By Julie Chai, Sunset associate garden editor

At the recent Late Show garden show, we were thrilled by all the inventive displays. There were so many amazing creations that it's hard to narrow them down, but here are a few of our favorites. Above, garden designers Suzanne Biaggi and Patrick Picard created the Future Feast with edibles planted right into a tabletop. Produce doesn't get any fresher than that!

We also loved the way designer Beth Mullins turned tires inside out and used them as planters in her display:

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

A garden can be a consuming passion—at least until you feel it consuming you. When Val Easton found herself in that spot, she knew it was time to move on, this time to a gem of a low-maintenance garden she made for herself. It kept her passion for gardening alive and spawned a terrific book, The NEW Low-Maintenance Garden (Timber Press, Portland, 2009; $19.95).

Because the book is rooted in Easton’s personal and recent experience, she makes her case with formidable authority: “Somewhere along the way to plant collecting and competitive gardening, we forgot the ancient notion of the garden as a place of respite, an oasis remote from worldly cares and chores. We forgot nature’s ability to soothe, renew, and nurture.… [Her] ability to work her magic on us is dependent on our slowing down and looking closely, not on our constant efforts to improve upon her.” Easton calls gardening as it was meant to be “the feast we forget to partake of.”

In the end, she found that low maintenance wasn’t about gardening lite—she wanted “the exhaustion ... taken out, not the fulfillment”—it was instead all about design. Thus her mantra: “Design before plants, think geometry, and invest in infrastructure.”

So how did all this work out in her own landscape? The book gives you a peek through the lens of Jacqueline Koch. In addition to vignettes of Easton’s own garden (see below), you get a look at a passel of other high appeal, low-maintenance gardens and parts of gardens that are scattered like jewels across North America. You look and say “I want this,” realizing that your desire has everything to do with the sanctuary garden that Easton is calling you back to. Low maintenance is just the part of the equation that gives you the time to enjoy the sanctuary you create.

By Julie Chai, Sunset associate garden editor

Photos by Alicia Martin

We can't wait to check out the Late Show Gardens, a brand new garden show at Cornerstone in Sonoma, California focusing on design and sustainability. We've been looking forward to it for months since the contributors are some of the biggest names in horticulture—essentially the who's who of the garden scene—from the Bay Area and beyond.

As you can imagine, pulling together a garden show is a major undertaking. It involves endless planning and organizing, and the week before the show, when designers actually start building the display gardens, is especially intense. Tons of soil are hauled in, along with large trees, landscape art, and accessories—the photo above is a behind-the-scenes look at two displays, Growth Melt and Overgrowth, in progress. We can't wait to see what they look like when they're done!

The show kicks off this Thursday 9/17 with an evening preview party, and runs through Sunday 9/20. I'll be there Friday—hope to see you there!

For info and tickets, go to thelateshowgardens.org or call 415/721-1550.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

This beautiful stacked wall with its amusing broken pot inserts was shot at Cambria Nursery in Cambria.  The idea came about when garden designer Shana McCormick of Great Gardens and artisan Gustavo Mora put their heads together to figure out a way to use some of the cracked pottery that was accumulating at the nursery.

Because these inserts have no drainage holes and aren't easy to water, succulents are the best things to plant in them, says nursery manager Becki Smith.  She also recommends not using pots that are too large.  "Don't go over 12 inch," she says. "If they're too large it takes away from the beauty of the wall."

You can see more of Mora's beautifully constructed walls at the Cambria Pines Lodge next door to the nursery.  Mora also conducts classes on how to build stacked walls at the nursery occasionally.  If you live in the area and are interested in attempting this yourself, you might want to get on the nursery's mailing list or check in regularly on their website.

Container lovers might also like our story on 24 Great One-Pot Gardens.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

That's the situation Robin Rouse faced in her beachside house in Cayucos on the Central California Coast.  All of Rouse's primary living quarters are on the second floor.  There is a large deck up there, too, with an even better view of the ocean than from the patio below.  So there really wasn't that much reason to descend.  Still you looked down on it every day.  So it needed a focus.

