Park Day School Garden Tour - A Success!

We started with the idea of "Figs & Flowers"...now the picture is complete!

It's another good day sunshine. While the Parkday School Garden Tour of 12 wonderful gardens still lingers and winds through your imagination, take a moment today to stop and smell the flowers.

Megan and I both had a great day in her garden. We enjoyed seeing you there, answering questions about names of plants. Polka was a favorite rose, chartreuse philadelphus a favorite show stopper, ixia a new bulb for many and cerinthe, the bluey shrimpy flower was one that a lot a people will head out to their local nurseries (If you are local, head out to Annie's Annuals or Berkeley Horticultural Nursery)to purchase and find a place in their own gardens.  Please see Megan's note below about her thoughts on the Park Day Garden Tour.

Cerinthe

I want to remind you garden lovers that my home garden will be open this Sunday from one to four. Not at this moment to be compared to these show ready gardens, but still worth a visit.

Thank you to you book buyers. Mrs Dalloway's is a great place to pick up Fearless Color Gardens; as now is a good time to be planting your garden.

Paint-a-Pot:  Keeyla's pots are for sale!

Please join Keeyla as she holds a pot-painting workshop at Filoli Garden show on May 8 at 1.30pm.

This morning also found me waking to an alarming note as the buzz I heard inside the Secret Shadows of the Tour on Saturday and Sunday were about not enough tickets to sustain the tour in the future. This saddened me since I've been a part of the tour for a long time: I've always loved looking forward to seeing new gardens each spring, having a space for local designers and homeowners to share their work, be a part of a gardening community, and also feel connected to a school and community where I have felt that gardens and gardening are part of the heart, soul and expression of a whole community. 

Gardens are important and an important part of the education of children. Earth day this past weekend celebrated her 40th anniversary, and it made me think how great that here is a school and community so connected to the earth through her gardens. Gardens teach kids about nature, food source, the relationship between plants and insects, and between plants and animals; they are a source of art and expression, a source of crafts, a source for the study of science and the list goes on. So yes, I felt some alarm as I had these whispers of the end of the show confirmed.

Those of you who feel moved to action by contacting the school I hope you do.

In the meantime, I'm sure that there is much to take from the tour to inspire you in your own garden celebration and efforts.

Happy Gardening,

Keeyla Meadows

Note from Megan:

Wow! That was fun. What a treat to see the garden light up the faces with huge smiles of everyone that came to see it. That was a key goal for sharing our garden. Some people came back twice and many lingered for quite a awhile asking questions about plants, the process of making a garden and just expressing pure joy. Ian’s rock work was much admired as were all the flowers and color combinations and of course Keeyla’s pots!! Lucy hung out with me Sunday morning chatting to people and answering questions about the garden. She was astounded at the number of people that filled our small garden. I hope people got inspired at what you can do in a small urban garden space and get busy creating their own magical gardens!

Secret Gardens of the East Bay this weekend!

It's about to happen! Tell the sun to shine, rain to stay away. Megan's made her garden completely into a show garden. All the planning, purchasing, planting has come to fruition. As we headed down the homestretch to the EAST BAY SECRET GARDEN TOUR, I sent Megan some questions about the process of preparing the garden. Here she is with a long list of answers. 


I am giving a talk on color at the Park Day School on Sunday April 25 at 1pm.  Mrs. Dalloway's will be selling FEARLESS COLOR GARDENS at the school.  Come and get your personally signed copy.


Hope to see you Saturday (April 24) or Sunday (April 25) this week for the tour. 


Happy Gardening, Keeyla

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Q & A with Megan 

What are you looking forward to with the Secret Gardens Tour?

Being able to share how beautiful the garden looks right now.  Hopefully people will be inspired to transform their own urban plots into a garden paradise.

What do you look for when you see other people's gardens?

Being inspired by new planting combinations.

What plants are the most satisfying to you right now in your garden?

I LOVE the heucheras. They provide all the color of flowers but in foliage form. There are new colors each year with yummy names like Crème Brulee and Peach Melba. We went crazy adding new heucheras for the tour.

Which area or color combination in your garden is the most interesting/exciting/stimulating?

The garden to the left of the fig bench is a particular favorite garden area. The shades of orange and yellow are bright and cheery all year long.

