Ten years ago when my husband and I purchased our home, I decided to plant a cutting garden. I loved the idea of fresh flowers in my house and I planted 14 hybrid tea rose bushes. For nine months out of the year I have blooms to brighten my house and spirit. What I love about roses is their ability to live for decades. The other day I complimented a neighbor on a rose bush and she told me that she did not plant the shrub. She told me that it was already planted when she purchased her home over 30 years ago.
West Oakland Edible Garden
Artists Jo and Leah used their creativity and vision to create an urban oasis in their West Oakland home. When I showed them their home four years ago they saw past the cigarette stained walls and 70's wood paneling and put an offer in. The first thing they did was refinished the hardwood floors, re-plastered the walls and installed a working bathroom. Later they created an edible garden in the backyard complete with raised garden beds, tomatoes, corn, strawberries, an apple tree grafted with four varieties of apples and peas. When a friend was about to rid their garden of a pluot tree, they rescued the tree and reap the benefits with annual bowls of sweet fruit. In between the fruits, vegetables and herbs are poppies and other flowers. In Jo's spare time you will see him re-seeding poppies and nurturing his plants.
Pluots a few weeks away from being ripe.
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