Michelle emailed a few weeks back about a great garden design publication from New Zealand that she is really impressed with called Alfresco. I have ordered and am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the current issue and a few back copies as it looks very promising.

I am a magazine junkie. I buy magazines where ever I travel (unfortunately, I can often find US versions uninspiring), I don’t care if I can’t read the language, the pictures usually suit me fine. I thought I would share with you my favorites from around the world and I am hoping that like Michelle (who BTW has a great roundup of the San Francisco Flower Show on her blog) did, you might be able to open my eyes to something new that I have yet to discover. Like something in India, the Middle East, Asia, or South America…

So, here is my list…
Not exclusively garden or landscape design….but so interesting.. and I have a Kevin McCloud crush. Grand Designs.
The best garden design publication ever. Period. The Garden Design Journal.
One of the most beautiful garden magazines. Gardens Illustrated.
The magazine I miss the most. Domino.
Great for party ideas if you have kids, but the shopping is a joke. Cookie.
The best the US has to offer for Garden Design interests. Garden Design.
Full, I mean really full of all types of garden info. The Garden
Also full (but maybe only a tenth as full as the above). Fine Gardening
Really helpful (though only occasionally about the landscape) articles about construction. This Old House.
Modern and Green inspired and lots of outdoor inspiration though only quarterly. Innovative Home.
International, arty and high style (interiors and exteriors – from Australia). Belle
Great all around design magazine with a sustainability twist. Metropolis
Specifically for English style garden inspiration and nothing else. The English Garden.
If you have a fabric thing…like I do…this is scrumptiously all about textiles. Selvedge.

Eat you way through your neighborhood.  I love the whole collection…but local to me are the Edible Boston, Edible Cape Cod, Edible Nutmeg, Edible Pioneer Valley, and Edible  South Shore. Go to Edible Communications to find your own local version.

And a few that I have seen online but not in person…have you? What do you think?
Bloom – Bloom is the first trend magazine for flowers and plants and how they relate to fashion, interiors and other industries. Sounds so promising….(no website but available to buy here)
Ville e Giardini – Italian Villas and their gardens….maybe supremely pretentious????

Give me your one liner review of your favorite magazines and what you subscribe to. I am so curious.

Stumbling around the internet…I don’t know how I got there, but I did….you have to see the gasp worthy site of Tebbs Design in Bend, Oregon. They design and build houses and landscapes that are really stunning. They are truly celebrating the architecture of their region and creating properties that fit beautifully with their landscapes. Check out the first picture…do you see what I mean?

The second two pictures are my actual daily garden — they are the front and backside of an outdoor fireplace that was designed so well. This is a remarkable front garden that proves that with good design (and a little topography helps too) the front of the house doesn’t have to be a useless flat square of grass, ‘foundation plantings’ and a path running through it. I love how the back of this fireplace augments the street view front of the house.

I included the last picture, not just because it is such a pretty garden, but because the path is a nice mix of materials, and it becomes even more interesting when it butts up against and fits with the big boulder rather than going around it entirely. So nice.

He just dashed across the yard….I guess he is officially awake now….my husband says I can’t hurt him….but I say dead or alive — It’s caddyshack time and this year I am prepared to win.

Carla commented on the last book giveaway that Ribes Sanguineum was her favorite native plant in California….but since we already did California (the CA poppy)… The red flowering currant will be our choice for Washington State where it is also a popular native. Here is an excellent write-up about the plant from Las Pilitas Nursery.

Pink Flowering currant is a five foot deciduous shrub with long showy pink flower clusters that cover the plant in January to March. Ribes sanguineum glutinosum is native to canyons and north slopes in the coast ranges. This currant likes shade to part shade, moderate water in interior, very drought tolerant in coastal gardens. Sometimes growing in deep shade next to a seasonal stream in heavy clay, sometimes on north slopes. They were surrounded by Bays, Tan Bark oak, Yerba Buena and Holodiscus. We’ve planted them in sand in Cambria and they grew like weeds(eight foot in a year). They look like they belong in a redwood garden ,Oak Woodland or Evergreen Forest. Pink flowering currant can be successful in a lawn. This plant looks good enough for a formal landscape.. It will survive most garden situations. We’ve had one survive here for 23 years. (It finally died of drought in the drought.) This Ribes is more drought tolerant that most of the drought resistant’ plants of the trade, but in a native garden plant towards the wettest section of the garden.

1. 080428 Blodribs, 2. Blut-Johannisbeere, 3. Ribes sanguineum (Flowering currant), 4. ribes sanguineum + sky, 5. PSØ8.9 – Cassis-fleur celtique, 6. Red Flowering Currant, 7. Spring flowers 2 Flowering Currant, Ribes sanguineum, 8. Flowering Currant. Ribes sanguineum, 9. Red-flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum), 10. Ribes sanguineum, 11. Ribes sanguineum / Blutjohannisbeere, 12. Ribes sanguineum

It is not often that you get to actually meet and chat with people you admire and then find them worthy of the pedestal you have put them on.   I had this happen on Thursday when I met Topher Delaney at the Architectural Digest show in NYC.  Topher’s exhibit for the show was hand’s down the most interesting thing there.   She was showing her Braille structures.   They are beautiful pieces for the garden or an interior that place rocks in braille patterns to convey words.   I loved the little rocks and immediately thought it would be excellent for a yogic practice place (a wall of little drishdis) but my favorite -  for symbolic purposes was the piece that had big rocks and depicted the lyrics to  Willie Nelson – Will the Circle be Unbroken. One of my all time favorite songs.

I felt I was in the presence of a wise woman and I look forward to staying in touch, working with her and continuing to admire her designs and imagination.

Area in San Fancisco doesn’t have a lot in the way of garden accessories,   but these pieces are particularly thoughtful and interesting.  And while you are there, you will find a very well edited and exciting collection of interior pieces too.

Cork Planter $65

Stelton Ship’s Lantern $590

Glavi Planter $120