Galvanized Stock Tanks in the Garden

I’m a huge fan of using these galvanized, industrial looking troughs in the garden. Concord Feed has a nice selection of them. This is the one in Pleasant Hill.

A large selection of galvanized containers at a feed store.

People are often shocked when they get quoted for having someone build a raised bed for them. It takes skill to make a really nice, sturdy cedar or redwood raised bed, so it makes sense that it would be expensive. And don't get me wrong, I love a wooden raised bed, especially when they've been built with a wide lip for sitting or resting your tools.

There are a lot of reasons people might want a raised bed, and if they just don't have the money to invest in a well-built wooden one, I think the galvanized ones are a perfect solution. For one, in this area the soil is often hard clay and also very possibly contaminated with high lead levels. It can also be a mobility issue. If you can't bend over or crouch comfortably, you'll want to harvest your veggies or flowers from something at least at the 2' height. These can also just add height to your garden pretty cheaply. I've used them as part of retaining walls.

Another reason these are nice is that you can take them with you when you move. So if you're renting, it will be easier to move these than disassembling wooden beds and reassembling them at your new place.

Homeowners can go to a feed store to buy these or have them delivered, fill them with soil, and they're ready to plant. Adding irrigation is no problem. They have a drainage hole so you can use that to run your irrigation line.

The galvanized troughs will also keep pesky gophers from tunneling up and snacking on your veggies.

I've heard complaints from people about these, and I have counter arguments. If folks don't like the industrial look, you can just paint them. I've seen them look really nice tinted in a coppery color to sort of look like Corten. They might be nice in a dusty grayish-green color as well.

Sometimes folks are worried about chemicals leaching into the soil from the metal. And look, I'm not a metallurgist... but the modern ones are not going to leach anything in troublesome quantities into your soil. Just don't use a vintage one from the '80s or older.

A trip to Lake Merritt Garden

A little stir crazy during this dumb pandemic? Thankfully, we have so many lovely places to visit and the weather that makes it even nicer.

This is a fun new area with pots and succulents.

I spy a new play area over there.

This looks like another new area. some awesome boulders and a twig teepee structure. I def want to play here.

I’m currently obsessed with Daniel Smith Pyroll Orange. It is perfect for this cone.

Watercolor sketchbook with some pots and succulents and an orange cone.

The side yard is growing in nicely

“Everyone needs a sideyard”, as my boss tends to say. Usually she is talking about people needs a messy work area - a place to keep shovels and buckets, etc.

In this case, as we only have one side yard, I wanted it to be a beautiful entrance to our garden. The crappy stuff is hidden in a back a bit.

We are finding that this side yard stays nice and cool during the summer The bamboo is growing in to add shade and will hopefully screen the house from our very nice neighbor at some point. I love the way the path turned out. It is very weird to remember that this whole area was mostly underground previously and then WAS a trash area for quite a while as we did the deck construction and laundry room rebuild in the back.

A fine and shady spot to drink a cocktail and have some snacks.

I am a tad concerned for the changing light over the seasons in this area. It is mostly full sun on one side in the summer and then in winter it really does become all shady with some morning and evening light. Originally I wanted this inch to be a live edge bench but with all the chaos and decision fatigue of construction we just went with whatever. It’s nice enough!

Cotinus ‘Grace’, Ceanothus ‘Diamond Heights, Bulbine ‘tiny tangerine’, Achillea and some Armeria

Tim got me that egret at Burning Man in 2012. As we were driving out someone had a bunch still up in their camp and he got out and asked if we could have one. I love it so!

Chicken Math

Our second to last chicken died in February of this year and, with just one chicken left, I decided that we would get a new batch of chickens. My timeline was dependent on Concord Feed and their schedule of chickens. I was hoping to get some specific breeds. I ended up just getting the ones they had available and I am very glad I did because the week after I picked ours up there was a global pandemic declared and people went nuts buying up all the chickens. It was all about sourdough starter and buying ‘pandemic chickens’ in those first few weeks. I mean, also it was about people being scared, dying, losing their jobs and a host of other horrible things.

We ended up getting six chickens, 2 cream legbars, and four cochins (black, blue, buff, speckled). Our older hen is an Easter Egger and she mostly hates us.

Even now I feel the inexplicable pull of chicken math. I really want to add some chocolate eggers or a Lavender Orpington… there are so many adorable chickens out there.

