All I Want to Do is Garden

Our yard is filling in, albeit slowly. 

Discovering lots of inspiration from others. Love Vanessa Kuemmerle's work especially her Ocean Ave garden with the use of Balinese doors for an entry (above). 

You've probably seen Flora Grubb's gorgeous work - she's the IT Garden Girl. She landscaped the Bardessono Hotel, a new LEED-Platinum hotel in Yountville, with a fab Tillandsia and succulent vertical garden. Even the New York Times had nice things to say. My mom and I had such a swell field trip to Flora's garden last month.

What I'd really like to do today is hang out in Marcia Donahue's paradise, which she opens to the public most Sundays, 1-5pm. She's in Berkeley at 3017 Wheeler St. Instead, I will go to the zoo with DH and the kids, and then my daughter's piano recital....

Met Home: Greenest Little House in America

We are delighted to be featured in Metropolitan's Home green April 2009 issue! We met Michael Millman, a local photographer who grew up a few blocks from us here in Rockridge last Christmas holiday, barely catching a few rays of sun for the outdoor shots.



Below is our kitchen with paintings by Claire B. Cotts, counters by Syndacrete, and FSC-cabinets by Silverwalker.

Michael climbed up our neighbor's home to show the PV panels. David was thrilled.

Our back deck before the landscaping. David loves his outdoor shower.  Just bought a table and chairs for our "gathering circle" yesterday at The Wooden Duck in Berkeley, which features reclaimed wood furniture. Our dining room furniture, dressers, bookcases are from there too.

David's home office, the LifePod with a view of the Rainhog.

Eco-Bling Mulch

It's been a while since I last posted. My integrative medicine practice has been busy growing to include three new doctors. Now I'm back to greening my life again and especially interested in our garden.

Mulch. It's the poor relation to the hip, trendy low-water plants. The illegitimate child of the brilliant hardscape. But now it's time for mulch to get its proper due.

I was thumbing through this month's Garden Design over my oatmeal this morning, thinking about how to mulch one very shady part of our yard in Rockridge। I've been tremendously inspired by Marcia Donahue's work nearby and I'm wondering how to acquire vintage bowling balls and enormous ampersands as I don't see many cool ones on Ebay. Marcia, help!? Here's some snaps from her extraordinary art garden here in Berkeley.

Then I was thinking beach glass when I happened upon an ad for American Specialty Glass products, which are 100% recycled and tumbled to remove all sharp edges. They're based in Utah and members of the organization my husband founded, the US Green Building Council. So, we like them already.

Check out the options.

Their website looks as homegrown as mine but they have a few very cool installations. Here's one from the "Mineral Spirits Garden." I don't see more details on their website.

Looks like they've mostly done commercial applications but that's how it's been with green building. Time for more applications in private residences.

Help me decide between these options which are to go against a redish/brown FSC-redwood fence. I like the jewel tones best.

But what's not to love about purple and amber?

Please vote!

Green Details

We are blessed by a flurry of press recently. We are in this month's Ecostructure Magazine, pages 32-36, and love the "gets-it" details writer KJ Fields provides. Thank you, KJ! Thumb through to see Jen Siska's photos.

More locally, we hung out recently with Martha Danley of Green by Design. We were impressed with her coverage in her last few blogs and wish the national magazines that are contacting us were as thorough and integrated. It's rare to meet someone who synthesizes the myriad details of green home, design and life -- check out Martha's blog entries to get a taste.

Greenest Home In America!

David was thrilled this week to receive LEED Platinum Certification for our remodeled Rockridge home  at the GreenBuild conference in Boston. We received the highest score of any home in the current LEED-HOMES program.

For the press coverage, check out the media section of our website. I'll write more when my darling husband returns from his rock star Boston trip and watches the kids for a few hours....

Eco-Driveway 101

We're choosing which permeable pavers to use for our driveway and have settled on Basalite. 

Above is SF Rima at the Sunset Idea House in Palo Alto. Why permeable pavers? They reduce stormwater runoff and increase usable space.  They recharge ground water. More on that when I figure out what that means. They are ADA-compliant, meaning our aging parents are less likely to trip as they walk our driveway. You get LEED credits for them too, although gaming LEED was never our intent.

We are completing a deal for the Italian Renaissance line, shown below. Foxy, no? Comes in lots of colors.

Moved In!

Has it really been a month since we moved in? Our construction crew from Canyon just left yesterday, and our landscaping began today. Do you like the new exterior colors, also from Mythic Paint? We're in love....

Who knew I could love my little garage so much. Next we're working on drip irrigation using graywater, and hooking our toilets up to our rainwater catchment -- as mentioned previously our vessels are the fab rainhogs that we recycled from the San Francisco Slow Food Conference two weeks ago. We also hung out with Harold at Ecohome Improvement yesterday, as he waxed poetic on the virtues of various green stains for the deck.  We chose TimberTek in Pinewood. Photos to follow.