Posts Tagged ‘fountains’

My favorite Authen­tic Provence cat­e­gory is “pavil­ions and tents”

Just dis­cov­ered the most heart­break­ingly gor­geous web­site for all things proven­cal in the gar­den: Authen­tic Provence (www​.authen​ticprovence​.com). Espe­cially heart­break­ing if you are sit­ting in the freez­ing snow instead of the sun. How­ever we can all dream…You will be so inspired by this website.

The brick and mor­tar store is located in Palm Beach, Florida. How­ever the vir­tual store offers 14 exten­sive cat­e­gories, such as gar­den antiques, foun­tains, planters, antique tile, lighting.….My favorite is the Pavil­ion and Tent cat­e­gory, espe­cially the umbrello octag­o­nale and mer­cato delle erbe. The “spout” sec­tion alone sends me into ecstasy. And don’t get me started on the antique doors. Check it out at www​.authen​ticprovence​.com.

On the web:

Thurs­day, March 31: “Land­scape Scenog­ra­phy: Set­ting the stage for gar­den mys­tery” with speak­ers Chip Sul­li­van and Eliz­a­beth Boults fol­lowed by a sign­ing of their book An Illus­trated His­tory of Land­scape Design @ the Los Ange­les Arbore­tum: jill.​berry@​arboretum.​org or 626−821−4623

Tea tree shaped into a tight ball.

Some plants just worm their way into our lives. Per­haps because of its ver­sa­til­ity, the tea tree, or lep­tosper­num, is just such a plant. A native of Aus­tralia and New Zealand, it thrives in Sun­set zones 14 — 24. Jo O’Connell of Aus­tralian Native Plant Nurs­ery in Ojai says there are many dif­fer­ent vari­eties of this shrub. “While the plants all have sim­i­lar pink, red and white flow­ers, they vary in height and growth habits.” I per­son­ally love them trimmed into tight balls close to the ground or as trees with vis­i­ble branches. But the most unusual appli­ca­tion is pic­tured below in Wal­nut Creek: the lep­tosper­nums have been allowed to grow through a wood framed wire fence, cre­at­ing a glo­ri­ous liv­ing wall.

Tea trees like well drained soil, are drought tol­er­ant and good near the ocean. My one spec­i­man took a cou­ple of years to get going but it is thriv­ing now. There are 16 vari­eties of this shrub listed in the Sun­set West­ern Gar­den book — one could have a whole gar­den of noth­ing but tea trees!

www​.aus​tralian​plants​.com

A liv­ing wall of leptospernum.

On the Web:

Thurs­day, ²⁄₁₀: Cur­rents, goose­ber­ries and man­zan­i­tas for your South­ern Cal­i­for­nia gar­den @ the Los Ange­les Arbore­tum, 9:30 — 12, $20.00/ 626−821−4623 or jill.berry@arboretum.org/

Sat­ur­day, ²⁄₁₂:

• Make a fab­u­lous foun­tain from a water­ing can @ the Los Ange­les Arbore­tum — bring a water­ing can, all other mate­ri­als pro­vided at cost –I couldn’t find a cost on this class /​626−821−4623 or jill.berry@arboretum.org/
• Bird­ing basics at Des­canso Gar­den 8am — 10am — $20/​10 members/​www​.des​can​sog​a​r​dens​.org/
• Also at Des­canso: Com­pan­ion Plant­ing 1pm — $20/​10 mem­ber and: Back­yard Chick­ens and Bees 10am — 12pm — $25/​15 member
• Camel­lia Show and Sale @ Hunt­ing­ton Gar­dens Sat 1 — 4:30 and Sun 10:30 — 4:30 /​Hunt​ing​ton​.org/
• Hyper­t­ufa class: Make a con­tainer resem­bling a stone trough 10am — 12pm /​$35/​25 mem­ber /​theodor​e​payne​.org/

Sun­day, ²⁄₁₃:

• 27th Wild Mush­room Fair @ the Los Ange­les Arbore­tum, 10am — 4 pm details @ arbore​tum​.org/

