Steve and I recently visited friends in Phoenix for a long weekend. Most of our visit consisted of catching up and relaxing; it was actually a perfect weekend! For a little culture, our hostess bought tickets for us to visit Taliesin West. I didn’t really know what to expect except that is a compound built by Frank Lloyd Wright. After our visit, I’d definitely recommend a trip to Taliesin West to anyone visiting Scottsdale.
Update in March 2023: I noticed that the 2023 home and garden tour is scheduled for May 6, 2023. I highly recommend getting on the mailing list and blocking your calendar! I am still thinking, almost a year later, about how wonderful some of the houses featured were. One tip: skip the boxed lunch and make reservations elsewhere for lunch after the tour 🙂
Sophie and I had a fun mother-daughter day spending the morning touring five fantastic homes and gardens. It truly was California living at its best! I wanted to share some of the themes I saw across the five residences, in case you’ll be renovating soon.
It’s an annual ritual– spring gardening! Our house in Santa Barbara does not have a big yard, but we were able to find a couple of little spots to try out our green thumbs. This weekend, we went by Ace Hardware and picked up a few tomato and strawberry plants. I’m looking forward to feasting on our bounty this summer!
I love having plants throughout the house. They literally make me smile, to see them thriving and growing. (don’t ask me how I feel when they are drooping!) We have a pretty good local nursery in my area, and honestly they have upped their indoor plant game over the past couple of years. But it’s nothing like the selection you will find online.
I’ve ordered from a number of companies recently, and I’m sharing my picks for sources for indoor plants. And as a bonus, a few places to find terrific planters and baskets for your new green friends.
Kate and I seem to be doing a lot of home improvement projects this year- just like everyone else! And while Kate is making major changes to her Santa Barbara house, we’re making some smaller improvements as we settle into our newish home. And one of those improvements was actually pretty dramatic in terms of impact- replacing our grass with artificial turf in the backyard. Why did we do it? Read on!
Continue reading “Why we’re replacing our grass with artificial turf”We have a beautiful large maple (or is it a sycamore??) tree in our Santa Barbara front yard. It softens our hardscape and provides us with a lot of shade on sunny days. I do love a Saturday nap under the tree. But unfortunately, it also makes a mess of our front yard! Time for a tree transformation…
Here’s proof that it really is the small things in life that give us the greatest pleasure is this garden trug…
Before our garden trug purchase, we used an old moving box (yes, I know, not terribly chic!) Collecting all the debris, weeds, leaves, cuttings from our yard got challenging as the box (no handles) filled up. But it did serve its purpose (just don’t get it wet!)
Continue reading “Amuse Bouche*: garden trug”
I want to share an amazing plant nursery near Santa Barbara that I just discovered. Recently, we decided to refresh our front yard landscaping. We took out the plants that weren’t doing too well, and we needed some replacements.
We asked a landscaper friend for a suggestion for a good nursery, and he heartily recommended one in Goleta, just down the road from Santa Barbara. We ventured out one recent Sunday to find some inspiration and maybe buy a few plants to start filling in our yard.
After a 20 minute drive from home to Goleta, we found Shoreline Drive, a road we didn’t know existed.
Continue reading “Amazing plant nursery near Santa Barbara”
It’s time for a refresh of our current front yard plants! A year ago Steve and I completed a significant front yard landscaping project at our home in Santa Barbara which included lots of hardscaping as well as a lot of new plants. We partnered with a landscaper on selecting the plants. She showed us photos of plants and asked if we liked them. We liked 90% of the plants she showed us!
Continue reading “Refreshing our Santa Barbara front yard landscaping”