Holly West

Curb Appeal Santa Monica Style

Lately I've been bringing my iPhone when I walk my dog so I can take pictures if I see anything interesting along the way. It does happen--a couple of weeks ago I saw a woman walking her cat on a leash and last week I saw a very large man get out of his car wearing nothing but black skirted bikini bottoms and a pink bikini top.

On yesterday's walk I decided to take pictures of the curb-side gardens I see every day. Some of them are quite lovely. Keep in mind that the photos were taken with my iPhone--not necessarily the best way to take garden photos!

Every time I walk by this house I am impressed by the landscaping in the yard. It's tiered and the variety of plants and textures created by the choices are just lovely together. It reminds me of women who are able to create wonderfully layered outfits with the perfect accessories. I do not possess this talent (in gardening or fashion), so I admire it!

 

The house below is another one of my favorites, but in order to get the full effect you have to view it from a distance. This photo doesn't do it justice, but it does give you some idea of what the landscape designer intended. The plantings highlight the house perfectly.

 

This apartment building's front is plainer than the first two photos, but it's more along the lines of what I could achieve if I put my mind to it (well, I think I could). I love all the colors, but I especially love the callalillies they've included.

Finally, I love the color combinations they've used for this side-garden between apartment buildings. They compliment the architecture of the buildings and give a sort of Asian feel. I also took a photo of the front part of this garden but for some reason all I got was a photo of the wall in front. I'll save that one for next time!

Sweet Surprise

Gosh, probably about 3 or 4 years ago, I bought a beautiful orchid plant at Trader Joe's.  It caught my eye because it was different from other orchids I'd seen and it had some nice foliage in addition to the blooms.  I enjoyed it immensely, but as plants do, the blooms eventually died and I put the plant out on the balcony.

The leaves have always been nice so it was a good addition to the plants I had outside.  However, this year when I came back from Oregon, I got a very nice surprise.  The orchid was blooming again!

Here's a closer look:

Isn't it beautiful!

I wanted to enjoy it and since it's been too cold to sit on the balcony I cut it and brought it inside:

 

I kind of think of this spot as a memorial to Kramer, even though I can't bring myself to officially call it that.  I still can't look at pictures of him but this painting, which I did in 2003, doesn't bring forth a rush of tears so I keep it up.  Anyway, it seemed like the perfect place for my lovely orchid so here's where I put it.

I didn't have an appropriately sized vase so, inspired by this post from This Young House, I put it in a recycled wine bottle:

 

I'm not sure how long the blooms will last, but I will certainly enjoy them while they do.

 

 

Herb Garden Ideas

The nurseries here still don't seem to have much in the way of herbs, so I guess I will just have to be patient.  In the meantime, I found some good ideas for making my herb garden more successful:

How to Make Herb Garden Markers

Never Pay for Onions Again

Herb Growing Tips

How to Make a One Pot Herb Garden

Lest you think I've forgotten about my vertical garden, I did a little browsing at the nursery this morning for possible ideas.

There were a lot of different trellises available, and one I liked in particular had asian lines reminiscent of a shinto shrine (my apologies for the photos--they were hanging up and my iPhone doesn't do it justice):

 

My thought was that I could hang rectangular planters equidistantly on this trellis, kind of like this:

 

Three of these would fit quite nicely and allow for plants to grow.

The trellis was $49.99 and the planters $8.99 each.  Still a long way from the $399 price tag on the vertical garden from Smith & Hawken, but also still a little pricey.  I'm gonna continue looking around.

Gardening Made Vertical

I saw this posted on another blog recently:

Photo:  Smith & Hawken

Like the author of the original post, I am intrigued, because there is one wall in particular on my balcony that is screaming for something like this.  But at $399, I am thinking I will have to try to come up with something myself because times are tough, ya know?

I looked at a couple of videos on YouTube demonstrating vertical gardens but I didn't find one that looked suitable (and to be honest, one of them was almost 10 minutes long and I just wasn't in the mood).

I will have to get back to you on this, because at the moment I don't have the time to research or think of any good ideas for making this.  However, I wanted to throw it out there (ideas, anyone?) and I'll re-visit the project when I have a chance.  I am positively itching to plant some herbs and this would be the perfect method for growing them I think.

Garden Update

Remember when I blogged about how happy I was about the vegetable "garden" I planted about two months ago?

Well, chickadees, it has thus far yielded me the following:

1 zucchini
1 Japanese eggplant
0 tomatoes
Enough lettuce to make about six salads
Loads of basil
Loads of Italian parsley
Loads (though still not fully grown) of serano chilis

 

The Japanese eggplant plant died and has been removed.  The zucchini plant is almost dead and almost certainly will not give me any more vegetables.  The tomato plant is also almost dead and waiting for removal.  The salad greens are happily growing and show no signs of faltering any time soon.