Func­tional sculp­ture at Gar­den Temple

This is the kind of store, a life chang­ing sort of store, that makes me want to open the same busi­ness so I could spend all of my time there. That is kind of what hap­pened with David Mills, who with wife Mari, founded Gar­den Tem­ple in in Stu­dio City in 2002. Prior to open­ing the show­room David trav­eled the world buy­ing and sell­ing eth­nic art, includ­ing stone basins from Cen­tral Amer­ica. It seemed a log­i­cal next step to install pumps, but the logis­tics are more com­plex. “We get the stone in var­i­ous states of com­ple­tion from India, Guata­mala, Vietnam.…than the foun­tains are fin­ished locally. “I love being in a cre­ative busi­ness that offers a bit of nature in the city,” says David. “I grew up in the val­ley and miss the open spaces. This is a neigh­bor­hood space. We wel­come peo­ple to come in and wan­der around, like the fam­ily with small chil­dren who come almost every weekend.”

The sim­ple, attrac­tive forms David designs and fab­ri­cates facil­i­tate water flow and fall. “We also install and main­tain our foun­tains, and we are very safety con­scious. It’s also impor­tant that the parts under­neath that you don’t see are durable and made of high qual­ity mate­r­ial.” Gar­den Temple’s large out­door show­room and indoor area show­cases hand chis­eled stone troughs, basins and blocks, cop­per ves­sels, exotic indoor plants and planters.

Gar­den Tem­ple, 13055 Ven­tura Blvd., Stu­dio City, 91604 /​818−783−0079 /​10 — 5 /​7 days a week /​www​.gar​den​tem​ple​.com

On the web: Burkard Nurs­ery in Pasadena is hav­ing their Labor Day sale Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 3 thru Mon­day Sep­tem­ber 6. All items 30% off. (626) 796‑4355 /​www​.burkard​nurs​eries​.com /​More infor­ma­tion in Find a nurs­ery under East Val­ley and beyond.

“Huge Sude­ley Bench” by Pablo Reinoso at Sude­ley Castle

I came across this work of art on a favorite web­site and stopped in my tracks! What a per­fect set­ting for this glo­ri­ous piece of out­door sculpture!

From the catalog:

As impres­sive in scale and ambi­tion as its name sug­gests, Huge Sude­ley Bench was com­mis­sioned espe­cially for the Sotheby’s at Sude­ley Cas­tle exhi­bi­tion. It rep­re­sents the first time that Reinoso has worked on this mon­u­men­tal scale, over­see­ing a team of foundry tech­ni­cians who employed hydraulic machin­ery to manip­u­late lengths of steel girder into exu­ber­ant and free flow­ing forms. Reinoso refers to this process as ‘breath­ing sculp­ture’, ref­er­enc­ing the man­ner in which Calder adapted his mobiles while at the same time acknowl­edg­ing its archi­tec­tural prop­er­ties. Com­ment­ing on his early train­ing as a sculp­tor, Reinoso has stated his will to go beyond pre­scribed bound­aries, ‘bound­aries you need to know but you don’t need to respect’. Huge Sude­ley Bench was cre­ated in three indi­vid­ual sec­tions and treated with black auto­body paint, a deci­sion made to ensure that future gen­er­a­tions could refresh its sur­faces and appre­ci­ate the work in the pris­tine state it first left the foundry. It also sees the intro­duc­tion of Reinoso’s new artist’s mono­gram which he intends to apply to all his future creations.

“Spaghetti chair” is actu­ally a bench.

To learn more about Pablo Reinoso and his work, go to: www​.pablor​einoso​.com, www​.chair​blog​.eu/, and to see more of this Sotheby’s exhi­bi­tion:www​.sothe​bys​.com/​m​i​n​i​s​i​t​e​/​s​u​d​e​l​ey/.

A Socal com­pany that car­ries beau­ti­ful gar­den art and foun­tains on a smaller scale is Gar­den Tem­ple (818 – 783-0079) in Stu­dio City,www​.gar​den​tem​ple​.com.