Meme showing a still of Boromir from The Lord of the Rings with the caption, “One does not simply get a few chickens”.

Meme showing a still of Boromir from The Lord of the Rings with the caption, “One does not simply get a few chickens”.

Baby chickens are just the cutest things! Check out these nerds as babies:

So the week after got these the SIP order was put in place. My sister and I organized a pet fashion show for the kids in our lives. It was a great success. I submitted several chicks wearing muffin papers.

Photo of a sketchbook page open to a watercolor and ink drawing of a ticket (front and back) saying ‘Pet Fashion Show March 2020”

Photo of a sketchbook page open to a watercolor and ink drawing of a ticket (front and back) saying ‘Pet Fashion Show March 2020”

Picture of a gray and white chick butt wearing a muffin paper as a skirt.

Picture of a gray and white chick butt wearing a muffin paper as a skirt.

Pink Tamales and an Outing to Pt. Richmond

The goals for this outing were for me to check out the landscape in front of the Natatorium, go to Keller Beach, and to try out a restaurant in Pt. Richmond.

What the heck is a Natatorium?! A natatorium is just an indoor pool. This one is called the Richmond Plunge and it is a public warm saltwater pool. It is fairly newly restored, in 2010 I think the building was retrofitted, solar panels installed (these panels help heat the water) and a new, native plant landscape was installed as well.

Wandering through the landscape in the front of the building I noticed that along the side by the train tracks the landscape continues. There is a regulation sized Bocce Court, a farther back behind the building there are tennis courts, picnic areas with tables and grills, a Little Free Library, and more native plants.

View of a teenager reading a plaque in front of a brick building with a large sign that says, “Municipal Natatorium”.

View of a teenager reading a plaque in front of a brick building with a large sign that says, “Municipal Natatorium”.

We ended up going to Masa to get tamales to bring with us to Keller Beach. I had been the Keller Beach before but a long time ago and I couldn’t remember what access was like. My prediction last month that my achilles tendons were giving out was, unfortunately, correct and so I am wearing a boot to try to give the left one a rest. We ended up not going all the way down to the beach but we sat on a bench looking out over the swimmers and ate our tasty tamales. We split a strawberry dessert tamale, the first dessert tamale I have ever had. It was good!

Just sitting by the water listening to kids playing in the water and the sound of wind and waves feels so restorative. I was amazed at how far out the swimmers went! I forget that people swim here. I have only been in the water here (in Northern CA) a handful of times.

View of a small beach surrounded by greenery covered cliffs, a few people are in the water and you can see the Richmond Bridge in the background.

View of a small beach surrounded by greenery covered cliffs, a few people are in the water and you can see the Richmond Bridge in the background.

There is so much more to explore around here I am sure we will be back. Here is a link to a PDF of the East Bay Regional Park tri-fold about this areas trails.

Plaque displaying the Ferry Point Loop and Shipyard Trail.

Plaque displaying the Ferry Point Loop and Shipyard Trail.

We also made two side trips. First, to Serrano’s Bakery in Richmond and then to TAP Plastics to get some silicon mold making supplies.

gingerpig.jpg

Albany Bulb Outing

Kiddo and I headed out to Albany Bulb this week to do some exploring. Immediately upon exiting the car I realized I have forgotten my binoculars. Huge mistake! The wetlands were LOUSY with Avocets and other Brown Birds of Medium Size (BBoMS). I’m shocked newly everyday how much my eyesight has deteriorated in the last 5 years and resolve to put my car binocs back in the car where they belong.

Multi-branched tree with a painted trunk and SF and the bay in the background.

Multi-branched tree with a painted trunk and SF and the bay in the background.

I have deep suspicion at this point that my Achilles tendons are royally unhappy but I soldier on and we head out to see what we can see. About halfway in to the Bulb we realize that we need to order Picante for pick up STAT. Thank god we can stop for a sec so I can rest my legs and place our order. In true teenage fashion Kiddo is also more excited about getting a burrito than exploring. :)

Chunk of old concrete nestled in dried grass covered in graffiti. Graffiti says ‘Anxiety’ and also has a picture of a CA poppy with text next to it that says California Poppy.

