Susan Morrison's Blog, page 3

Book Giveaway: Why Grow That When you Can Grow This?

A little known fact about me: I paid for most of my college
education working in beauty salons as a manicurist. In the process I learned
many life skills, including how to give an excellent hand massage and the fine art
of gossiping discretely. I also learned that at one point or another, most of
us want what we can’t have. Curly-haired beauties yearned for stick-straight
tresses, while those blessed with long, sleek manes pointed wistfully at photos
of short, sassy dos.

It turns out gardeners suffe...

Ebook Giveaway – Everyday Feng Shui: A Plant Lover’s Guide to Garden Design

What makes a California garden designer, whose education and
experience is firmly rooted in Western design principles, think she can write a
book about Feng Shui?

The short answer is, she can’t.

Like many of you, however, I consider myself a life-long
learner. And when the subject at hand relates to garden design, so much the
better. I’ve been dabbling in one specific aspect of Feng Shui for several
years now, and recently published an eBook on the subject. What sets Everyday Feng Shui A Plant Lover...

Garden Designers Roundtable: Memory and Plants

ET phone home.

Who can forget those heart-felt words uttered by the most appealing extraterrestrial in the history of film? Despite this clear warning, it took Elliott declining to the point of near-death and
an entire squadron of hazmat docs in shiny silver suits to finally realize what
we smart movie-goers had figured out long before: ET simply couldn’t survive in
an alien environment. Why then, do we insist on choosing plants for our garden that
we know full well don’t want to live there?

There...

Succulent Pumpkins! (Also Known as Pumpcullents)

You know that feeling of ennui that steals over you when
you’ve gone too long without breaking out the craft scissors? While I don’t
actually own craft scissors, I do enjoy projects, especially around the
holidays. This weekend, I was inspired to get my inner craft diva on by creating some of the
stunning, succulent-topped pumpkins I learned about from Laura Eubanks of
Design for Serenity.

The process is simple: Glue moss to the top of a bowl-shaped
pumpkin to act as a base for your masterpiece, the...

The Power of We - Celebrating Our Garden

For many of us, gardening is the ultimate solitary activity,
a personal meditation where we turn off our electronics, reconnect with the natural
world, and slow down and breathe. While we may delight in showing off the
fruits of our labor to family and friends, gardening is a pastime we savor
alone.

But there are exceptions. This year, Blog Action Day is
celebrating “The Power of We,” and today over 1000 bloggers from 42 different
countries will be interpreting this topic however they choose. For me...

Wordless Wednesday: Marcia Donahue's Garden

Recently I had the opportunity to visit Marcia Donahue's amazing Berkeley garden during the Garden Conservancy's Open Day tour. But you don't have to wait until the next one, because Marcia generously opens her Garden of Earthly Delights and gallery every Sunday from 1-5.

My one minute highlight reel:

If you'd rather linger, here's the gallery.

And if you want more photos and a thorough analysis of Marcia's vertical garden style, visit this Fine Gardening post by Billy Goodnick. Since its Wordle...

Garden Designers Roundtable: Turning a lawn into a native garden (on a budget)

Here in the East Bay of California, the Bringing Back the
Natives tour held each May is one of the most popular garden tours around.
Not only is it free, but unlike the expensive, professionally designed and installed gardens that are
the hallmark of other fund-raising tours, most of the
gardens were designed and installed at least in part by the homeowners
themselves. Tour-goers are as interested in asking “how to” questions as they
are in admiring the beauty of a California native garden in sprin...

Fearless Color - Keeyla Meadows Garden

I confess to skipping more local garden tours than I attend. So many feature newly-installed McMansion gardens, heavy on the high-end hardscape - think oversized outdoor kitchens that look like no one has ever eaten in them, let alone prepared a meal - and endless stretches of uninspiring, pristine lawn. But when I read that this year’s Garden Conservancy Open Days Tour in the East Bay included several of my longtime, wish-list gardens, I realized this particular tour was not to be missed.

Kee...

Wordless Wednesday: UC Davis Arboretum

Nick and I took advantage of a sunny Saturday last April to spend a day in Davis, California. The highlight was biking around the spectacular arboretum located on the University of California campus.

We started with the Australian plant collection:

Grevillea

Anigozanthos

Callestemon 'Little John', one of my favorite small space shrubs

Then we moved onto California natives:

A path through the redwoods

Ceanothus sets off bright yellow Fremontodendron

Douglas Iris

Not sure what this is, but it's certainl...

Garden Designers Roundtable: Four Ways to Make a Small Garden Feel Like a Big One

This month’s Garden Designers Roundtable topic is our own home gardens. I thought about going with my favorite lazy-day post option and showing a montage of images – like a Wordless Wednesday but delivered on a Tuesday. Instead, I’m using my own tiny garden to share some of the solutions to a question that comes up over and over again with my clients: how do you make a small garden seem larger?

I fondly refer to my own tiny back yard as my 50 Foot Garden, since it’s not much wider than that....