plants

A Day with Lila B. Design

by Rebecca Sweet 3 November 2010

This past weekend I had the pleasure of spending a Saturday afternoon in San Francisco with Debra Prinzing, Susan Morrison and Baylor Chapman of Lila B. Design.   The purpose?  To not only have fun, but to get a behind the scenes tour of Baylor’s unbelievably cool floral design studio.  Join me to see what [...]

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Celebrating Regional (and Client) Diversity – Part 2

by Rebecca Sweet 27 October 2010

I don’t know what it is, but I just LOVE designing gardens for people who aren’t from California.  Or the United States, for that matter.  I think it’s because I live in Northern California where the majority of the population are from someplace other than Northern California. Earlier this year, I wrote a post with [...]

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Fall’s Fantastic Light

by Rebecca Sweet 25 October 2010

. There’s so many things I love about Fall – the holidays, the food, the smell of the heater turning on for the first time, putting the extra blanket on the bed and the way the garden begins to quiet down. , I think one of my favorite things, however, is the way the sun’s [...]

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The Green Roof at SF’s Academy of Sciences

by Rebecca Sweet 20 October 2010

No, this isn’t a scene from Teletubbies.   Last night I attended an APLD meeting in San Francisco to listen to Alan Good, the Academy’s Landscape Exhibit Supervisor, give a fascinating presentation about the building’s green-roof infrastructure and its plant life.   While I found the specific construction of the roof interesting, it was the [...]

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Design tips for a low-water ‘Meadow Garden’

by Rebecca Sweet 15 October 2010

Today I’m participating in a massive, worldwide blogging event called Blog Action Day, where the topic we’ll all write about is Water. As any California gardener knows, water is our most precious resource.  In this post, I’m going to show you how to create a lawn-and-chemical-free meadow garden teeming with life, color, scent and natural [...]

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Garden Designers Round Table – Underutilized Plants

by Rebecca Sweet 27 July 2010

. This topic for this month’s Garden Designers Round Table discussion is ‘Underutilized Plants’, and is one that’s very important to me as a Garden Designer.   As a designer, I definitely have my list of ‘Faves’ that I like to plant whenever possible.  Why are they my favorites?  It’s usually a combination of reasons [...]

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Wordless Wednesday – Lupine Meadow at Lake Tahoe

by Rebecca Sweet 14 July 2010

I can never seem to manage a truly ‘wordless’ Wednesday post, so I’ll try again to be brief. I took these photos last week while vacationing in Lake Tahoe.  This naturally occurring meadow was just a few miles from Tahoe City, and the Lupines and yellow Monkeyflowers were at their peak. I was counting my [...]

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My Francoa’s got some Funk…

by Rebecca Sweet 7 July 2010

. . . I have a new favorite plant that I’ve been using in my designs now for the past few years – it’s Francoa Ramosa and I just adore it! . It’s categorized as a perennial, but in our Zone 9 climate, it’s evergreen. The snails pretty much leave it alone, it grows like [...]

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Gardeners and their Gardens – ‘Town Mouse’

by Rebecca Sweet 31 May 2010

. One of my favorite things about being a passionate gardener myself is getting to meet other passionate gardeners. , A gardener’s own garden is truly an expression of their soul.  You can ‘feel’ the blood, sweat and tears that went into it’s creation.  You know that feeling when you walk into a garden, no matter [...]

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