Modern Fire Pit designs part 2

More than any other topic on my blog, the ones that get the most consistent hits from a Google search are the ones with examples of good looking fire pits. Here is one past article on fire pits, and here is another. I'm going to take that to mean that you guys, like me, are fed up with the horribly ugly fire pits that you see out there, and that you are desperately hoping that there is something better.... and there is!

I recently got lost on the website of Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture. And I don't mean lost like I couldn't find my way,  I mean lost like I was too busy stumbling across beautiful things to bother trying to find my way back out again. JGSLA is a small firm out of Los Osas, Ca that seems to share my love of the poured in place concrete fire pit. So I want to share with you some eye candy from their website and a few thoughts on fire pit design, some practical, some not so practical.

On the practical side of things, a few things to think about:

• leg room. If you are building seating around your fire pit, make sure to think about leg room. People love to put their feet up on the edge of the fire pit, but they also hate to bash their knees against the edge, so the distance between the fire pit and the bench is a narrow window. To get it just right for you, measure yourself! And remember, there is a big difference between the length of women's legs and men's legs, so measure the tallies in your household and the shorties, too. 28" is a good starting point to work from. 

• colored concrete can discolor at high temperatures, so don't put your gas line too close to the edge of the concrete. The discoloration may not be black- it is caused by a chemical change in the pigments in the concrete so it could be bright pink (yep, speaking from experience here)
• I know that magazines show fire pits that have beach cobble in them and it looks really cool, but trust me when I say that is just staged for the photo shoot and you don't want to do it. Why not? Because real rocks have tiny air pockets trapped inside them and at high temperatures they expand.... and explode. In a rapid-fire, machine gun kind of way. Really dangerous. Please don't do it. The safe things to use for the inside of your fire pit are: silica sand, tempered glass, lava rock, or crushed hire fired terra cotta tiles.
• Even if you are going with glass, consider a base of small crushed lava rock underneath it. It is way less expensive, and helps to diffuse the gas with all the air pockets in the lava, so you get a more natural soft flame. 

On the less practical but equally important aesthetics side of things:

• If you are using tempered glass and you are tempted to create your own blend of colors, don't blend colors that are drastically different from each other (ie blue and bronze). It looks terrible. Stick to colors that are very similar to each other (ie blue and light blue) or a solid color. Consider using a color that you are already using as an accent in your yard, say in the cushions on your furniture, or notice how the last photo matches the fire glass color to the foliage of a succulent (an Echeveria I think) that is nearby. Nice, huh?

I could go on and on about Jeffrey's work, but instead, I think I'll just let you get lost in it for a little while. Enjoy!

© Kate Wiseman 2010.

Designer fence in Mission Hills landscape

In my many travels around town, I try to snap photos of things I think are beautiful, and this is one of them. I love this fence! I'm afraid I can't credit the designer, since I don't know who designed it (but if you know, send me a comment and I'll give credit where it is due!) but can we all just take a minute to admire it? I think it is just lovely and elegant, and it pulls it off without being intrusive or overly showy. Whoever built it is a true craftsman. Bravo.

Why high contrast is bad

I have two things to say about this photo:

1) High contrast is bad far more often than it is good. Go for subtle- these folks should have.

2) Don't make your driveway the most decorative part of your front yard. It is there for a utilitarian purpose. It doesn't add curb appeal or encourage guests to come to your front door. It isn't pretty and your best bet is to play it down, not play it up. This is what happens when you play it up. It is bad.

All that aside, the concrete for this driveway was poured by my good friend and concrete Guru, Dave Rogers of HCWI concrete. He didn't have anything to do with the terrible aesthetics, but I can say with all confidence, that driveway is well poured 'cause Dave poured it. If you need concrete and you need it done flawlessly, he's your man. Seriously, go take a look at his website.

