Mangoes and Oranges and Loquats, Oh My!

Growing up on the East Coast, I was obsessed with growing my own food. One of the things I always dreamed about was having fruit trees in my yard - but alas, the closest we ever got was some juniper berries. My dad caught me eating flowers once, but that's another story.

Enter California! Dun dun dun!

When we first moved in to our house here in Los Angeles, one of the most fun things was figuring out what all the mystery trees around our yard were. I prayed for fruit.

Turns out the one cloaked in shadow on the right is...

Ta da! A mango tree!

Anyone who knows me knows that mangoes are my absolute favorite-est fruit and I would marry a mango if fruit-human relations unions were legal. My lifelong dream is to have a mango tree in my yard, and here it is. Dreams really do come true! *sob!*

Unfortunately, I didn't foresee the asshole squirrels...

Every morning, I would find one of my mangoes torn off the tree with one bite taken out and the rest discarded. I mean, one bite? ONE BITE?! Didn't your parents ever tell you there are starving kids in China, squirrel?

I still don't exactly know what kind of tree is on the left in that same pic up top, but fingers crossed it's a loquat tree:

My mother grew up eating these fruits in Taiwan. Here in LA, I've never seen anyone eating them, but I definitely see a lot of these trees dotting our neighbors' yards.

We also have a tree by our driveway. For the longest time, I thought it was a lemon tree, til I noticed the fruit were all staying green. Then I thought it was a lime tree, but come spring...

Oranges! Complete with fragrant and beautiful white orange blossoms!

Since there were so many oranges we couldn't keep up, and they were beginning to weigh the top branches down, I picked a little harvest a few weeks ago. A quick bath in our farmhouse sink...

And off they go to the neighbors.

Ahhhh...fruits. Is there anything they can't do?

Future plans: an avocado tree, a lemon tree, and a fig. But one thing at a time.

Nature By Design: The Atlanta Botanical Garden

In Atlanta, I've been living close to Piedmont Park, home to the Atlanta Botanical Garden. So on another day off, I took a solo stroll after breakfast and went for a 3-hour adventure through the lush and verdant grounds of this plant mecca.

The outdoor gardens have these giant plant sculptures, which are...well, weird.

Plant of the Apes?

Giant plant dog

Ummmm...okay. Moving on. I was pretty hungry by the time I got to the edible gardens. Here's a vertical herb garden, which was watered by an intricate vertical irrigation system that would drip through all the plants from top to bottom to reduce water waste.

Wait, you mean tea doesn't come from Starbucks?

But by far, my favorite was the Fuqua Orchid Center. It was basically a magical wonderland of weird and gorgeous orchids way beyond your regular ol' Trader Joe's phalaenopsis orchids.

Look at these cupcakes: 

Next to the orchid display greenhouse was the high elevation house, which showcased the diversity of plants in the Cloud Forest of the Andes Mountains in South America. Did I just make that up? No, but I wish I did. 

Check out these rare pitcher plants, which are carnivorous and eat insects and flies. I need ones of these guys in our house. Although I wonder if they have a taste for curious felines...

They also housed cool stuff like this curare plant, which is used for anesthesia and muscle relaxants during surgeries as well as a paralyzing dart poison by some indigenous tribes in the Amazon.

yowch!

But let's get back to design, shall we? Check out these graphic prints that occur organically in nature, and the pops of color. On leaves, petals, flowers... Design inspiration is everywhere!

Love the graphic pop of white stem against the rich dark green....

These above two leaf patterns remind me of the Marimekko print and the general plant-motif we have hanging in our dining nook.

This plant reminds me a little of animal print...

...which, if used in the right way, is a great way to liven up a room and give it a little flair...

Image from scottsdaledesigner.com   

Design & image from Charles Spada

This orchid is pretty, but it was the white against dark green polka dot leaves that caught my eye...

She wore an itsy bity teeny weeny petal polka dot leafy...

 ...a motif that would make for some cool walls on a nursery or kids' room.

via Vinylwallart.com

And look at the balls of this flower, pairing pink/purple with green!

Check out the similar contrast pairing in Chrissis & Company Interiors' usage of pink against the 2013 color of the year, emerald green.

Yup. Mother Nature is a design trailblazer.

These little guys, who provided the soundtrack to the rain forest greenhouse, agree.

To top it all off, I ended my trip with a stroll through the skies in the Storza Woods tree canopy, 40 feet above the ground.

...and ended by communing with a 25-foot-tall Earth Goddess.

Got back to my hotel room just in time to witness a thunderstorm...from indoors.

Thank you, Mother Nature!

Weekend DIY: Updated Terracotta Planter

This is where a little boredom and a lot of spray paint will get you.

Problem: A boring ol' terracotta pot, the kind you get from Home Depot for like $7.

I'm tired of seeing my plants in these pots, so I decided to play around and give it an update based on my last experiment with leftover bottles.

Given a free afternoon and some leftover spray paint, here's what I did. First, a coat of white spray paint. Then some painter's tape and some sides to an old audition to create some diagnoal stripes:

And a few swipes with my beloved gold Rust-o-leum spray paint...

Peel off the tape and voila! A brighter, more modern pot!

Planted this baby into his new home...

And gave him a good drink to help him settle in.

Aaaah. That's the stuff.

Terrarium Overload

On a weekend trip to Portland, my friend brought me to what probably only could exist in Portlandia...a terrarium emporium!

Okay, it wasn't called that, but it was basically a store made up entirely of terrariums (terraria?) and their components. I didn't wanna be hauling any sand or glass vases onto the plane back home to LA, but it was enough to inspire me to use up some of the empty glass vases we have at home, as well as the succulents that are growing freely in our front yard. Yes, terrariums are played out, and yes they are to me on the same level of http://fuckyournoguchicoffeetable.tumblr.com/. But oh well, I like 'em (just like I like my Noguchi).

First, I gathered the materials and set up shop in my garden...

Bags of sand and white rock, glass containers, different succulents from the yard and my favorite gardening store Rolling Greens, plus some reindeer moss to top it off. I chose this guy from the store...

And this juicy looking fella was from my yard ...

My first try was with this long glass vase that the previous tenant had left behind. A layer of white rock on the bottom for drainage, some dirt for the succulents to take root, and a top layer of sand. I didn't have charcoal, which normally you would use to soak up some of the moisture. But I'm hoping the drainage rocks at the bottom and LA's dry weather will work.

After some meticulous work with chopsticks, I got those suckers into the sand. Alex said that if was a scene in a movie and they had my character using chopsticks to plant the terrarium, he'd be like, "Oh, come on!" But it was true.

Here's another bigger one I messed with. It's a little messy, but I still like it.

The shell is from the beach in Anguilla, where we went on our honeymoon.
And lastly, I made a gift for our friends Lynn and Abe, who had us over for vegan enchiladas and a night of Electric Dreams and video watching. I've had Taylor Swift sans goat stuck in my head ever since.

mmmmm...enchiladas!

My little terrarium even got a mention on Lynn's food blog! I'm so proud of that guy. One day they're in the nursery and the next they're all grown up and being featured on blogs. Ba dum bump! Jokes!

And just to spread the horror cheer...