Slackin' on my posts

Hey, gang of probably dwindling loyal readers. I'm been a baaaaaaaad boy at keeping this blog fed. It's a good news/bad news story but I'll lay it out for you.

After humble beginnings a few years ago, my Garden Wise Guy blog has become the seed for what's turning into a real writing career. I retire from my 22 year gig as landscape architect for Santa Barbara and will be spending a lot more time at the keyboard.

From little blogs, big writing trees have grown--a veritable copse, no, more like a grove, NO, make that a forest! Aside from a bi-weekly blog at Santa Barbara-centric Edhat.com, I had, until recently, been freelance writing for two magazines in the Santa Barbara area. That's been good for building my writing chops, and just as I found out I was being laid off (I'm choosing to call it "retire" since I qualify for a pension) doors have sprung open and the welcome mat is saying "hello."

Long story short. I've been hired by Fine Gardening Magazine to contribute to their web site under the "brand" of Cool Green Gardens. It's a column about sustainable landscaping from a Left Coast perspective and I get to rant just like I rant here. Not to brag too much, but a recent design article on curing "one-of-each-itis" got 10,000 hits in two weeks. "Speechless" is all I can say.

So, as you can see, with two "real" writing jobs, a consulting practice to ramp up, drumming with King Bee and a new teaching position at the local community college (I get to teach landscape design!), it's hard to keep this blog well fed.

This blog has become a repository for click-throughs to my other writing. Hopefully, you'll still find it convenient to stop by here first, then venture out along the cyber-tendrils. If not, find me directly through these links below...

Time to pimp my new articles.


One at Fine Gardening is about a laid-off economist who's going back to school to study garden design. Very inspirational. If you come by, I'll love to read your comments.


And the most recent Edhat, Miracle on San Andres St., is near and dear to me, celebrating the greatest project I've had the good fortune to manage in my career. It's the story of an art-filled oasis in one of Santa Barbara's less-seen neighborhoods. There's also a link to a photo-essay at Flickr.

Later, skaters.

10 Reasons Why I'm Not Going to Do a Top 10 List

Now that I'm writing regularly for three media outlets (Edhat.com, Coastal Woman, and Santa Barbara Homeowner), I have to come up with a lot of ideas for stories. Each has a very different readership and I need to use, as they say in the writing world, a different "voice" for each. So it would be easy to fall back on the tried and true top 10 lists: Billy's Favorite Plants; My 10 Favorite Garden Tools; 10 Ways to Get a Rabid Badger Out of Your Britches, etc. But here are 10 reasons I refuse to take that course...

1. If I tried to list 10 favorite plants, my brain would explode. There are too many and it would give the plants I left off a case of low self-esteem (yes, I'm anthropomorphizing).
2. I'm not fond of the number ten. I've always thought that if humans had four fingers on one hand and three on the other, we wouldn't be celebrating 100 year anniversaries, septi-sesqui-octo-centennials or any of that other base-10 crap. It's just a fluke of the universe that 10 is so damn important to us. I refuse to bestow any great significance on the number 10!
3. TEN are the initials of The Erotic Network, and this is a family show.
4. "Ten is the second discrete biprime (2.5) and the second member of the (2.q) discrete biprime family." Someone actually wrote this at Wikipedia. That's strange enough, but the amazing thing is it also means something to someone else. I wouldn't know where to begin deciphering that sentence. I still count on my fingers. I'm so embarrassed, I want nothing to do with that 'T' number. I'm not worthy.
5. I went to Home Depot yesterday trying to stimulate my story-writing lobe and could not find 10 plants I would willing use in a landscape design. I'm fed up with same frigging impatiens, petunias and lollipopped Marguerites I sold when I worked in nurseries in the 70s.
6. That's all I can think of...see, I told you I couldn't do it.

My 45 Minutes of Fame – From a Humble Blog

If Andy Warhol was correct - that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes" – I’m multiplying by three this week. Though this posting won’t be about my typical subjects, I know that a lot of my readers are fellow garden bloggers. It’s looking like writing is starting to expand my landscape architectural business considerably, so perhaps this bit of recent history will encourage some of you to expand your blogging talents in the pursuit of a higher profile writing endeavor.

