Marilynn Jennings is a woman on a journey - a journey with a mission to bring a public labyrinth to the North State. The Chico Community Labyrinth Project (CCLP) is a local initiative to build a permanent, centrally-located labyrinth at Children’s Park, near downtown Chico. Photos: (Top) A spontaneous stone labyrinth near Half Moon Bay, California built by Eduardo Aguilera, a well-known public labyrinth builder along the Northern California coast. (Bottom) The logo and ultimate design for the Chico Community Labyrinth Project. (more…)

As the leaves fall and winter settles in for its annual tenure - frosty and spare, the structure of the garden becomes more apparent than ever. Herbaceous perennials, shrubs and trees disrobe themselves of the bio- mass of foliage they have carried all summer and fall, and the proportions of each plant and the garden itself shifts. This is a moment when you value the skeletal silhouette of a tree or the graceful arch of a vine scrambling across an arbor or fence. It’s also when you might look around the garden and realize that most of your garden perhaps is on just one plane - the horizontal. With the help of this minimalist view of the garden, you may notice areas where you would like to add some punctuation - some verticality. Trees are one way to add verticality; vines are another. Photo: Kiwi vine leaves.

When it comes to vines, you might think climbing roses, clematis, trumpet or grape vines. Or you could think: kiwi. Photo: Kiwi vines twining up at the Hoptowit orchard in Durham. (more…)

Look up the word “succulent” in the dictionary and as an adjective you will find something like: juicy, thick and fleshy; from the Latin succus, meaning “juice.” The designation “succulent” describes any plant that “stores water against times of drought in specialized tissues,” according to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens’ Crazy About Cacti and Succulents. Succulents such as jade (Crassula ovata) or Aloes, store extra water in their leaves, others, including most cacti, store water in their stems, and still others store water in their roots or bulbs. While all cacti are succulents, not all succulents are cacti, but almost all succulents are low-maintenance, drought tolerant, relatively pest and disease free and darn good looking - in or out of bloom, year-round. Photo: A view down a covered shade area to one of Claude Geffray’s demonstration succulent and cacti gardens in Chico, open to the public Friday the 13th and Saturday the 14th of November 2009.
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As a person who visits gardens large and small, fabulous and fantastic as part of what I do, I find it really easy - frustratingly easy - to fall into a trap of garden envy and discontent. Maybe my garden should be bigger? Or smaller? Maybe it should be more whimsical? Perhaps more formal and statuesque? If only I had more trees? More ferns? More flowers? More time? More money? Ahhh…if only I had more. Photo: The Breakers historic mansion and garden Newport, Rhode Island, summer 2009.

But then late October and November come upon me and the garden. In many areas, it is the end of the growing season for summer flowers and typical summer fruits and vegetables. It’s the beginning of seasonal rain and snow, the season of evergreens and winter vegetables. It is the season of deep bold colors exuberantly lighting up in contrast to the softening, lessening light - the last ditch efforts at glory for our roses, our tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. It’s the beginning of the citrus season in the valley portions of the North State. It’s the season of storing the fruits of our labor for winter; the season of digging hopeful and un-likely-looking bulbs into cooling, dark soil in hopes of spring beauty returning in time. It’s the season of that first killing frost having arrived in almost all gardening zones of our region and the beginning of simpler times in the garden. Photo: Autumn oak leaves. (more…)