Chunk of old concrete nestled in dried grass covered in graffiti. Graffiti says ‘Anxiety’ and also has a picture of a CA poppy with text next to it that says California Poppy.

Why yes this concrete is expressing just how I feel: anxious and excited to look at plants.

At this point I am trying to convince Kiddo that an acceptable summer project would be to think of an art project to do at the Albany Bulb. He is not convinced and continues to be wholesome AF.

Have you been to Albany Bulb? You can read up on it here. The thing I like about the Bulb is all the twisted metal embedded in chunks of concrete. IDK, I just like that kind of thing. Well, I like it up until I start to think on the human race and how it creates massive amounts of construction debris and is ruining the planet.

Now I am trying to convince Kiddo that all this land is manmade and so is Emeryville. I don’t have enough facts at my disposal to be convincing enough, alas. I wander off into a fantasy in which Kiddo writes a high school report on the created and stolen lands of the Bay Area.

Bay Nature has an interesting article about the bulb.

On our way back to the car we see some lovely BLM and All Brown Live Matter graffiti. It certainly bears repeating until everyone believes it for real.

Close-up of weathered wood with BLM spray painted in red.

Close-up of weathered wood with BLM spray painted in red.

Texture and Pattern in the Landscape

It's a cold and damp here in Oakland. We went for brunch and then took a walk over by Lake Merritt, where we played on the Mid-Century Monster and explored the Mediterranean Garden.

The Mid-Century Monster, recently renovated and repainted green, everyone loves playing on this sculpture and it's so nice to see if back up and accessible. It was originally created for the 1952 California Spring Garden Show. I need to look up pictures of that to see how it was displayed.

I'm such a fan of the Lake Merritt Gardens and have been bringing Jack here since riiiiight before he was born. Here is my TMI story... A month before Jack's due date, and just two days after starting my maternity leave, my water broke unexpectedly. I was freaking out, and the doctor advised me to wait before coming in for some reason! To calm me down, we took a walk at Lake Merritt. I vividly remember wearing a muumuu and Crocs—quite the sight! No amount of walking around in a nice garden and looking at Canada Geese was going to calm me down though.

We walked around through the Mediterranean Garden and I was just struck by all the texture and patterns during this walk-through. Once again reminding me of one of my favorite landscape books From Art to Landscape by W. Gary Smith. That book is one of the things that firs got me thinking about the use of these forms and pattern in actual landscape design. When I was in school for Computer Animation creating textures from photographs was one of my favorite parts of modeling

There are a number of patterns found in nature. Types include repetition, symmetry, drift, serpentine, spiral, branching, radial, and fractals.

Of course many of these are used in any kind of design work.


I like this example of serpentine and repetition. The tall upright palms are repeated all along the serpentine path, both drawing the key farther and farther into the landscape.

Moving a Palm Tree

The project we are working on now is big and fairly complicated. They have an amazing palm tree in the backyard that is in the way of the new pool pavilion we have designed for them. It's a residential lot with some weird angles and an existing pool and other built elements that are making siting the pavilion difficult. Hence, we are moving the palm. It is a huge and mature Brahea armata - Blue Palm, how much does this thing weigh?! A lot.

We called in the local 'Palm and Avocado Tree Guy', Gary Gragg, of Golden Gate Palms Nursery fame. You can visit the nursery in Richmond, California; find more info here: https://www.goldengatepalms.com/

We invited Gary out to take a look and to ask about the possibility of moving the palm. He comes out and says, "No problem, let's move this baby girl!" Or something like that, anyway.

Mature Blue Palm getting transplated

Gary is a bit of a character - outgoing, gregarious, knowledgeable, and very positive. A true and delightful plant geek. We actually had him out to our own house a few weeks ago to consult about avocados. My spouse is obsessed with having avocados. We bought three and they got planted all together in one large hole - 3 plants, one hole. Read what Gary has to say about avocados in the Bay Area here: https://www.goldengatepalms.com/avocados

Back to our Walnut Creek project... Gary and his crew arrive and maneuver their excavator/forklift into the backyard. The receiving hole has already been excavated and the palm is ready to go. After lifting the tree out of the hole, they decide to go get a smaller forklift. I love how insect-like this machine is!