Easy edible landscape plants (really, really easy)

Lavendula 'Hidcote'

 I love the idea of having edible plants in the landscape, but only if they are really really easy to grow. I work a lot and when I get home, I want to be able to cook with the plants in my garden every night, but I only want to pay attention to them about once every two weeks for about an hour or so. You'll need some kind of automatic irrigation to pull that off (I use drippers and soaker hoses). With that in mind, here are a few of my favorite edibles and what I like to do with them:

1) Lavender: Easy to grow, drought tolerant. Ever cooked with it? It makes everything taste more French to me! I chop it very fine and blend it with rosemary and thyme and toss it onto home fries.

2) Oregano: Easy, low growing, drought tolerant. Add it to homemade spaghetti sauce. Or try it instead of basil in a Caprese salad.

Origanum (oregano)

Rosemary

3) Rosemary:  Easy, low growing, drought tolerant (sensing a trend here?) I love rosemary on lamb. Combine it with garlic, olive oil, lots of salt and a little pepper and marinate the lamb for as long as you can and then throw it on the grill.

4) Salvia (Sage): Easy, low growing, drought tolerant and some of them are so colorful! Salvia tricolor is one of my favorites for its fun foliage color. I love Sage with butternut squash. Add it to brown butter and coat butternut squash or butternut squash ravioli with it.

5) Strawberries: these make a good groundcover in slightly shady areas. Its tough to beat the bugs and critters to the strawberries, but its worth the effort when you get one! Try tossing the sliced strawberries with a few drops of balsalmic vinegar (just a few drops!) and then stick them in the fridge for 30 minutes. It will bring out the sweet sunny flavor without adding sugar.

6) Kumquat: these are adorable tiny trees that produce a super tart citrus fruit. They are hard to eat straight but try them cooked instead. I like them with game birds like Game Hens or Duck.

7) Artichoke: ever seen one growing? They are a lovely, startling plant to look at. A little spikey, very silvery. The artichokes, if left unpicked, become gorgeous purple thistle flowers. But why would you let them do that when they are so yummy? I steam them for 45 minutes and make a dipping sauce from 1/4 cup chicken stock, a half tablespoon of melted butter, juice from half a lemon and a little finely chopped garlic.

Kumquat

Salvia tricolor

Fragaria (strawberry)

Cynara (artichoke)

 

 

 

Thymus praecox

8) Thyme: This is one of my favorite favorites. It is a groundcover. It makes joyful tiny pink flowers in the spring. The rest of the year it stays green with very little water. I like it in so many dishes. One of my favorites is with Tilapia. In a big frying pan, combine 2 cups of chicken broth, 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar, lots of fresh thyme and some garlic. Bring it to a boil. Gently place the Tilapia filets into the boiling liquid. It will help to keep the fish firm but moist and will infuse them with flavor.

9) Apple 'Anna': did you know that there is an apple that grows really well in San Diego? Anna doesn't require very many chill hours to produce tasty fruit. They make great eating as fresh apples (they are a lot like a Pink Lady), but sadly don't cook well.

10) Meyer Lemon: to me these are the taste of homeade lemonade. Warm and sweeter than the lemons you'll find in the grocery store, these are easy to grow if you know one trick: you'll need to buy them some Citrus/Avocado fertilizer. I prefer them as semi-dwarfs because the dwarfs don't produce enough fruit and the full sized ones become too big for my urban garden. I use lemon pretty much daily in my cooking! Here is one favorite: marinate chicken thighs overnight in 1 cup soy sauce, 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce, juice from 1 lemon, 1/4 cu olive oil, 3 cloves finely chopped garlic. Take them out of the marinade and coat in bread crumbs. Bake them for 45 minutes. Make more than you think you'll eat. Seriously- lots more.