Baywood Park landscape architect Jeffrey Gordon Smith gave it a dramatic one.  The Nautilus shell was his inspiration.  He laid down a spiral-patterned patio constructed out of flagstone pieces interplanted with Dymondia. And he ran a ribbon of tumbled blue glass -- reminiscent of beach glass -- through it.  At the center he installed a small gas-fired fire pit housed in a Corten steel bowl.  There are strands of 110 volt rope lighting underneath the glass ribbon which create enough glow you can see the patio's motif even after dark.

Smith added curved retaining walls wide enough to double as seating walls around the perimeter of the patio -- suspecting Rouse might be more tempted to use the space once he was finished.  And he painted the sea wall behind them the color of beach sand so it would virtually disappear.

Rouse says with this pretty pattern to look at her second story view is better than ever.  The fire pit even puts out enough warmth to heat her top deck, she says.  Still she spends less time there.  "I find myself being drawn down to the garden now," says Rouse.  "I love this little space."

All photos by Chris Leschinsky

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

A well-designed screen can transform a garden, hiding anything from a neighbor's moldering old car to a blank wall. Here are three examples. 

The top two were designed by Oregon landscape designer Paul Taylor for Mary Jo and John Van Nortwick of Tualatin, OR. Taylor also designed a screen I mentioned in another blog last June. 

The bottom screen was designed and built by its owners, Darren & Amy Pierce of Portland, OR.

By Hazel White, Sunset contributor

Photo by Marion Brenner

 A new outdoor garden show, focusing on design and sustainable practices, runs September 18–20 at Cornerstone Sonoma. See 18 gardens that propose imaginative solutions to climate change by designers such as Chandler and Chandler, Beth Mullins, Gary Ratway, and Shirley Alexandra Watts. Among the 19 speakers are photographer/author Ken Druse, Tom Fischer of Timber Books, Mark Hertsgaard, environment correspondent for The Nation, and garden designers Glenn Withey and Charles Price. Shopping is horticultural top of the line: Australian Native Plants Nursery, Chimera Nursery, Digging Dog Nursery, Momiji Nursery, Renee’s Garden Seeds, San Marcos Growers, Sunnyside Organic Seedlings and many more. For information and tickets: www.thelateshowgardens.org or 415/721-1550.

By Julie Chai, Sunset associate garden editor

Gas blowers are obnoxiously loud. And ultra polluting. But people seem to have a hard time giving them up.

Including my dad. He loves his power tools, and even though I've explained to him that gas blowers have been known to produce as much pollution in 30 minutes as driving for 3 hours, he wasn't ready to let his go.

So I was hopeful when I learned about Black and Decker's new rechargeable battery–operated blower. It's emission free, the charger is Energy Star rated, and is supposed to be powerful. So I got one for my dad to try.

After the initial charge, he swept his backyard with the blower and was really impressed with the power and performance. "After years of using a gas blower, this one is a godsend," he said. Here's his comparison chart—maybe you'll be converted too:

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Visually exposed to the street on all sides, houses on corner lots are notoriously hard to landscape. Fenced, thy look like stockades. Unfenced, they feel like fish bowls. That's why Ross and Jennifer Erickson decided to screen their Boise, ID, garden with a berm.

Here's how it looked before they started.

 

Here's how it looked in process.

And here's how it looked when it was finished last year (this year, it's even more filled in).

 

The process took place in stages. First Ross got free fill dirt from a construction job down the street, having it dumped where the berm was to be. Then he took chunks of concrete from his broken up patio and stacked them along the outside of the berm. After it was all in place, he built a showpiece of a river-rock wall around the berm to give it substance. And finally, he planted the top of the berm with grasses and low shrubs.

The job wasn't easy, but it was straightforward, effective — and neither fishbowl nor stockade. See more amazing makeovers

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine