The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Bathroom Mosaic Update

How long should it take to mosaic two small bathroom walls?

Hmmm. The two walls together are only 88 square feet. If you were just throwing some time at them it might take one non-tile-laying layman a few days—or maybe a weekend—and of course 88 square feet of tiles.

Because I was doing a mosaic, the amount of tile needed ran between one quarter and one third that amount.

So let’s see, there’s coming up with the design, breaking the tile, changing your mind several times about the design, breaking more tile, gluing the broken pieces down, stepping back and looking at the design that you change your mind about every few minutes, and repeating this process several hundred times. How long should this project take?

Let’s throw in two boys, motherhood, wifedom, gardening, housekeeping, dogs, birds, driving endlessly to pick up and drop off and picking up and grocery shopping and blogging and gardening and helping other people garden, watercolor journaling, house-painting, volunteer work, gardening, watching the Bachelorette, reading people magazine, reading gardening magazines, taking silly classes, entertaining, gardening, surfing, running, hiking, yoga, biking and gardening…

Green Thumb Sunday–Azaleas in Yosemite

Gardeners, as well as plant and nature lovers, can join Green Thumb Sunday
every Sunday. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Stumble It!

Watercolor Journaling

My first Watercolor journal page. I was done at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show.

My background is in commercial art, but after four years of intensive art classes in college (all based on the client and not really what I wanted to pursue) I stopped.

What did I stop?

I stopped everything. I stopped oil painting. I stopped acrylic painting. I stopped airbrushing, I stopped watercolors, I even stopped just plain pencil sketching and pen ink drawings. I was so burnt out.

In school, I worked approximately sixty hours a week on assigned design projects. The love went out of my art and the art went out of me.

Bye-bye.

But I had a life changing experience the other day.

My friend Amber asked me to meet her for coffee. She’s very artistic. She quilts and sews and knits. She is a graphic designer, (something I failed at) Oh yes, Amber also has a very smart and thoughtful mommy blog of her own, Blueberry Basil. Amber knows that I still appreciate art.

She said she had something to show me.

Keeyla And Me

Something strange happened the other day.

I went for a walk with my girlfriend.

I wasn’t going to go because I was wearing platform sandals and she wanted to walk up into the hill to this winery with our dogs.

My dog just happened to be in my car and I had an hour before I was to pick up my kids, so I decided to hike up the hill.

On the way up it started to rain, which was weird in itself.

We kept walking up toward the winery. We made it all the way up and strolled around with the dogs. We looked at the views, at the fountains, the gardens and then we turned and started back. We talked. We asked each other what the weekend held. I told my friend that I wanted to visit the Keeyla Meadows garden in Albany.

Keeyla Meadows is my absolute favorite garden designer/ artist. Keeyla’s gardens incorporate her art, her sculptures, her ceramics and her mosaics.  She uses brightly colored plants and flowers. Her designs are always interesting, engaging and amusing.

 

I have been meaning to visit her gardens for months, but, Keeyla’s garden is in Albany and Albany is at least an hour away and I have two kids, a psycho dog and a skinny husband. Oh yeah—and two acres of my own gardens.

I may never get there.

So my friend and I were walking our dogs through the foothills and I happen to glance down this driveway and who is standing there directing some workers who are placing plants? Keeyla Meadows.

I am not kidding.

I stopped dead in my tracks, giving my dog whiplash. My girlfriend stopped and looked back at me. “What’s wrong?” She says. I look up at her and say, “That’s Keeyla Meadows.” She asks, “Are you going to go say hi?”

Green Thumb Sunday-Coronado Island

Gardeners, as well as plant and nature lovers, can join Green Thumb Sunday every Sunday.
Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Stumble It!

Jen's Garden

Jen's garden
People come in and of our lives. It’s a fact of life. But sometimes we are lucky enough to have friends that we love and that love us enough to stay in touch. If we’re really lucky, then we get to visit those beloved friends and they get to visit us.

Just off the plane. 11:00 pm at the piano bar.

Cactus flower Torrey Pines

Hiking Torrey Pines

My bestest gardening buddy moved away several years ago, leaving me brokenhearted with no one to commiserate over my garden with. She left me her can-o’-worms and split to San Diego.

The Plant Guy

We see each other once or twice a year, but we’re always surrounded by family—not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just that we don’t get that good old fashion girlie bitch sessions in like we used to.

Listening to Salsa music and people watching at Croces in Downtown San Diego

My beautiful and generous gardening-loving friend sent me a ticket to San Diego a couple of weeks ago, and we spent last weekend hanging out and catching up.

The view from our window at the Grand Hyatt


Jen's garden

Riding scooters around Coronado Island


The land of OZ

It was all so much fun, I can’t believe it has already come and gone. ☹

Jen's Garden

Stumble It!

Seed Gathering Detour

I’m a freak. We had our annual Forth of July party on Saturday. We have a lot of friends and neighbors over. Around 100 of them.

This means days—sometime weeks—of preparation. Our party is held outside, of course. It’s hard to light sparklers and piccolo peets in the house, and the water slide just doesn’t blend with my carpets.

The problem with having the party outdoors is: It happens to be in the middle of my garden.

Why is this a problem?

Well, it’s not so much a problem with the location as it is with me. You see, while trying to get my party chores done, I get sidetracked. That’s right.

My neighbor popped in to see if there was anything he could do to help and there I was bent over a paper plate squeezing seeds out of the dried head of a columbine flower. I had absconded with the plate from the party stack I was supposed to be arranging on the table with all the other paper products.

Table? Oops I forgot to set it up.

Where were those darned paper products and plastic utensils anyway? Who cares?