Posts Tagged ‘SoCal’

This man is Patrick Dougherty in one of his phe­nom­e­nal struc­tures. His work makes me weep. How does he do it? Accord­ing to his web­site, by twist­ing the line between archi­tec­ture, land­scape and art. He has built more than 175 works world­wide over the past 20 years. The piece shown was com­mis­sioned by the Min­nesota Land­scape Arbore­tum, and built over a 17 day period with the help of about 80 vol­un­teers. That seems very fast to me.

Most inter­est­ing are the mate­ri­als he uses: thou­sands of wil­low twigs, branches and saplings woven and twisted together (no nails or pegs are used). “My affin­ity for trees as a mate­r­ial seems to come from a child­hood spent wan­der­ing the forest.…saplings have a nat­ural, inher­ent method of join­ing — that is, sticks entan­gle eas­ily. This snag­ging prop­erty is the key to work­ing this mate­r­ial into a vari­ety of large forms.”

Luck­ily for us in SoCal, Patrick is plan­ning an instal­la­tion in Cal­i­for­nia, around Jan­u­ary 11 in Palo Alto at the Palo Alto Art Cen­ter, accord­ing to his web­site www​.stick​work​.net. To learn more about him and his meth­ods check out the Min­nesota Arbore­tum web­site: www​.arbore​tum​.umn​.edu/​b​i​g​b​u​i​l​d​p​r​o​c​e​s​s​.​a​spx. Patrick lives in, what else, a hand­made house in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

On the web:

11/​4/​Thursday: Native Plant Gar­den Design with land­scape designer Susanne Jett @ Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion (www​.theodor​e​payne​.org)

11/​4/​Thursday: Nuccio’s Nurs­eries and a Peace­ful Gar­den in Altadena with Lili Singer, fea­tur­ing a self-​drive field trip thru the LA Arbore­tum (www​.arbore​tum​.org)

11/​6/​Saturday: a series on Native plant gar­den­ing at Nopal­ito Native Plant Nurs­ery in Ven­tura (www​.nopali​tonurs​ery​.com)

11/​6 – 7/​Saturday and Sun­day: Japan­ese Gar­den Fes­ti­val at Des­canso Gar­dens (www​.des​can​sog​a​r​dens​.org)

For more SoCal events: www​.paci​fi​chor​ti​cul​ture​.org/​c​a​l​e​n​d​a​r​/​s​o​C​al/

Japan­ese artist Yayoi Kusama’s new pieces are being pre­sented by Lon­don Gallery Vic­to­ria Miro. This is an excerpt from the catalog:

A morn­ing glory vine invasion

I have been fight­ing a morn­ing glory vine inva­sion in my gar­den for about 10 years now. Can’t say I wasn’t warned…it took about 3 years for my morn­ing glory to take hold. I had almost for­got­ten about it. Then whoosh.….I had a mon­ster on my hands. I’ve been cut­ting back and bat­tling this beast for so long, I’ve lost faith. Then I noticed the hybrid leucadendron/​morning glory in my gar­den today and I’m think­ing, why not? Am I so wrong?

On another front, every­one who knows me can see I’m not an obses­sive gar­dener. I’m a low — no main­te­nance type and my gar­dener of 19 years is a mow-​go-​blow kind of guy (although he’s capa­ble of great­ness — all I have to do is ask.) One of my new favorites is white lan­tana. I have a black hole in my gar­den that has gob­bled up plant after plant. It’s an inde­ci­pher­able area, a lit­tle bit of every­thing: dry, wet, dark, light. That’s where the gar­den work­horse, white lan­tana, has res­cued me. It“s great in dark cor­ners — day and night it attracts the eye. Prob­lem­atic in the wrong place (what isn’t ?), lan­tana is bombproof in the right sit­u­a­tion. Not hard to find in SoCal nurs­eries, once estab­lished it can be very drought tol­er­ant. And hum­ming­birds and but­ter­flies find it delicious.

• Oct 23 & 24, 9 am-​4 pm, Har­vest Fes­ti­val and Plant Sale, Des­canso Gar­dens, La Canada Flintridge

See Botan­i­cal gar­dens, foun­da­tions and non­prof­its for more infor­ma­tion on the above organization

Alex and his caper berry tree

If you go visit Alex, owner of Papaya Tree Nurs­ery in Granada Hills, plan to be trans­ported into his mag­i­cal king­dom, aka his back yard! Noth­ing is as it seems in his realm; there is the mango tree with 7 dif­fer­ent vari­eties grafted onto it, the banana clus­ter with the dove nest on top…not to be picked until the babies were gone…best bananas I ever had! He has spe­cial cherry trees that bear fruit in warm cli­mates (very rare) and and caper berry trees for the purist who must pickle their own! Alex actu­ally does a lot of busi­ness with chefs and cooks. He is an expert on graft­ing and prun­ing. He can also design a scented gar­den. All this knowl­edge and the nurs­ery comes from his father, an engi­neer who started the enter­prise 26 years ago. He is obvi­ously a favorite with the Cal­i­for­nia Rare Fruit Grow­ers — LA chap­ter. And the SoCal Che­r­i­moya Soci­ety. Oh, you never heard of them? What about the East Indian curry leaf tree.….….Oh, and you could have a nice lit­tle meal at his nurs­ery, just sam­pling the fruit.

Best bananas ever — can you see the dove nest on top?

Papaya Tree Nurs­ery (www​.papay​a​treenurs​ery​.com) 12422 El Oro Way, Granada Hills, CA 91344 (818) 363‑3680 (always call first), 7 days a week, 8am to 6pm, accepts Visa and Mastercard.