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I find it hard to resist a symposium dedicated to the lighthearted side of gardening.

Obviously I am not alone: I am told that tickets to the Pacific Horticulture symposium "Gardening Under Mediterranean Skies VIII: Style and Whimsy in the Sustainable Garden" are selling quickly. Some events are nearly sold out.

To be held Sept. 23 to 26 at various locations in Pasadena, the program will feature architecture and garden tours including the Greene & Greene house shown above and the modernist pool at right, both of which we've featured previously. Lectures will address low-water landscaping, and workshops will focus on making hypertufa containers and broken-concrete paths, stairs, walls and seating areas. Speakers include noted designers Patrick Anderson, Jeffrey Bale, Steve Brigham, Marcia Donahue, Anthony Exter, Steve Gerischer, Keeyla Meadows, Richie Steffen and L.A. at Home contributor Debra Prinzing.

Each day will begin at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden with three lectures and an alfresco lunch. Afterward, buses will take participants to three gardens for tours with the owner, the designer or both. The gardens are private and therefore not handicapped accessible. I look forward to checking out a steep hillside lot that has been converted into an amphitheater of "grassy-covered broken concrete terraces and many recycled materials."

Registration with full payment is required. You may register to attend one, two or all three days. Fees range from $135 per day to $394 for three days. Discounts are available to people under 35, horticulture students and members of the L.A. County Arboretum or Mediterranean Garden Society, among others. Rates will go up after Sept. 15. Free events, including a tour of Arlington Garden, will be held on Sept. 23 and 24, but you must register to reserve a space. For more information, e-mail symposium@pacifichorticulture.org or call (760) 295-2173.

Photo credits, from top: Gabriela Yariv Landscape Design; Steve Gunther; Arlington Garden

Mitchell Gold & Bob Williams is hosting another sale: The Los Angeles showroom is offering 20% off special-order upholstery, tables, lamps, rugs and accessories. 

The sale includes the items pictured above: The Chester sofa, regularly $2,460, is now $1,968. The Rebecca chair, normally $1,120, is now $896. The Duncan cocktail ottoman, regularly $1,480, is now $1,184. The Horizon rug, normally $1,595, is now $1,276, and the Orion table lamp, regularly $295, is now $236. 

The reductions run through Oct. 11 at 7960 3rd St., Los Angeles; (323) 651-0200.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Mitchell Gold & Bob Williams

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Henry Road online fabric sale ends Tuesday

A selection of textiles by designer Paula Smail are 60% off in Henry Road's first fabric sale, ending Tuesday.

Translation: Fabric that was $50 per yard is now only $20.

I checked in with Smail on Sunday, and she assured me that she has more than 40 yards of fabric left to sell. Some designs are available in increments as small as three yards, but don't let that stop you: Think pillows. Smail's Studio City store is filled with fun accessories -- sachets, pillows, table runners -- that demonstrate what you can do with her colorful prints.

You can view the fabrics in the online sale. All of them measure 58 inches wide and are 100% cotton duck, so be sure to preshrink any purchase by washing it in warm water before you start sewing.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Henry Road

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While many people might think of a vacation as time to get away from family, there are many reasons to take a vacation with elderly parents, including bridging a generation gap.

Rosemary McClure tried it. And liked it. And wrote about it in her It's All Relative column.

"Traveling with parents to places that were important in their earlier lives can be important and meaningful for their life review and give the younger generations traveling with them insights into the ways that their parents' or grandparents' lives have shaped their own," says USC psychologist Bob Knight.

That was certainly true in my case, McClure says. She mingled with relatives, listened to their Southern drawls and learned about customs that had seemed alien. People dressed up on Sunday morning to go to church, were polite to one another, expected to be addressed as "ma'am" and "sir" and loved to go to Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby and a favorite pastime for Louisville residents.

-- Mary MacVean

Illustration credit: Blair Thornley / For The Times

Last spring, horticulturist Lili Singer remarked to me that one of the most touching mistakes she sees made by novice dry gardeners is timidity in pruning their sages. And so, in the summer edition of the Theodore Payne Foundation’sPoppy Print newsletter,  she nudges native gardening converts to do it.

