I wish you all a Happy New Year! 

May you receive kisses tonight that are as beautiful and charming and long lasting as this ‘kissing ball’.

Succulent Kissing ball available from Rolling Greens Nursery.

Today is the last day before the big parade.  I can only imagine the last minute rush that is ensuing all over Pasadena.  I have never been to the Rose Parade, but have watched it in awe since I was a little kid.  My dad used to work for a company that sponsored a float every year and we would root for it to win prizes like you might root for teams in the actual game that takes place later in the day.

As an adult, I find watching the parade on TV much less satisfying that I used to.  What I really want to do is walk up to the floats – really really close and see all the little details; every seed, petal, flower — maybe even touch it.

I found these pictures to try and satisfy my urge just a little.

1. our roses, 2. pineapple face, 3. amnesia roses, 4. tapioca pearls and cranberry seeds, 5. right wing, 6. P1010192, 7. yellow flowers, 8. kermit mums and a spider mum, 9. purple button mums

These are from the LA times

and lastly…this little gem from orphan jones on flickr….they are taking off leaves because a volunteer didn’t do a good job.  Those of us in TV land would never have noticed.

I knew of Patrick Blanc’s work far before I knew of him.  I had happened across a few of his installations during various travels.  Every time, I was stopped in my tracks in recognition of something truly amazing.  His vertical garden walls get me every time. Many are in France, but his work spans the globe.  Each is a textural tapestry of plants that offer green lushness to what is typically a surrounding area in dire need of something soft, living and fresh.

The walls provide biodiversity in urban areas, help buildings with heating and cooling, clean the air, and to me, are some of the most beautiful and inspiring arrangements of plants I know.  Patrick Blanc is one of my design heroes – please…enjoy some of his work…

Bangkok Emporium

Caixa Forum Madrid

Paris Hotel

Taipeh National Concert Hall

I have so many trees down right now, that coming up with ideas to use some of the lost wood is on my mind. These bowls take my breath away and I am wondering if I can find someone locally to turn out the wood so that I can make bowls like these from the Loyal Loot Collective. I think it would be a fitting tribute to some of the majestic trees that we recently lost. One from each tree, and I would be able to create a stunning and artistic collection. Loyal Loot Collective makes each bowl from locally (they are in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) reclaimed trees that were fallen or cut down due to infrastructure, re-landscaping, droughts, or stormy weather.

My Driveway is about 300 ft long. (not exaggerating).  We have a plow guy who charges us by the ‘push’ – which needs to happen every 4 or so inches.  Needless to say, if I had something like this…and it were as good as it looks, I would have paid for it about four times over already this winter.    Any one ever use it? Is it worth it?  Let me know.

Available from clean air gardening for $99.00.

Progress is being made towards Studio g’s many new features.  The amazon book shop is officially up and running.  Amazon has quite a collection of suppliers and in additions to books, I have begun to list some great landscape design products and tools as well as seeds and other materials.

So far, there are four categories including ‘Books for the Garden Library’ -

which is featuring all the design books we have talked about and some others that I either really want myself, or think you  should really have.   Other categories  include ‘Great Design Tools’, ‘Stuff to Grow’ and and ‘Garden Related Travel’.

It’s kind of obvious what they each contain, but as an example, ‘Great design Tools’ is currently featuring the Gardener’s Color Wheel we featured in a post about color earlier this month and measuring tools that we use in our design practice daily.

‘Stuff to Grow‘ only has a couple items at the moment.  We talked about growing beans  in our Cassoulet posting last week; two varieties of Organic Tepary Bean Seeds that you can plant and grow are listed.  More to come there.

And finally, in the ‘Garden Related Travel’ section, there are books that will help you plan days out to gardens, find great landscape hotels, cities with great green attractions and all things related to traveling the world and seeing and experiencing the wide and varied natural culture.   I am currently really wanting the 1001 Gardens You Must See Before You Die book.  I am sure that I have been to many of them, but being the list person that I am, I think I need to start keeping track.

Anyway, find it all right there on the right….follow the arrow.