I just got my third writing gig, this time for an eclectic on-line publication that caters to our little paradise of Santa Barbara. Edhat.com is a collection of local news stories, goofy contests, pet of the week stories, photo galleries, and special events coverage for my home town. Just who Ed is remains a mystery, but the misty legend continues to be a source of mystery for well-funded researchers.

I started this Garden Wise Guy blog just over a year ago, in May, 2007. Part of my motivation was to increase my consulting work and thanks to blogger Susan Harris at GardenRant, I realized that I was actually a garden coach. I was pretty much done with full-service landscape architectural services and needed to cultivate a more light-footed approach. Blogging seemed like a great was to do some guerilla marketing with zero dollar outlay.

About the same time, my Garden Wise Guys TV-show partner, Owen Dell, and I became the subject of Coastal Woman magazine, a regional publication geared toward entrepreneurial women. Owen and I were featured as “The Men We Love” (strictly platonic). We had an absolute blast during the interview with writer Nancy Shobe. After getting a few blog posts under my belt, I asked Nancy for a critique of my blog.

Lo and behold, she told me that the publisher of Coastal Woman had been considering a garden column and suggested I get in touch with her. Two e-mails later, I was writing “The Garden Coach” in exchange for advertising. 800 words of clever landscaping advice in exchange for thousands of eyeballs viewing my ad seemed like a no-brainer. The phone started ringing and jobs were coming my way.

Meanwhile, Owen, who’s even busier than I am, referred another local magazine publisher to me. Santa Barbara Homeowner is a mostly-advertising mag that’s direct-mailed to select zip codes in our area, offering materials and services for (you’ll never guess) homeowners. “Could you give me 1000 words every two months? Something that help people tackle their own landscape projects? And have fun with it.” said James Kappen, publisher. So far, I’ve tackled the topic of the role of color in the landscape, how to figure out the best landscape style for your home, and a few other subjects. I get a half-page ad and, again, the phone’s been ringing. Great, adventurous clients, too!

Yesterday, Edhat launched my first article. It’s just a quick “hello, this is who I am, here’s what I’ll be writing about.” But Ed has quite a tolerance for tall tales, bizarre facts and tongue-in-cheek satire. I think I’m up to it. My reward? A banner ad and links to my blog and business web site.

The challenge is finding three “voices” for three very different audiences. Needless to day, I’ve been spending some time at the local independent bookstore browsing and buying books about writing. We’ll see if it rubs off on my blogging.

So pop by a few of the sites and think about how blogging can not only link you to a world of amazing people, but put a few bucks in your bank account without having to sell vitamin supplement ads at your site.

Was Ernie Hemingway ever photographed with rubber duckies?

So, I'm a published writer. Not that blogging isn't writing, but we're talking about becoming a real live, bona fide, ink on paper columnist! As of the November 2007 issue, I'm the GARDEN COLUMNIST for Coastal Woman magazine, a quarterly publication aimed at local women.

As their website says, "Women today are more interesting than ever as they seek ways to balance traditional roles and unconventional choices. Coastal Woman explores the ways we each make it work living in Santa Barbara, juggling nature and nurture, family and career, personal time and community care."

Needless to say, I'm stoked (that doesn't sound very literary - let's try that again). Needless to say, this is like soooooooo cool (that's better). See, I'm already rising to the occasion.

If you can't find it at one of the local outlets, you can click this link to download a copy and read it on-line (page 44).

I first came across Coastal Woman when my Garden Wise Guys TV show co-host, Owen Dell, and I were interviewed about our show. I asked the writer, Nancy Shobe, to check out my blog and give me a writing critique, and to my delight, she suggested I get CW publisher Barbara Lantz-Mateo to take a look. Well, Barbara checked out my blog and I guess she liked what she read and offered me a page in each issue.

I knew this was going to be fun when I met with the art director and photographer for the photo shoot. There I was in a yellow rain slicker, sitting in the middle of the lawn, giant red and white umbrella in hand with Barbara off to my side spraying me with a hose. Intrigued? Just download a copy or if you're local, pick one up from the newsrack.

I'm honored to be given this opportunity to reach a wider audience and having Barbara's support in spreading a pro-environmental, pro-sustainability message. Let's raise our glasses and toast to a long relationship!