With thanks to Lili for the push, I am going to echo the prompt in this column in the hope that others may learn to work out their frustrations on their gardens in such a timely fashion.

If it seems late, it isn’t. Only the most ferociously organized gardeners dead-head sage as soon as the flowers fade in June. Watching the flush of flowers drying on the branch through July and August makes for too many sunset grace notes. As Lili notes, birds move in and glean the seeds. Yet by late August, those fluttering elegies to spring just look dead, and it’s as obvious to the mostlaissez fairegardener as it is to the fire marshal that it is time to prune.

How hard to cut back sage depends on the species. Salvia apiana I leave alone until the inflorescences begin to go black, then I cut them to the first live joint. Experts far more expert than I recommend deeper cuts to achieve a dense, round and bush-like form the following year. If space demands, do this. But I love this plant precisely because of a habit that yawns and stretches, and only cut vividly dead or dying old flower stalks. Passing dogs and kids then knock limbs off and contribute to the shaping process.

By contrast, if it is looking leggy and ragged, Mexican sage can be and should be cut almost to the ground – leaving 6 inches to a foot or so of stalk and some flowers to placate the angry hummingbirds (take those off after the cut branches recover).

Salvia greggii and its brittle-limbed ilk, whose spring clouds of fragrant foliage and flowers now look like a mass of kindling, benefit from two passes with the pruners. The first should reduce and shape the crown. The second should get at the tangle of old undergrowth, removing dead wood and getting out any grasses and weeds near the trunk.

Mediterranean kitchen sage and its wild California cousins such asS. Clevelandiiwill tell you where to trim. Old, dark inflorescences should go. Ditto deadwood. Once the flowers are removed, think of it as a woody shrub rather than an herb. Reduce, thin and shape it, but avoid severing main branches. Do not under any circumstances stump these plants as one might a Mexican sage, unless of course you are trying to kill it.

Two flamboyant Mediterranean sages often seen in California areJerusalemand Canary Island sage. My Jerusalem sage generally gets reduced by half, cut to the point where I can see new foliage starting, then it’s thinned and cleaned up. I love the look of this plant, but compared with natives, it’s got mediocre wildlife value here in California. What saves it from removal every year is a long show of yellow flowers and handsome foliage that make it a handsome sentinel almost year round.

No sage gets the pruning hand itching quite like Salvia canariensis. When Canary Island sage flowers in June and July, its mauve to purple flowers are glorious, but in a single season, this plant is perfectly capable of growing to 8 feet tall and becoming just as wide. When cutting, it will need reducing by two-thirds, even three-fourths, which can leave a large gap 10 months of the year.

If you want to remove it, now is the time to do it. The last of mine is about to have its swan song this year, leaving a large and tantalizing gap to put a better-proportioned, more fragrant and nectar-licious native in its stead come fall planting season.

-- Emily Green

Photos: Top: Black sage flower. Middle: white sage and ceanothus in need of pruning, in front of sunset palms. Bottom: Cleveland sage flowers that were purple for most of the summer, then provided seed for birds and are ready for pruning. Photos by Emily Green.

 

When she started "greening" her Los Feliz bungalow, Julia Russell was unusual. Now home renovations that conserve water or take advantage of the sun for light, or include vegetable gardens are growing common. And Russell is ready to retire.

This summer she held the final tours of Eco-Home, the house she made into a laboratory for energy conservation. She reminisced and talked about her plans to spend time with family and decide what she'll do next. One thing she won't have to do is worry so much about housekeeping now that her home won't be open to the public.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo by Francine Orr

Art restorer Gustavo Perez of Restoration by Heart works on 200-year-old paintings like the one pictured above, Roy Lichtenstein's pop art pieces, even concert posters. Interestingly, he says Andy Warhol's fluorescent-colored works present his biggest challenge.

"When you restore something painted in fluorescents, you have to change it," he says. The paints are so reflective that adding anything on top of the color automatically darkens it. His collection of Warhol colors may be larger than the artist's was.