My housekeeper told me I waited too long to plant and that it's too cold and wet here in the mornings right now, which is probably why all my plants died.  I also let the bugs kind of eat them up a little, so that was my bad.

I did make some very tasty turkey burgers using my zucchini:

1 lb ground turkey breast
1 cup chopped mushrooms
4 large garlic cloves, coursely chopped
1 small zucchini, chopped
1 egg
Garlic salt to taste
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients and form into patties, then grill and serve on buns with all the fixin's.

As soon as the serano chilis are ready I'll probably add half a chopped serano--although that might upset the flavor balance a little.  We'll see.

Things That Make Me Happy

I'm kind of in a weird place right now.  I've been having trouble with motivation which is a little odd for me and I'm not sure what the problem is.  While I'm not exactly unhappy, I'm not particularly happy either and this lack of motivation is contributing to this.

That said, there are a few things in my life right now that are making me very happy, and I thought rather than focusing on the negative, why not highlight the good stuff?

1)  My garden
I have never really had luck with growing vegetables or herbs, but I have high hopes for the things I planted a couple of weeks ago.  Everything is growing quite nicely, flowering where appropriate and in general preparing to bear me some lovely gifts.

This is the zucchini plant, which has several "boy flowers:"

I harvested the flower in the photo and I'm going to save it so I can use it in cooking when there are more.  My housekeeper, who seems to know everything about plants, told me I should make a quesadilla with them and I think I will.

The salad greens are growing with great speed.  To remind you, here is a photo of them when I first planted them:

And here they are today:



Finally, a very long time ago, I blogged about my nectarine tree and my hope that someday I'd actually get a piece of fruit from it.  Well friends, the time has come:

 

Yes, that is indeed a nectarine you see growing on the tree.  I couldn't be more proud of my little tree.  It's first fruit!

2)  Speaking Spanish
My friend Teresa's mother is from Spain and now and then, Teresa has relatives that come to visit.  For the last couple of weeks, her cousins from Madrid have been visiting and I am having a lot of fun with them.  They speak mostly Spanish and I of course speak mostly English, but talking to them has been a great opportunity to practice my Spanish (and for them to practice English).  I've long had a goal of becoming fluent--which wouldn't be all that difficult here in Southern California--but I tend to revert back to speaking English because it's so much easier.  But if you're talking to someone who doesn't speak English, your only choice is to speak Spanish.

My husband Mick is getting into it.  The other day, he found a cool website presented by the BBC called Mi Vida Loca.  It's an interactive video "mystery" that helps you learn beginning Spanish.

3)  Knitting
Despite my recent lament, I really am enjoying knitting right now.  I'm trying to get Christmas presents done early this year and it's been fun planning and working on projects.

4)  My leg muscles
I know it's an odd thing to include here, but over the course of the summer I've gained almost 10 pounds and I'm not happy about it.  Still, I've been working out fairly regularly and I've been really pleased with the shape of my legs and it's a direct result of running and working out.  The weight gain is all about food intake--I've been eating like there's no tomorrow, and even if I'm working out regularly I'm not burning off all the calories I consume.  So losing the summer weight is my current challenge, but in the mean time I am enjoying feeling good about my strength, which is most obviously seen in my legs.

I've recently added a couple of new workouts to my week and I'm excited about it going forward.  One is hill-walking.  The area around my house is very hilly and walking up and down them is a great workout.  The second workout I've added is jump rope intervals.  Wow, jumping rope is hard.  I can only do it in 30 second spurts but it feels really good and it's a little more interesting than running (kind of reminds me of my childhood recesses).

5)  Fall is coming
It's my favorite time of year, and it's right around the corner.  2008 is rushing by!

Monday This and That

I've been home from Oregon less than a week and I'm feeling, well, less than motivated to do anything.  I did plant some veggies in my balcony garden yesterday, but that's about it.

These are salad greens.  I also planted a Celebrity tomato plant, a zucchini, and a Japanese eggplant.  I have not had great luck in the past with growing vegetables of any kind, but I think I'll at least have some salad greens to harvest at some point.

I also have an Aerogarden and last week I planted some cherry tomatoes:

Yesterday I was excited to see that they had sprouted.  I had some luck with growing herbs in the Aerogarden, but at the time I wasn't cooking enough and a lot of them got wasted.  I'm hoping to get more use out of the cherry tomatoes.

On the knitting front, I've smack dab in the middle of knitting Coachella, which was featured in last summer's Knitty.

 
I've loved this design since I first saw it, but only recently got around to knitting it.  It doesn't look particularly bra friendly, which is a must for me, but I'm willing to take a chance on it.  Also, it looks like it would be flattering on a variety of figures, as long as the wearer was comfy with showing a little skin, no matter what her size.

