Category: Design

Building a command post

2011-3 Command Post Table 1

Redwood command post table today, 10 years old

Alexander Selkirk was a Scot whose adventures on an uninhabited island were reputed to be the basis for Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. From ‘Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk’ by poet, William Cowper, are these lines:

“I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute.”

2000-11 Command post table plan

2000-11 Command post table plan

When we first bought the property here in October 2000, I was inspired by a shady, cool area above where the house would be built to make for ourselves a spot. This spot is on a rise above where the house is now. There are three tall Ponderosa pines there and three or four oaks, with a line of small manzanitas in front. The mountain, which inspired us to choose this place to live, rises above all.

For the first five years we had no electricity, no water and it was a few months before we even had a flat place to park our small trailer. We needed a living room,…a spot.…

What to plant under oaks and pines in the garden?

Caring for native trees in the garden …and a list of what to plant When faced with a new, mountain or rural garden, you need to make peace with your oaks and pines. These beautiful trees can be unkempt, stickery and surrounded by brush and poison oak at the start. I wondered what could be…

Manzanita ‘Howard McMinn’ and companions

This is National Wildlife Week and for that, I have chosen some favorite California native plants to show, as well as show one of the areas of my garden, with a mixture of CA natives and Mediterranean plants, that is starting to show some progress. The setting The land here is sloped generally 15 degrees and the…

Three levels, from right, cultivated Mediterranean and native plants, below path, introduced natives and beyond the bench, natural

Creating a long lasting garden

A common word in gardening this decade is ‘sustainable’; sustainable gardening is using the principles of ecological wisdom.  When planting and puttering in my garden, which is two acres planted with CA natives, Mediterranean plants close to the house and natural groomed forest beyond, I think of this. How do I also create a long…