Last weekend I traveled to Winterset, IA (birthplace of John Wayne and the to the gateway to the Bridges of Madison County) to visit my mom’s (Doreen Speckmann) quilts at the Iowa Quilt Museum. Cross Street Pasture above is one of my favorites. Growing up on Cross Street in Madison, Wisconsin on a corner lot […]
Back February 2016 I experimented with chunks of driftwood, succulent cuttings from around the yard and sphagnum moss. Our friends Neal and Tina were going to be getting married that May and we volunteered to do flowers and decorations for their rustic redwoods wedding in Felton. Matti did the tricky work of screwing the driftwood together based on […]
Last March we hopped in the car and headed south in search of California wildflowers during Zoe’s Spring Break, and we’ve never seen anything like it. Our first stop was Lake Elsinore where we stayed at the second sketchiest motel we’ve ever stayed in (ask Matti about my 35th birthday in middle of nowhere Utah for […]
I’m not one to usually post other people’s stuff, but when Uncommon Goods asked me if I’d post their indoor succulent infographic I checked it out and it’s legit. I’ve also been a huge fan of Uncommon Goods and their cool stuff for many years. Above is a little view of my strange indoor collection that sits on our […]
Originally posted: October 20, 2016Update: the gutters now have carnivores, begonias, oxalis and bromeliads. It’s still a spider web party back there. A few months back I begged Matti to build me gutter gardens, so I could produce mass quantities of strawberries, lettuce and other edibles. As soon as summer (the rain free time here SF) […]
It’s been forever since we blogged, but we’re going to take a stab at doing it again on a somewhat regular basis. I still have plenty to say about plants. Last April we had the honor of visiting our friend Tim’s magical butterfly world. Tim has since become butterfly internet famous, and we’re so proud. […]
Yesterday I blogged about Tim’s rad butterfly world, but check out his sweet deck greenhouse of Tillandsia insanity! Not sure what this guy is, but it’s popping a massive flower. The butt cheeks of the plant world: Lithops. They’re fun, but don’t water them until they really look like they need it. Lithops are relatively easy to […]
Originally posted November 2016. We sadly lost this poor guy this past summer during one of the heatwaves. My new favorite winter blooming Salvia is S. wagneriana. When we moved back to California after a year in Wisconsin, I added Salvias to the list of plants I collect. Pelargoniums, Euphorbias, Fuchsias and Sansevierias are all […]
It’s that magical time of the year when all the giant clumps of Aloe arborescens are full of flowers. Go to the SF Botanical Garden now to see all this awesomeness. I’ve always liked the corally colored guy in the upper succulent garden. The entire garden is looking pretty great right now You may not know this, but we […]
This is the story of how we turned our weedy strip next to the driveway we called “Poop Alley” in to a flowery fun place for super cheap when we lived in Oakland in 2014. It’s almost the time of year to start tossing around the California native annual seeds for the rains to get them going. […]