A couple month break not withstanding, I am happy to share with you the latest edition of Blogs I Like.  See you in February!

The Gardeners Eden - Michaela writes in a lovely style about her garden (called Ferncliff), gardening, photography and living a beautiful design inspired life in Vermont.  Its worth a visit for some great photography at least.

@ Issue Journal @ issue is a “journal of business and design, dedicated to communicating how quality design contributes to business success.”  It is a must read for inspiration, interesting design news and generally exciting design-y stuff (make sure you check out this post about the BMW commercial – so cool)

Designers Block UK – I have been reading Designers Block for years, I am not sure why I didn’t post it earlier.  It is a rich collection of designers inspiration. Lots of stuff here, I can’t even begin to sum it all up.  It is what I love about being a designer and being around other designers….we all just like to fill our heads (and others) up with beautiful, inspiring things and ideas.

automatism – Quite similar to Designers Block, but Canadian rather than British and therefore with a different and uniquely interesting perspective. .

VANISHING THRESHOLD: Garden Life Home – This is the blog of Tara Dillard a fellow garden designer and GDRT member.  Tara’s website is full of insight on both interior and garden design and she shares it with all the richness of story that a true southern belle ought to have.

Good Food is new to the Good (news) lineup.  I am so excited at the addition to this already great website.   Already Nichola Twilley, the food editor has lined up a excellent collection of food articles (43 to be exact) to kick off the site.  It is keeping me in thoughtful reading for at least a few days.

Purple Area – Perhaps I am an Apartment Therapy lemming (of sorts) but when there is a blog (from Sweden) that is so full of goodness and interesting bits, I can’t help but follow the AT masses and check it out…(and then revisit again and again and again…)

Naturliga Ting - You will need to turn on google translate to read what Swedish Annika, the preschool teacher by day and garden photographer by night, is writing about.  Or you can just look at her images, which are really beautiful and well worth a peruse all on their own.

I just clicked through nearly 40 pages of google image results looking for one good image of an arborvitae hedge.   That I found none, is my first piece of damning evidence in a little rant about hedging.

I’m just not a fan of the “Arborvitae hedge”.

The expectation is this:

and this: (never-mind that neither of these are arborvitae, they are, in fact, yew…but I found them under arborvitae in google results)

and the reality is this (at best):

I suppose arborvitae is fine if you want a hedge with holes, no uniformity across the sides, and inconsistent heights.  Add to it a general inability to recover from common winter burn and you have a recipe for crap hedge.

I know I am shaking the tree here, but the common mislabeling (on many a landscaper website) is leading me to believe there is a bit of overselling going on in the landscape industry – which might explain why there are far too many dumb looking arborvitae wannabe hedges in (at least my corner of) the world.

Arborvitaes do not equal Taxus, (or boxwood, or myrtle) and I for one am quite tired of the depressing results that are achieved with them when put in as hedges.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually like the arborvitae plant, either when used interestingly, or of interesting variety.  Take the stout, chubby variety of Berkmans Golden Arborvitae.  Their happy rotund nature and fresh color would be a welcome addition to many planting schemes but as a hedge, I think they would look like a bunch of flabby soldiers who clearly aren’t cut out for their job.

The thujas that are commonly recommended for hedges go by the names of ‘Green Giant’, ‘Nigra’ and ‘Emerald Green’ (to name a few)….but here is the big secret here….this is their general form:  A Cone. (love it or leave it, but don’t plan to change it…you have little chance of getting smooth square hedge from this)

Cone shaped can be very nice – and can even provide some screening, but I think they look best when clumped together (not in a straight line) or when they stand in a zig zag fashion.  I most like to see them interspersed with other plants.  Ultimately, they are a little like people; they all carry their chub in slightly different places.  If you use a little distraction, they can all look consistent and cohesive, but if you line them up, you suddenly highlight their differences.

And speaking of differences….I have another little arborvitae rant.  It seems that the word “arborvitae” has become synonymous with ‘green cone that you plant along the edges of your property or as a “foundation plant” ‘.

You can’t just throw around the word ‘arborvitae’ and expect people the know what you are talking about.  There are hundreds of very different, interesting and exciting ‘arborvitae’; it is worth exploring some other more unique varieties.   Here are a few of my favorites:

Thuja plicata “Emerald” clipped spirals ,Thuja plicata Whipcord, Thuja Occidentalis Sherwood Frost Folia, Thuja occidentalis Degroots Spire, , Thuja Danica, Thuja plicata daniellow

And to give you a few ideas about how to use the ‘Green Giant’ and it’s similar friends (in a good way), here is a little gallery.

Thuja mixed with Redbud trees

Thuja to draw you down a snaking path.

A grove of thuja.

Mr. Studio ‘g’ and I are thinking about throwing a little shindig, perhaps on valentines weekend.  We are still deciding – primarily because we don’t want to have just any old boring party where everyone gets a babysitter and sits around our house having too many cocktails (not that any good party wouldn’t also entail all that), its just that I need it to have some good intention, vibe or amusement, (I shy from word ‘theme’)….and I’m hitting a creative wall at the moment.

