

photo by Stephen Lewis, from the TMagazine

Whoa: T Magaizine, The Wading Game

Some people have recurring dreams about flying or breathing underwater or something else that makes them feel elated.  My recurring dreams involve treasure hunting: walking into a thrift store that sells everything I could ever want, for a dollar; stumbling upon a garage sale that is in an old mansion that hasn't been opened up in 100yrs, and everything is a dollar; more to the point, the dream where I am walking on a rocky beach looking for beach glass but realizing that instead of beach glass, the soft waves are washing up antique jewelry or artifacts.  These are delirious dreams from which I wake up disappointed.

But this article proves that variations of dreams can be true.  The next time I visit London, this is on my MUST DO list (followed by a long stroll through the V&A).

On a similar note, when I was in Philadelphia last summer, I went for a walk to a small overgrown arboretum.  There was a river/creek running at the back of the property, and on the other side was a rather large and run down apartment complex.  Not very idyllic.   I stepped off the path onto a rocky bed surrounded by grass and garbage.  There was an abandoned fire pit and some beer bottles.  But peering at the rocks and pebbles a little longer, I noticed large amounts of "beach" glass.  A seasoned gatherer, I began picking it up, more and more of it, and definitely got into a bit of a trance.   It was old glass, iridescent colors and thick bottle bottoms.  I'm not sure if there was once a dump nearby or if the push of the creek forced these pieces onto this one rocky bank.  After a good wash, they're now in a ziplock bag in my desk waiting until I can unpack their history a little better.  For now they're just beautiful pieces of garbage.

Los Angeles Wildflowers

Eriogonum elongatum (longstem buckwheat) on Mt. Washington.  My favorite California native plant.  I stumbled upon this in an open field when I first moved here.  Little did I know then how important CA Natives would become to me.  I have since bought several from Theodore Payne that are thriving in my garden.  More info here: calflora.org

In the garden this May, building up to the bloom in late summer.

Mom and Grandma, post hike, in Vermont sometime in the mid 70's.  If only I'd inherited those legs!

Dreaming of Vermont

Last August, I visited my parents in southern Vermont like I do every summer.  My mom is good at finding secret spots in the woods and I always enjoy exploring them with her.  In addition to the abandoned 18th century graveyard (pics to come), she also found this old road which has now become an overgrown trail.  It goes over the mountain behind the house and around to the Williams River and the Bartonsville Covered Bridge.  A couple hours after starting out, we emerge from the dense tree canopy to a more modern dirt road framed by blackberries.  A sweet treat at the end of our labor.  Last year, we saw maidenhair ferns and red eft newts.  The wild and moist lushness is an antidote to the dry wilds of LA, though both hold places in my heart.  I can't wait to get to the woods again this summer.

Gifts from the Sea

Collected on early morning surfing jaunts to Rincon Beach, Sam's friend Steve brought these back to me to add to my garden.  Dry and salty from the ocean, they will nestle nicely with my succulents.

Pest Management

I once bothered to buy a cup full of aphid eating ladybugs, and I guess they helped.  That was several years ago, and I have since learned to just let nature take care of itself.  Lili Singer from the Theodore Payne Foundation once told me that if I have aphids, just wait, and their predators will come.  Now I've got aphids galore, and sure enough, the ladybugs arrived.  Note, however, that these are not the native 9 spot ladybugs (Coccinella novemnotata), but rather the Asian ladybug (Harmonia axyridis).  I'll see what I can do to remedy that situation....

In the meantime, you can learn more about ladybugs here: www.lostladybug.org.

Euphorbia characias ssp wulfenii