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To brighten my day I decided to plant some moss I collected last summer at a friend’s cottage & tended over winter. An antique copper pot my dad picked up at a local yard sale is the perfect container for this low-maintenance composition that is perfectly safe outdoors year round.

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Passed this small, photogenic herd of Brahman cattle grazing by the side of the road under a giant mango tree near Coronado, Panama.

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Miniature orchids live in miniature homes at  Finca Orgánica María y Chon (Santa Fe de Veraguas, Panama). 

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Finca Orgánica María y Chon (Santa Fe de Veraguas, Panama)

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Finca Orgánica María y Chon (Santa Fe de Veraguas, Panama)

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Finca Orgánica María y Chon (Santa Fe de Veraguas, Panama)

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Assembled this succulent bowl as a wedding shower gift a few months back. A key to creating a strong composition (in a round container like this) is to pack the plants as tightly as possible without damaging the roots or breaking the foliage. So look for plants that haven’t been over-potted by the nursery - which is becoming a problem as retailers try to make their products look bigger by planting them in pots that are much bigger than the root ball. (Too much leg room!) Most succulents don’t need a lot of space below the soil line to thrive as they hold their moisture up top. I then fill in all the cracks with my own custom potting medium which is fast draining, non-peat based desert soil. After that it gets a good soak & is placed outdoors in a sunny spot for a few days for the foliage to plump up & blush. This particular piece traveled with me by plane to our destination & although it was heavy, there was no damage to any of the fleshy leaves. Then again I packed it very well & guarded it jealously throughout both legs of the flight.  

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Pablo Picasso’s famous Blue Period (Período Azul) is my favourite in terms of style & mood. This phase of his life (1901-1904) was marked by poverty & rejection. Inspired by the frail street dwellers of Barcelona but painted in Paris, the work is literal. In my opinion, no other artist conveys the same emotion with so few brush strokes.

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Cappuccino & carrot cake.

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What is bonsai?

The combination of artistic vision and horticultural excellence, bonsai are ordinary trees that have been trained in pots to grow into compelling shapes.

The art of bonsai began in China over three thousand years ago. Called penjing, these early bonsai were naturally dwarfed trees that were collected from the wild, potted, and trained to exhibit the appearance of great age. The practice was later adopted by the Japanese who - over the centuries - refined the art to a new level of sophistication. The same characters are used in both Chinese and Japanese to represent bonsai: one character means “pot” or “tray”; the other means “to plant”.

By the late 1800’s, the miniature trees in containers were highly sought after by a few enthusiastic collectors outside of Asia. Horticultural exhibits at world’s fairs in Europe and the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s introduced bonsai to a larger, Western audience. Today, this well-known and respected horticultural art form is practiced worldwide incorporating both native and imported species.

The bonsai artist studies the full-size tree to guide the manipulation of the miniature. Over time and through use of specialized tools, the tree becomes a reflection of his or her artistic vision. This careful collaboration unfolds over decades. When passed through generations, bonsai becomes truly an art of stewardship.

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THIS is why I’ve always wanted a faux bois console! My grouping of shade loving mosses & ferns has found a happy home on my covered porch.

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In my happy place.

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I wanted the gold, and I sought it;  I scrabbled and mucked like a slave. Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it;  I hurled my youth into a grave. I wanted the gold, and I got it—   Came out with a fortune last fall,— Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,  And somehow the gold isn’t all. No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)  It’s the cussedest land that I know, From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it  To the deep, deathlike valleys below. Some say God was tired when He made it;  Some say it’s a fine land to shun; Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it  For no land on earth—and I’m one. You come to get rich (damned good reason);  You feel like an exile at first; You hate it like hell for a season,  And then you are worse than the worst. It grips you like some kinds of sinning;  It twists you from foe to a friend; It seems it’s been since the beginning;  It seems it will be to the end. I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow  That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim; I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow  In crimson and gold, and grow dim, Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,  And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop; And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming,  With the peace o’ the world piled on top. The summer—no sweeter was ever;  The sunshiny woods all athrill; The grayling aleap in the river,  The bighorn asleep on the hill. The strong life that never knows harness;  The wilds where the caribou call; The freshness, the freedom, the farness—  O God! how I’m stuck on it all. The winter! the brightness that blinds you,  The white land locked tight as a drum, The cold fear that follows and finds you,  The silence that bludgeons you dumb. The snows that are older than history,  The woods where the weird shadows slant; The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,  I’ve bade ’em good-by—but I can’t. There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,  And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless,  And deaths that just hang by a hair; There are hardships that nobody reckons;  There are valleys unpeopled and still; There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,  And I want to go back—and I will. They’re making my money diminish;  I’m sick of the taste of champagne. Thank God! when I’m skinned to a finish  I’ll pike to the Yukon again. I’ll fight—and you bet it’s no sham-fight;  It’s hell!—but I’ve been there before; And it’s better than this by a damsite—  So me for the Yukon once more. There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;  It’s luring me on as of old; Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting  So much as just finding the gold. It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,  It’s the forests where silence has lease; It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,  It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

- “The Spell of the Yukon” by Robert W. Service

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Swelling cactus bowl getting ready to be moved outdoors.

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Decided to display one of my Chinese juniper ‘Shimpaku’  bonsai indoors for a few days to be appreciated up close. (It’s already back outdoors as the central heating in my house would fry this tree.) Most people in northern climates lose their bonsai in winter when they move their trees inside. 

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Love the acid tones of these blooms!

Texas Native Plant Lab / Dallas Arboretum

The wait is finally over! Opuntia, Ferocactus and Echinocereus in bloom.

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This hand-carved leadwood buffalo statue was sent to me by a dear friend in South Africa. The piece now animates my fireplace mantel as it motions me to return to the place of its origin.