I love putting in new hardscape. Plants are the wildcard in your garden. You can’t totally control plants, no matter how hard you try. You just never really know how long you will want a plant or just how long it will live. Concrete work is permanent. It brings order to an otherwise shuffled landscape. With…

So you say you wish you had a bigger garden? Every one does, right? Well, at some point in all our gardening lives the desire for more land comes up. Frankly, you wouldn’t be a good gardener or true plant lover if the thought never crossed your mind at least once. How ironic is it…

It has been 10 years now since I first embarked on a massive garden project. One that involves pouring concrete, bringing in boulders, and that will lead to me planting a whole bunch of palms, cycads, agaves and aloes. I always knew what I wanted to do in the garden, and for many years I had been…

There are always a few plants that get placed in my garden that I wish I hadn’t purchased. Maybe I knew they would be too cold sensitive but tried anyway. Maybe I knew they would grow too quickly for a selected spot in the garden. Perhaps some were just ugly and grew nothing like I imagined they would. However, very seldomly…

Back on August 25th, 2015, famed plantsmen and palm tree growing legend Mardy Darian passed away at 82 years young. I first met Mardy in 2008 when I went with a few friends to tour his Vista, California, garden. In an effort to limit visitors and to generate some income to assist with his water bill, Mardy would charge…

Spring time in my garden is when I like to make the major changes. Spring is also when I find myself planting 90% of everything I will put into the ground that year. However, before any plantings, time must be dedicated to ripping plants out. We all know that life isn’t fair, and tough choices have to made when building…