Happy Memorial Day!

It has been a sunny weekend here in San Francisco, and the first gladiolus of the season decided to bloom.


What a gorgeous, deep purple color!

Scientific Beaker Vases

A few months ago I purchased a lot of miscellaneous pharmaceutical beakers from an auction house in South Carolina:

I didn't really have a plan for them at the time, but I thought they were cool and when they arrived, I was not disappointed. The larger beakers are hand blown and the numbers are etched in a cool old Victorian-looking font. I had seen a blog post on Velvet & Linen about using beakers as vases, so I decided to give it a try for my brunch table on Mother's day.

I picked cala lilies and climbing roses from our garden and created a few little arrangements using various sizes of beakers:


I especially liked the little beakers, which were perfect for little climbing rose bouquets and are short enough so that you can still see people sitting across the table from you:


I really like the eclectic, casual look of the different vases, and I think they're cool as centerpieces even without flowers. Here's what's on my table right now (fuschias from my garden):


Vintage and new lab beakers are easy to find, and there are lots of them listed on ebay in all different shapes and sizes. Just make sure you wash them first to get out any remaining chemical residue!

Evolution of my garden

Last year was the starter year for my gardening. Prior to that I had always lived in apartments with no yard, but our current house has a front garden and a back garden. By the time we moved in they were both in daunting condition, so I started with the front garden which has some nice legacy plants and is pretty contained (9x9).

When we bought the house, the front garden looked like this:

The previous owner died in 2003 and since that time the house was owned by her nieces who both live in LA. The neighbors tell me that she had been a really avid gardener who would spend hours in her garden. After she died the garden declined, but there are some nice legacy plants there: a very healthy and established Daphne plant, some aging roses, lots of cala lilies and chasmanthe.

After we bought the house we removed the japanese maple tree as it blocked the front of the house, and the camilia bushes because they were very old. There was a period of renovation, and by the time we moved in the front garden looked like this:

In February of last year, I decided to tackle the garden. I initially visited Home Depot and bought bulbs, cheap stepping stones, and some garden edgers. They aren't the classiest items and they are definitely not real stone, but the price was right and they were easily accessible. I installed everything and planted some flowers that I got at Flowercraft, and this is what my baby garden looked like...

From the top of our front stairs:

From the bottom of our front stairs:

From the other side of the yard:

From outside the front gate:

I planted a lot of little plants that I thought were nice when I was at the garden center, and some of them were not well suited to the summer conditions of our yard. The yard retains water nicely when it is wet, but becomes very dry in the summer. As soon as it started to get warm, most of the plants died (my life is also too hectic for routine watering), which was a bit discouraging so I stopped working in the garden as much.

This year, on the first nice weekend I decided to tackle the disaster that was our front yard. I weeded half the yard, took out some of the dead plants, trimmed back the others and created a little border in front of my daphnes and foxgloves. Then it rained for 2 weeks and on the next nice weekend I weeded the rest of the yard. I filled up an entire compost bin with weeds!

Here is what my mature, weeded garden looks like:

Even my little dog thinks it's a more appealing place to hang out:

Now all we just need to tackle the backyard (yes, that is our backyard down there covered in weeds):

Refreshing my window boxes

My dining room has three windows that let in lots of great light - unfortunately they face the wall of my neighbor's house. I installed two window boxes and last year planted some salvia to help improve the view. Alas, this is what they looked like this morning:


I decided to spruce them up and went to Flowercraft in search of some plants that do well in pots and grow tall enough to be seen in the windows. I left with eight armeria plants, which I potted.
Now my window boxes look like this:


And even though I just planted them, the flowers already peek above the windowsill:


The view is still a little bleak, but the flowers already make it look more cheery. Hopefully they will fill out and get a bit taller - some curtains would help too...