Magic happens in Merlin’s Garden in spring around 6:30 in the evening.  The sun is making its final dusting across the California earth casting unique figures of light and shadow that give the flowers and foliage another form of beauty. Within moments the light dims as the sun … [Read more...]

Spring has arrived in Merlin's Garden.  Take a look. … [Read more...]

There is no "The End" to be written, neither can you, like an architect, engrave in stone the day the garden was finished; a painter can frame his picture, a composer notate his coda, but a garden is always on the move.-   Mirabel Osler Sometimes the garden is more about the … [Read more...]

When we moved into our home, we met our neighbor Ed soon enough.  In his eighties, he was a tall and handsome fellow with dark silver-streaked hair and a moustache, and a life history involving submarines and gardening and a whole host of other adventures through which we … [Read more...]

Late blooming plants are typically defined as those plants that become more robust as summer flaunts its last hurrah.  By a gardener's definition, a late bloomer is that plant that still thrives when the weather cools and summer fades. Spring is approaching so it will become … [Read more...]

There is a lot of value in adding humor to a life.  We are such serious folk when it comes to living.  Not all perhaps, but most I would think.  We take things way too seriously.  Then comes a day of reckoning where we are reminded how petty our grievances and those things over … [Read more...]

Winter by San Diego standards arrived several days ago.    I took the week after Christmas off and thanks to a warm Santa Ana I have been vigorously at work in the garden.  I pruned ten rose bushes and countless other plants and tress.  I pulled weeds and moved  plants from one … [Read more...]

Ahh, remember the song?   I am reminded of it when I look at the frog positioned in my yard and his happy go lucky stance.  It’s a good thing, to be reminded that is, that life without laughter and whimsy is a life lost.  Frogs do that for me, so does the occasional crazy dog … [Read more...]

I call him the local yoga master.  He can contort his body in any number of ways, especially when it comes to food.  His reach is quite profound actually.  I am amazed to see his stretch, remembering how I once could do something like it.   Ahh, youth.  What happened? We get … [Read more...]