11) Tarragon: This isn't a very common herb but oh it should be! I find it easy to grow, but hard to find in the nurseries. If you find one, buy it! It makes everything taste more elegant with its slightly licorice flavor. Try this recipe for a roast chicken: loosen the skin on the breasts of a whole chicken. Under the skin, place a mixture of tarragon (2 teaspoons finely chopped), 1 tablespoon melted butter, one clove of finely chopped garlic, a dash of salt and pepper. Pour boiling water over the bird to tighten the skin (if you've never done this you really should try it. Its fun to watch the skin tighten and it makes the chicken more crispy). Make sure to get all of the water out of the pan. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes to an hour. I like it so much you get a bonus recipe for pork. Cut a pork tenderloin into thick rounds. Salt and pepper all sides and brown them in a frying pan. Reduce the heat to very low. To the pan, add 2 cups chicken stock, a whole bag of mini carrots, and 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic. Put a lid on the pan and cook until the rounds are just barely firm when you push on them with a spoon. Turn off the heat entirely. Add 1 cup of sour cream. Do this carefully- if the pan is too hot it will curdle. Add 1 tablespoon chopped tarragon. Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately. The flavors will be so unusual and yummy that a dinner party will scarf all of this down before you can blink.

Apple 'Anna'

Lemon 'Meyer'

Tarragon

Lawnless front yard: how can that look good?

Before: plain and unattractive

Taking out your front lawn and replacing it with colorful flowering (and drought tolerant) plants is the single most prevalent trend in landscape design right now.  But, so many of my clients are nervous about what that could look like. "How can a front yard have curb appeal without at least some lawn?" is a question I hear all of the time.

After: Loads of color and interest!

Just so that my bias is laid out clearly: I am all for taking out front lawns left and right. I think they a) take a lot more water than we should feel okay about, b) are rarely ever used, and c) often don't really look that great to begin with. For an urban or suburban garden where space is tight, I tend to delegate only one role to lawn: playing with small children. Small children actually sit in the grass and play, but when was the last time the rest of us actually did that?

So,  jettison your lawn! Eliminate your grass! Lose the turf! There are beautiful ways to design a front yard without lawn that have way way more curb appeal. Today's example is from Eden Maker's blog. She made this unexceptional house really pop with a few small changes to the house itself (ie the shutter color) and a lovely and simple low water garden. What do you think? Is the lower (after) photo an improvement on the before (upper) photo? Please know, if you say "no" I'll think you are a little crazy.

Vegetable humor by Soggy Creek Seeds

Even if you have no interest at all in growing your own vegetables, you should still pay a visit to Soggy Creek Seeds website where you'll find such gems as Pea Seeds for Peace. Strange Squash from Outer Space. Kissing Booth Beets. And my personal favorite: the Hobo Turnip.  Here is their description of the humble Hobo Turnip:

Since these turnips keep well while tramping around, they became popular with hobos who could make many good meals with each one. Still today, tramps trot around with these turnips tied to sticks. The Hobo Turnip has an impatient-sorta way of sitting on the soil rather than settling down into it. This seems to suggest a certain restlessness, like it is some rootless vagrant that moves along with the winds of opportunity. In a sense, these turnips have become like their hobo friends, never to put down roots. (Performs well in poor soil, even trainyards).

And a thank you to Dirt du Jour, for turning me on to Soggy Creek Seeds!

Peonies! Summer is here!

In San Diego, we can't grow Peony, not in most of San Diego, at least. Well actually, I've heard rumors that we can grow some very special varieties that can take our mild weather and lack of cold, but I still have yet to see one in real life thriving in a garden here (hint, hint: for anyone who has tried and succeeded- I want to know about it!). So instead, we have to make do with the few that make it here as cut flowers.

Aren't they just gorgeous?! So elegant, soft, papery, and just downright summery. They make me want to put on a tea dress and picnic on the lawn. I wish mine would last and last, but like summer, they are so fleeting.

So, for all of you East Coasters and Mid-Westerners who envy our long gentle summers here, just know that there is at least one San Diegan envying your Peonies. Oh, and your lilacs, but that is a whole other rant!