We all leave for some lunch and freaking out. But Gary comes back with the new forklift and they get back to work. I go back to standing around watching and kind of squealing in alarm. At some point, the palm is off-balance and all the guys jumped on the back of the forklift to balance it out. I admire this "get it done" attitude that appears to be fairly reckless about personal safety, but at the same time I do NOT want to see someone get flung ass over teakettle onto the pavement.

They can't grab the tree from the base like I was expecting. Which makes sense, there is no way to keep it stable from that position. The thing is dang heavy. Instead, they grab it around the middle and slowly drive around the pool to its final resting place.

The pool toys gently drifting about is making me crack up for some reason. So serene!

HOPEFULLY, it will bounce back from this fairly traumatic move! Palms, as you can see from some of these photos, have a fibrous root ball rather than a tap root. They don’t mind being moved but it’s still a trauma and you never know! They need to keep the root ball HELLa moist for a while, while the palm acclimates.

More APLD Tour Goodness

We did a whirlwind tour of some gardens and nurseries with Nigel Dunnett when he was here giving a present ration the Bay Area APLD district.

I would love to try this naturalistic planting design that he and Piet Oldof and such talk about but I’m not sure our clientele is the best for this technique. So, Client context matters and ongoing maintenance matters.

Our work primarily involves small to medium residential gardens NOT large scale public installations we are seeing in photos. It’s not as though our clients have dedicated gardening staff.

Who will maintain these gardens post-installation? The homeowner? A standard mow-and-blow service? I’m just not sure the more loosy-goosey evolution of a garden like this will work for say, a busy family of four.

And like, detailed written-out progression plans? idk. But my sense is that any POE visit after installing one of these at some normal Lafayette homeowner is just going to show a field of weeds and oxalis. Is this cynical of me? I’m thinking particularly of a client sending me photo of her garden a year or two after it was installed and it was all just Centranthus ruber °՞(ᗒᗣᗕ)՞°. I mean.. Centrathus is a pretty pink flower and all but NO. /rant

Back to the garden tour! This was a very fun and wild garden that you can see evolved over time and at the whims of the homeowner and designer. There were so many fun paving details like this and surprise seating moments

This is a John Greenlee project and he joined us for the tour. So it was great to have him there to talk about the gardens evolution.

A nice picture of Nigel Dunnett and John Greenlee

I love an old shed with tools moment.

the planting textures really stood out to me.

There were many ‘view moments’ where you turn a corner and suddenly you have a cool view or an interesting garden sculpture or water feature to look at. At one point I was so pleased to see one of the glassword color-changing roses made by The Sun Brother’s Studio folks! I swear I took a picture but now I can’t find it.

Garden Tour - Keelya Meadows

I absolutely love the book Fearless Color Gardens by Keelya Meadows. I knew she was a local designer because she has a little exhibit at American Soil and Stone and I knew her home garden was open sometimes but I was not sure of the details. I joined the Garden Conservancy this year and lo! her garden was on the Open Days list! I made T. come with me.

I love all the quirky paving, concrete forms, and amazingly fun use of color. I wish my own garden was just like this. It was a bit over the top for T. though and I suspect he will object.

I’m desperately in love with that leopard-spotted Ligularia and must acquire one for myself immediately.

16th Street Station in Oakland

I went out with a group to explore and photograph the old 16th Street Station in West Oakland. It is such a cool building with a really cool history and it is sad to see it in such disrepair. We lived over in West Oakland for a long time and I used to go over that way to take trampoline lessons.

old postcard of West Oakland 16th Street Station

The station was operating up until the 1989 earthquake and was the end of the transcontinental railroad. It was built in 1912 by the Southern Pacific Railroad with the architect Jarvis Hunt in the Beaux Arts style. It’s so fancy! I love it. And I love how dilapidated it is now even though it is also sad to see it that way. Like, why is this not a building being used for stuff! It has been used for a few things like I’m pretty sure there was an opera preformed there and some other arty things. I’m assuming it is because of earthquake safety.

This is going to be another image heavy post. It was so much fun to prowl around this building and the grounds!

So much neat graffiti.

And then I love to see nature intruding in all the cracks and crevices. Why is it that humans find post apocalyptic, overgrown old industrial sites so fascinating?

I was also excited to see that the surrounding land was being used by an urban flower form to cultivate cut flowers! It is called Wow Farm Flowers and the I think they got a grant to help prep the site and the Oakland Zoo provided soil. How cool is that!?