I've gotten to the "optional bust shaping," which I'm including.  I'm a little confused though, because it says to do the shaping two times for a D cup.  It seems like that would create a weird double-darting, however, instead of one long dart on each side, which is how you normally see darts in clothing.  I'm thinking I might tear out the short rows I've already done and modify the pattern to do just one dart on each side, only longer.  I'm certain I am not making any sense here, but I know what I'm trying to say.

At any rate, this has been a fun pattern to work on, and I look forward to the finished garment.

Some Quick Links for your browsing pleasure:

Alkemie Jewelry
When I first looked at this jewelry I said "meh."  But as I explored their work further I kind of started liking it, Octopus cuffs notwithstanding (go to the link and hit "next" about three times to see what I'm talking about).

Found Magazine
A friend of mine just sent me this link and it has some funny stuff on it.  Reminds me a little bit of Post Secret, but much less intense.

Recycle a Tank Top to Make a Toddler's Onesie
Don't know why I love stuff like this, but I do.  Reminds me once again that I need to learn to sew.

Summer '08 Knitty Patterns
I want to knit Gigi and Tank Girl.

Landscaping is Fun!

Having never really had a yard of my own, I have never done any landscaping beyond setting up a container garden on my balcony.  One thing our Oregon house has is a backyard, and it needed a lot of attention.  Even though we’ve owned the house for a couple of years now, I didn’t want to do anything to the backyard because I figured it would all die while we were away.  This summer, however, Mick and I have been spending a lot of evenings sitting outside and staring at that ugly mudhole of a backyard was too depressing so I got to work.

See?  Ugly!

I know very little about landscaping or gardening in general, so the first thing I did was a little research on the internet.  I found a landscape plan I liked and that I thought would work for our yard:

Of course I knew I wouldn’t do anything as complicated as all this, but there were elements of this garden that I used in my own design.  First, I decided that the left hand side of the yard would use (roughly) the same type of plants as shown in the left hand side of this picture.  For this I needed tall grass, a shrub, and some smaller grasses to use as groundcover/accents.  As these plants mature, of course, they will fill in the space better.

The next element I decided to use was the water feature, although I planned on a simple garden ornament rather than a fountain.  Mick told me he’d really like a sundial, so I ordered one from yardenvy.com.

This is the space where I knew it would go:

In the “model” garden, the garden ornament is surrounded mainly by groundcover.  I decided I wanted to include some tallish flowering plants around the base of the sundial, then fill in the rest with groundcover:

Though it wasn’t part of my initial plan, I decided to add some containers to the middle of the garden.  They add balance and color to an area that would have otherwise been too plain:

The final element of my landscape was a simple cedar garden bench:

We also replaced the small bistro set we had with some more substantial (and comfortable) wicker chairs:

I am really proud of the job I did on this landscape.  First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard in my life!  They don’t call it “yard work” for nothing, that’s for sure.  More importantly, however, I planned it carefully and there was almost no waste—which is not my usual M.O.  The only things I have left over are a little potting soil and a few groundcover plants.  If you don’t count the bench, sundial and new chairs, this landscape cost well under $100 and it really transformed the yard.  If you include the bench, sundial, and chairs, the price still came in under $400, which I don’t think is bad at all if you consider that we now have an outdoor space where Mick and I sit almost every evening to read, chat, and of course, drink wine.

Humming for my Supper

For my birthday, my parents gave me a small hummingbird feeder that hangs off a planter stick.  It's perfect for my container garden, though I've been very lazy about filling it.

Today I finally looked up a recipe for making hummingbird food and the water is boiling as we speak.

How to Make Hummingbird Food

I hope it attracts some hummingbirds, as they are quite fascinating little creatures.

In other news, my lilies finally bloomed.

I know it's not the prettiest lily in the world, but it's my lily and I love it.

Finally, my housekeeper Rosa and I have successfully saved a bougainvillea plant from the brink of death:

This thing was truly just sticks a couple of months ago, and now it's quite fetching.

Que Bonita!

"I'm a lousy gardener.  I can never tell the soil from the dirt."  --Woody Allen

I'm not the only creative person in my family, not by a long shot.  My mom is an avid gardener and the other day she sent me a photo of the flower box she made:

The box was made with an old wooden box my dad got at a garage sale.  She sanded it and hammered in the loose nails.  Next, she stained it with a yellow water-based stain and wrote the words with a black permanent marker.  She then sealed it with a water-based sealer.  For the legs, she attached an old TV tray she got at a flea market and removed the clips.  She painted the legs with a flat black paint and attached with clips she'd previously attached to the box.  Voila!  A nifty and very cute flower box.

And speaking of flowers, I had to show a photo of the gladiolus on my balcony:

 
Definitely bonita.

My mom is also a very accomplished crochet artist.  Here is a photo of an afghan she recently made:

I think it's gorgeous, and she picked a great color.

I've never made an afghan, but I'm thinking it might be time for me to give it a try.  I prefer knitting to crochet (especially since I'm not that great at crochet) so maybe I'll design and knit one this winter.