Which color combination makes you feel peaceful and serene?

I love the shade garden along the side of the house. Chartreuse, salmon, white, yellows. I love gazing out the kitchen window as I wash dishes and see the hummingbirds flittering in the abutilon.

Why do you want to grow plants that you can eat?

Cooking is a passion. Nothing is better than being able to walk out to the garden and gather ingredients for a meal.

What is most frustrating to you about your garden?

Too little space for vegetables. I’m considering replacing the blue bed with all vegetables.

In what ways have you seen the garden come into Lucy's life?

Lucy has been in the garden with me since she was a baby. At 6 months she would sit by my side as I gardened, picking up the lava that is in the soil mix. As she got older she created fairy houses made of flower petals that she laid out carefully on the “fairy rock.” Her friends call it a Cinderella garden. As a child I imagined having a flower garden and I love being able to provide such a beautiful place for her to play and imagine.

In what ways has having a garden transformed your life?

Gardening and cooking are my two passions. They are my creative outlets and as someone who spends her work life on a computer, they provide a much needed connection with what I find important in life. Spending a day gardening or cooking a meal for family and friends is my idea of the perfect day. At the end of it you have something of beauty to appreciate and share. When I’m stressed out, all I need to do is gaze outside at the garden and I’m instantly calmed.

In what ways has the garden influenced your relationship to color?

When we put our first garden in over 13 years ago, I gravitated towards paler colors: light pink, lilac, pale yellow. Think romantic impressionist colors. Orange, red, chartreuse were not colors I would have asked for. When we did the back yard a few years later, we added a lot of orange. I fell in love with orange then and it was and still is a prominent color of the backyard. It’s a feature color in our new kitchen. It was seeing what Keeyla did with her new garden that truly opened me up to hotter color combinations. The redone front yard is maroon, butterscotch, and mustard. It’s much splashier.

In preparing the garden for the upcoming tour:

What new plants are the most interesting to you?

The heucheras as I mentioned earlier are by far my most favorite additions.  They are just spectacular.  

New color combinations?

The hotter colors in the front yard and the maroon that was added to the dogwood garden. 

Your garden has many containers.  How do the containers work to improve, or express the garden?  How do the containers work with the house and the space?

Containers, more than anything, are perhaps what has inspired me more than anything about working with Keeyla.  They provide height and art to the garden and it's astonishing how many plants you can fit into one container.  Planting up a beautiful container is something I learned from studying how Keeyla plants containers.  This year for the tour I finally splurged and bought one of Keeyla's custom art ceramic containers.  I love it and would like to add more to the garden as budget permits. 

It's Spring...

Open Gardens this Sunday, Aprill 11 at 1137 Stannage Avenue, Albany CA

How are you? It is spring. The flowers are good...between downpours that is. My garden is open this Sunday. Lilies and roses are stepping up to the plate, 'eyes' still shut -- but maybe we will have blooms by Sunday and definitely by May. You are invited. 

Keeyla's Paint-a-Pot workshop at Annie's Annuals

There are planters for sale in the studio. Most of the planters from the garden show are sold and getting repositioned:  new plants, new gardens. Planters do add a lot to your garden. On that note, I will be teaching a paint-a-pot workshop at Annie's Annuals Spring Extravaganza. The workshop is titled "How to Do It, How to Plant it", and it's this Saturday April 10 at 11am. Check out her website for more info.

My new book, Fearless Color Gardens, will be on sale and available for signing.

Secret Gardens of the East Bay 

If you miss the Annie's Annuals event, there is always the Secret Gardens of the East Bay Tour on April 24-25 (last Sunday of April).  The website is here.  Megan's garden will be on the tour. The plants are looking amazing and then we are adding a truckload of Color today. Yesterday, Megan and I stopped for a picnic between nurseries to get hand-signed bottles of wine and we had a wonderful at B Winery. Our plant search for color was 100% a success story with Heucheras being the color stars. Foliage rules in shades of creme brulee and peach melba. We had fun.

You are invited to the Color party.  More containers with plants to match. 

Bring your cameras for all events.

Looking forward to meeting up with you on garden paths this Spring...

Be Colorful, 

Keeyla