The folks over at Houzz.com have featured a couple of our gardens again, this time in an article on “Reimagining the Rose Garden.” Click here to read it!

This intimate garden in Pasadena was just featured in Apartment Therapy, one of our favorite interior design websites. The slideshow above includes a process shot of faux-finishing the custom-designed trellis, as well as a “before” photo.

Click here to see the article…

The lovely folks over at HGTV came to interview Heather about the Victorian Storybook garden. Their gorgeous video beautifully captures the magic of the garden. Check it out above, or click here.

Our friends at Sunset Magazine have featured us in their latest issue! It’s a great article on how groundcover and hardscape can be woven together to create graphically exciting garden designs. For a preview, check out their website here. Then run out and pick up the April 2012 issue!

Spring has finally arrived, which locally has meant both sunshine and thunderstorms. The gardens aren’t confused though. Here’s what a quick “shoot-around” this morning yielded.

The gardens are heavily laden with an almost overwhelming blend of scents. Constellations of Pittosporum undulatum blooms sparkle in the canopy above, pouring out thick, sweet perfume. Clouds of Jasminum polyanthum float through trellises and archways, tilting tiny torpedoes skyward. Burgeoning Wisteria sinensis unfurls its delicate festoons for the coming Spring festivities. Prunus persica is just starting to pop, while an assortment of early-bird Narcissus wonder what’s been taking everyone so long to show up to the party. All the while, Osmanthus fragrans continues holding its peaches and cream notes over from Autumn.

Last week saw a mini fashion show at Lenkin Design: the runway was the dining room table and the models were floral centerpieces! Designed by Tommy Farmer Studios in Pasadena, these elegant beauties were vying to strut their stuff at a wedding reception… which one would the bride choose?

Farmer employed a range of shapes and textures to explore the palette of soft pinks and creams favored by the bride. The delicate textures of nascent hyacinths and viburnum complement peonies, ranunculus, and English garden roses, with tube roses and French tulips contributing upward motion.

After careful consideration, the bride and her advisory panel agreed that there was only one logical choice: all of them! With each contestant so graceful and gorgeous, it was to difficult, and unnecessary, to choose only one. So, once in a while, everyone gets to win!

As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, last summer Heather traveled to Spain and Portugal to source handmade tile. While in Spain, she was inspired by geometric abstraction integral to the Moorish architecture found throughout the South. Much of this was seen in the hand-crafted tiles which adorn the walls, floors, and ceilings of both majestic Moorish palaces as well as the local tapas bars.

About 500 years ago, the Arab art of painting tiles known as azulejos was introduced through Spain to Portugal, where it arguably reached its greatest heights. There, tile work expanded from interiors to exteriors, often blanketing an entire façade. Abstraction gave way to figurative representation, with large scale, tapestry-sized compositions depicting historical events becoming the norm. The art form evolved with the times, producing gorgeous Art Nouveau and Art Deco tiles in the 20th Century.

Above are just a few images from Lisbon and Portimão. The second-to-last image is a detail from a custom azulejo fresco in the Roccoco style, which we had made in Lisbon for a client’s garden design in Pasadena. When the weather gets better, we’ll shoot some larger images. And the last image is another special discovery from Lisbon: Santini’s gelato!

Even as the gardens are crisscrossed with trenches and littered with the debris of rebuilding, Nature continues in her usual course unperturbed. The presaging of Spring is literally in the air, as the mornings are scented by Pittosporum undulatum trees, and tiny buds are popping up everywhere… Snowdrops (Galanthus), Pink Jasmine (Jasminum polyanthum), and Narcissus, while Winter-blooming Camellia japonica ‘magnoliaeflora’ is glad to finally have some company…

It’s been over two months since the ferocious windstorms of last December ravaged the Pasadena area, and the cleanup continues. When the gales uprooted trees and exploded our electrical panel here at Lenkin Gardens, it also took the garden lighting and irrigation with it. So we’re taking this opportunity to rebuild both systems as we create completely new landscape designs for the gardens…