Succulents and More™

Our siding project wrapped up on Wednesday. To our amazement, the crew completed this massive undertaking in just eight working days. They worked long days: typically 10 hours, on Friday even 12 — in total, about 370 human-hours. They were like a well-oiled machine; everybody had their assigned duties, and it seemed that very little time was wasted on lengthy backs and forths. I’ve started putting the garden back together, but it will take some time. This is the perfect opportunity to make edits and move things around until it feels right. You’ll be the first to know when there’s anything newsworthy to report. Today, though, is the big day when I reveal the siding color we chose. I realize y’all have been waiting with bated breath, maybe even lying awake at night, tormented by not knowing. Wonder no more! But first I want to show you some of the colors we could have chosen but didn’t : Colors we didn’t choose Our color is included in these: We chose one of these colors Any guesses? S...

Before the grand reveal later this week (fingers crossed), here are a few in-progress snaps from our massive siding project . Basically, we’re having every square inch of the old T1-11 plywood siding replaced with pre-painted Hardie fiber cement lap siding, including all fascia boards and all trim. We’re hoping that we’ll never have to worry about things like dry rot — and painting the house — ever again, or at least not until we’re old and gray. As I mentioned in a previous post , a project of this magnitude is disruptive by its very nature. We had to move everything away from the house, including rocks, soil, and plants. What I hadn’t expected was that much of the available space in the front and back would be taken up by equipment. There’s so much stuff ! Right now, everything is in complete disarray. It looks worse than it is, but I won’t lie: living with this much chaos for 10 days has been a bit trying. But the end result will be beautiful, and that’s what I’m trying to focus on...

In Berkeley, Marcia Donahue is (almost) a household name. She’s well-known for her ceramic sculptures, but even better known for her Berkeley garden, which combines art and plants in a way that is pure magic. I first visited Marcia’s garden in 2016 during one of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days, but it took nine years before I had a chance to see it again. And it would have been even longer if it hadn’t been for Loree danger garden Bohl. Loree set an entire machinery in motion when she came down from Portland in March. Our joint friends Max and Justin organized several garden visits for us, including their own Oakland garden , Ann Nichols’ bromeliad-heavy garden in Piedmont and, well, Marcia’s garden. Marcia Donahue photographed by Loree Bohl Marcia has been the subject of many articles over the years. A quick Google search yields about 1,000 results, so if you want to do a deep-dive, knock yourself out. Here’s the short version: Marcia has lived in the same house in Berkeley for...