Forcing amaryllis (getting them to bloom outside their normal cycle) is one of the easiest things to do. Their showy, dramatic flowers make them ideal hostess gifts but the key is starting ahead—like now—so they'll be in bloom in three to four weeks.

Amaryllis bulbs are easy to find at most nurseries this time of year. You can also order online—one source we love is Brent and Becky's Bulbs that carries the variety 'Dancing Queen' shown here.

Start your amaryllis in a bulb vase (ours is a large Holmegaard bulb vase in smoke)—these are designed with a narrow middle so you can fill the bottom with water then set the bulb in so that its base barely touches the water's surface. Keep it in a cool place (50 to 60° is ideal), with the water just high enough to contact the bulb, until roots develop, usually in a week or two. When roots have formed, keep the amaryllis in a warmer spot (about 70°) with direct light until you're ready to give it away. Once in flower, blooms can last several weeks.

To encourage your recipient  to keep your gift beyond the holidays,  direct her to this story on growing amaryllis outdoors.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Don't have room to plant a living tree in your garden after the holidays and don't like the idea of buying a cut one?  Consider renting a living tree.  We know of at least two cities where you have that option.

In Portland, you can rent a 5' or 7' tree for $70-80 dollars, depending on whether you pick it up yourself or have it delivered, from Original Living Trees.  Choices include Norway spruce, Douglas fir, Scotch pine, and Sequoia. After the holidays the trees will be planted in a park or a forest. 

In San Francisco, Friends of the Urban Forest, offers a similar program.  After the holidays the trees are planted on City streets.

Place your order asap, though, as both organizations have a limited number of trees and an early December cutoff.

If you know of other cities that have similar programs, let us know.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

photographs by Lori Brookes

When Fred and Libba D'Ambrosi's pool at their property in the Carmel Valley area of San Diego began to leak, the couple decided to fill it in instead of repairing it.  "The pool was here when we moved in," said Libba, "but we didn't especially like it."  It was expensive to maintain and took up too much of the yard, she says, not allowing enough space for gardening.  Not to mention leaving any room for the bocce ball court Fred had his heart set on.

By Julie Chai, Sunset associate garden editor

The EcoMetro Guide is one of my favorite finds—it's packed with coupons to markets, restaurants, and other businesses for items that I'll actually use, and also has a "Yard and Garden" section for those of us who love to have our hands in the dirt.

Similar to the decades-old Entertainment Book, EcoMetro Guides have a greener focus and include info about local, eco-friendly resources like your area farmers markets, utilities, and recycling centers as well as educational tips on topics like sustainable fish, organic produce, and energy-use calculators.

Guides are available for five Western regions: Silicon Valley/Santa Cruz, East Bay, Seattle/Puget Sound, Portland Chinook, and Denver/Boulder. Priced at $20, they make perfect hostess gifts. You can order here.

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Renowned as one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s great public-accessible estates, Filoli is closed for the winter—closed, that is, unless you come to their winter fundraiser, which opens tomorrow and runs through December 5th. Go for the food, wine, decorations, and night lights, and come home with gifts you won’t find anywhere else.

To prepare for sales (this is a fundraiser, after all), most of the public rooms are emptied, then refilled with gift items. Go to the kitchen, for example, to buy all kinds of cookware; other rooms contain everything from chocolates and candlesticks to furniture, ornaments, and lavender products, some of which originated here on the estate.

You can also sign up for lunch or or a grand dinner. Most events are priced and ticketed separately. Go to the Filoli web site for prices and availability. Whether you buy tickets online or by phone, you’ll be picking them up at the will-call desk in the visitor center.

Located in Woodside, California, Filoli is a historic site listed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. To get ready for this event, 700 volunteers worked to deck the estate out for the holidays. This event should be very, very good.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Even small vegetable gardens or one-tree orchards can yield more crop than a single family can eat.  So why not share some of that lettuce or chard with a neighbor who might have a glut of Meyer lemons or mandarine oranges or with another who has had their fill of arugula or sorrel?  That was the idea behind the FoodShed, a neighborhood produce exchange Santa Barbara landscape architect Owen Dell established in his neighborhood four years ago.

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine  

When Jeffrey Bale visited Portugal and Spain twenty-some years ago, he discovered some of the most beautiful stone surfaces he’d ever seen. Organic and naturalistic, they were part mosaic and part pavement—perfect for his own garden, he thought, so he made one.

The project took a summer to complete, and it’s beautiful 20 years later. In the interim Bale, a Portland (OR) landscape designer, has studied gardens and stone mosaics on four continents, and built horizontal, vertical, and three dimensional versions ever since. Some are representational art, some simply geometric, and many suggest subjects from Persian carpets to physics and the tree of life.

Most people in the business build horizontal mosaics on dry bases, then when everything is in place, apply enough moisture to make the cement set. But Bale lays them in wet mortar, working fast enough to get it right before the base dries. It gives him a more permanent product, and you can walk on it the next day (dry-laid mosaics need to cure up to a month before use). 

The result? “Lavish and rich,” in his words, “jewelry for the garden.” 

If you want to contact Bale, better do it in a hurry. Next week he's off to the south of Italy, then Greece, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey, where he'll be studying some of the world's oldest mosaics. Or wait until he comes back, loaded with new ideas that are doubtless rooted in very old ones.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Teena and Kay's lecture on ornamental edibles at last month's Annual Garden Seminar of the Master Gardeners of Orange County finally motivated me to plant a blueberry bush, something I've been thinking about doing for ages.  I am pretty lazy about trying anything that requires me to constantly amend my soil, but growing blueberries in containers makes growing these acid-loving plants easy, these two master gardeners assured their audience. 

I've got my plant in its pot, and it's off to a good start

And after reading Bonnie Manion's post on how she feeds her blueberries on her blog Vintage Garden Gal today, I know how I'm going to keep it happy.  I'll mulch it with coffee grounds like she does.  There's never any shortage of those in this house--I think my husband has coffee instead of blood in his veins.  (That's Bonnie's photo and her berries opposite, by the way.)

Bonnie's experience tells me I'll get more production if I plant another variety, so I'm off shopping.  Twin pots will be pretty--nicely formal--don't you think?

By Sharon Cohooon, Sunset senior garden writer

iPhone users lover their phones and their apps.  So Botanical Interests decision to put all the good information they have on their seeds packets in an application was probably a great idea.  (I say probably because I don't have an iPhone and my husband, who does have one, and who, in fact, now also has this app, won't part with his phone long enough for me to test drive it.)

Their new app allows you to search Botanical Interests seed catalog for information about 300 different varieties.  You can also create a "favorites" list to help you with garden planning.  And organize your search based on more than one variable, such as harvest time and lighting conditions.  You can't order seeds directly from the app yet, but you do get a 5% discount from your first order placed on their website.

Let me know how you like it, iPhone devotees.  Maybe it's the excuse I've been needing to spring for an iPphone of my own. I am obviously never going to be able to borrow hubbie's.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Panayoti Kelaidis, the senior curator of the Denver Botanic Gardens, approached the Broomfield, Colorado seed company, Botanical Interests, about offering a new line of seeds to preserve native and threatened species some time ago. 

The partners in this project took their time before introducing this line to make sure the offering was a group of plants that homeowners would have success with -- drought-tolerant, easy to care for, and beautiful.  The series is now here, and it was worth waiting for.

Below are three species from the series.  As usual, Carolyn Crawford's gorgeous botanical artwork makes you want them all.  There are a dozen more species in this welcome new line.  Check them out here.