Event Calendar

Megan's Garden Bash Update 2 - by Megan Atchley

Nov 22

I’m looking out at the front garden, recently dug up and freshened up with new dirt… ready and waiting for its fall planting day. The bare dirt is blanketed by fallen red Japanese Maple leaves and actually looks quite pretty despite being emptied of most of its plants. 

This front garden is getting the biggest makeover for the garden tour. Its pastel color scheme was looking tired and the plantings had morphed over the years into a hodge podge effect that just didn’t work anymore. It needed a change.

My husband, Ian, spent the better part of 3 days excavating the root bound beds and hauling in almost 2 yards of Keeyla’s special soil mix. I remember way back when I first worked with Keeyla on designing the front garden. It was the first garden we did together and the one where I learned one of Keelya’s fundamental lessons: “Excavate 6 to 8 inches or dirt and replace with organic multipurpose mix from American Soil. Continue to mulch with the same soil every year.” I remember thinking, “Why?” But we did as we were told and the results were astonishing. Our new garden grew so quickly and so happily.

When time came to do the back and then side gardens, we repeated the back breaking process. All I can say is that special mix from American Soil is magic. Plants thrive in it and it looks pretty as well. When my sister and her husband moved next door to us and started on their front garden, I passed on the dirt lesson with firm insistence. They asked the same, “Why?” as we had, but did as they were instructed and watched their newly planted banana palm quickly grow as tall as the house!

Fall Gardening Tasks Done to Date:

· Ordered Bulbs (tulips are in the fridge and lilies are in the darkest corner of our basement)

· Potted up Iris’ (they are sprouting already!)

· Dug up and replaced dirt in front and side gardens (still need to do back garden).

· Redid irrigation in front garden

· Had furniture maker, Larry Gandsey, replace rotten bench slats on fig bench (thank you Larry!)

· Started fall cut back (lots more to do).

Next Up:

 · Paint bench slats and get installed.
 · Paint pots
 · Write description of garden with Keeyla for the garden tour brochure (first draft due just after Thanksgiving)
 · Glazing day with Keelya: Lucy and I will help Keeyla glaze some of her hand made place settings to be used to decorate the back deck table on the day of the tour.
 · Fall planting day (can’t wait!)

//

Fearless Color Gardens - Launch party!

You are invited 

to the launch party for 

Fearless Color Gardens:  
The Creative Gardener's Guide to Jumping Off the Color Wheel 

(Timber Press, $27.95) 
Coming this December 2009

Renowned garden artist Keeyla Meadows shows how to use wild, uninhibited color to connect indoor and outdoor spaces and turn a garden into a work of art

Refreshments

Friday December 4th, 7.30pm

Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore 
Literary & Garden Arts

2904 College Avenue

Berkeley CA 94705

510.704.8222

Come Join Us!

Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You...

Fearless Color Gardens

The Creative Gardener’s Guide to Jumping Off the Color Wheel

Keeyla Meadows

Pub Date: December 2009

ISBN: 978-0-88192-940-9

196 pp, 248 color photos

8 1/2 x 10", hardcover

$27.95

Renowned garden artist Keeyla Meadows sees the world in strong, saturated shades. Fearless Color Gardens brings this unique vision to life by showing how to use wild, uninhibited color to help connect indoor and outdoor spaces and turn a garden into a work of art.

Readers will learn how to pick colors that work together to enhance the relationship between their indoor and outdoor spaces; how to coordinate the colors of walls, benches, containers, and garden art; how to organize garden spaces through the use of color; and how to translate personal color preferences into tangible form in the garden.

Fearless Color Gardens also features a new way of looking at color with “Keeyla’s Color Triangle;” Keeyla’s favorite plants for specific colors; and easy-to use tips on growing edibles in color-themed gardens.

In the end, readers will learn how to reinvent the staid rules of the color wheel and turn their color preferences into intoxicatingly vibrant garden expressions.

STORY IDEAS

• Growing edibles in color-themed gardens

• Design a garden that coordinates with your indoor space

• Interview Keeyla Meadows—artist, gardener, and creative thinker

Keeyla Meadows’ garden has appeared on “Good Morning America” and “Grow It!”, and has been featured in Sunset, Metropolitan Home, Fine Gardening, and Horticulture magazines. She teaches classes and lectures on garden topics. She has published numerous articles about color and the garden in magazines and newspapers, and is the author of Making

Gardens Works of Art (Sasquatch Books, 2002).