I am of the mind that if it can’t be good I won’t have it.  (I don’t know, perhaps I put too much pressure on these things…your suggested ideas are wholeheartedly accepted).  Casting about with a party in mind, I came across something that while not exactly what I was thinking for my gathering, is perfect for a summer celebration.  I’m filing it away for mardi gras, summer birthdays, and general garden gatherings.

The hats can come pre-made or you can buy kits to make your own.  This kind of thing is right up my daughters alley and I can envision a hat making birthday in the future.  My favorite part thought is all the lovely greenery, flowers and the earthy, found-object charm.  Find out more and see more styles at Glory B hats.

My husband noticed recently that the google earth image of our house was recently updated.  We did alot of work on the landscape last year, including enlarging the vegetable garden and we were both surprisingly happy that we could see our efforts from space. It felt kind of like google got the memo about the changes and they are rewarding us for our hard work.

I wish I could share a before and after google earth image of our house….but alas I wasn’t thinking ahead to save the last image before it was removed and replaced with this one.   Probably for the best, since the previous image was nothing to be proud of and all you could see was tree tops anyway.

What do I see when I look at this?  Well, a lot and I think studying your projects from the air makes for some interesting design insight.   I like the way that the new fence ties in the barn around the garden (you can’t see that fence at this scale).  Our original plan was to just encircle the garden but having the barn complete one side of the enclosed area is so much more cohesive — both as I look out my front window and as I see it from space.   Also — I am noticing that I get a lot more shade than I normally think about in some areas of my garden.  There is a place to the right of my garage where you can barely make out the circular patio that I built this summer – it is  so much shadier than I think from the ground.

There is a flow that I am noticing too, it winds around the property in a circular sort of fashion, but we don’t use the land that way, we have confined our garden to the smaller shadier area right in the middle (to the left of the ‘A’).  I am wondering if this obvious natural flow should be honored and utilized better.  And lastly, I notice that my two barns are parallel to each other.  From the ground they don’t seem that way at all.  There is a significant hillside between the two and they seem askew from each other.  As I think about adding new fences and lines on the landscape, I am seeing the layout in a whole new light.

image by kappix

Have you looked at any of your projects or your own home on google earth?  It is an interesting way to look at things.  The image above is striking to me because I jut can’t get over how tidy and neat every little suburban garden is.  While I think it is lovely and interesting to study, I am quite sure that my helter skelter experimental ways would not be accepted. I couldn’t move there.

image by Gerco de Ruijter

And while we are discussing aerial photography, I fee I must share a few fabulous images that I found over at Bldg Blog.  They are the work of Dutch photographer Gerco de Ruijter.  The series of aerial photographs is called Baumschule and he took some of the pictures (many of which were of tree farms) using a camera mounted on a fishing rod.  Perhaps a strategy for our own garden photography?

images by Gerco de Ruijter

Gerco de Ruijter’s Baumschule series is currently on display in its entirety at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. But if you can’t get to the Netherlands before April 10th (when it closes), you can see more images at Bldg Blog.

I am drooling over the Yestermorrow Design Build School and though it is almost the end of January, I have a new, new years resolution.

I will attend a class of some sort (at the yestermorrow school or likewise) and learn a new hands on do it myself building technique.

image from the cleaner plate club.

As I peruse the course offerings of the Yestermorrow school (in the Mad River Valley of Vermont), I am intrigued by the Earthen Oven building course, the art of  stone working course (with my new crush Thea Alvin), or maybe I will learn to make a willow canoe, or participate in the yurt design/build class.  My head is swimming with the excitement of possibilities.

Tree house built by in a past class my yestermorrow students. Image from Blushing Pretty.

Care to get your hands dirty and learn something exciting? Check out Yestermorrow and let us know in the comments if and when you decide to attend.

The armadillo house built by past yestermorrow students. Image from Tiny House Talk.

This one didn’t quite get finished in time for before and after Thursdays…so i am sneaking it in here a day late.

Heather, over at Restoring the Landscape is not one of those all talk, no action people.  Her website covers a wide range of topics around restoring landscapes with native plants, creating wildlife habitats, birds, insects, biodiversity, and invasive species.

But Heather herself has restored the landscape around her own home in Minnesota …and when I say restored, I am not talking about fixing up the garden, I’m talking about taking the garden right back to nature.

What was a rather boring and even a little bleak (if you ask me) suburban home, has been transformed into a native wildlife and plant haven with the beauty of untouched natural woods.

Is it a garden?  Sure, I think so, absolutely.  It is certainly an interesting twist on garden development and takes the idea of garden making to an extreme of nature re-creation.  I am curious what you think though, would you be interested in restoring the landscape around your home back to what was there before the home was built?

A visit to Restoring the Landscape has lots of additional pictures of this project.

Thanks Louise for sending this!