Ariel Swartley's article has a lot more about Perez, his Temecula workshop and the art of restoring works on paper.

-- Deborah Netburn

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All-weather synthetic wicker makes it possible to leave patio furniture out all year long, at least in California. But what if your garden party grows from a small group to a bigger crowd, and those lounge sets are taking up too much valuable space? 

Dutch designer Frank Ligthart created a clever solution with the Obelisk, a set of stacking chairs and a table, created for manufacturer Dedon in 2005. It has been widely imitated ever since.

One of the sets is the designer original and sells for $6,825. The other is a copycat, sold for $2,100 online. Keep reading to find out which is which and why the prices are so different...

The Obelisk by Dedon, right, is composed of two pairs of matching high- and low-back chairs and a conical table. The base of the table supports the furniture when it is stacked into its sculptural shape for storage.

The Obelisk is available in a dark gray and a silvery light gray. 

The furniture is hand-woven in the Philippines over a lightweight and durable powder-coated aluminum frame. 

The recommended retail price is $6,825. It can be purchased through the Janus et Cie showroom at the Pacific Design Center. The set has a three year limited manufacturer warranty.

Until recently, the online retailer Modern Collections offered a dead-ringer copy of the Obelisk. That model has been discontinued, and the company has replaced it with the Hourglass by Nuevo Living in Canada.
 
The stacking concept remains the same, but the pieces create a less elegant column, left, which balances on metal feet instead of a circular base.

The set has two pairs of chairs and a drum-shaped table. It's constructed from synthetic wicker woven on a powder-coated aluminum frame. The Hourglass is made in China and comes with a one-year limited warranty.

The Hourglass also comes in two colors, brown and antique brown. The antique brown is $2,100. Brown, as shown here and on the Modern Collections website, costs $525 more. Shipping is included in the price.

-- David A. Keeps

Photo credits: Dedon and Nuevo Living  

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Oprah’s top design-guy, Nate Berkus, is breaking out with his own daily talk show, following in the footsteps of other Harpo alums Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz.

Berkus, 38, who was born in Orange County and grew up in Minneapolis, has appeared on Oprah for nine years as a design expert. More recently, though, his role on the show has expanded to include segments on fashion makeovers and more personal stories about triumph over adversity. He is quick to point out that "The Nate Berkus Show" isn’t just about decorating, either.

“It will involve design, but it’s not our only lens of the show, which is broader," Berkus said at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where he was promoting the show. "It’s about living well and having new information at your fingertips.”

Berkus went on to say that guests can be categorized into three main groups: “There will be regular people with compelling stories where we can step in and help. The second tier is celebrity pops,” said Berkus, who mentioned that Jamie Lee Curtis, an “organizational freak,” will make an appearance. Third, he will feature newsmakers such as Elizabeth Edwards, whom he recently interviewed for the show's premiere week. “I flew down to Chapel Hill, sat down with her in her home and got to know her and how she’s reclaiming her life,” he said.

And his interviewing style? Berkus said that people have always been drawn to divulge their stories to him, but he will take one major Oprah-ism on his new venture.

“She gave me an important lesson about interviewing," he said. "She says speak for your guests, not at them. You have to allow the story to come out. I feel like I’ve graduated from the top talk show host in the universe.”

"The Nate Berkus Show" premieres Sept. 13. It will air locally on KNBC at 2 p.m.

-- Alexandria Abramian Mott

Photo credit: Harpo Studios / Sony Pictures Television

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a new lawn-watering ordinance, superseding the standing two-day-a-week sprinkler rule with a revision that allows lawn-watering on three days.

Designed to allay pressure on aging city pipes, the new rule will require Department of Water & Power customers whose street addresses end with an odd number to use lawn sprinklers on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while Los Angeles residents with even-numbered addresses should water on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.

To prevent evaporation, which can consume as much as 50% of the output from sprinkler systems used midday, lawn watering must be done before 9 a.m. or after 4 p.m.

Standard sprinkler systems with spray heads or bubblers will be permitted to run eight minutes per day. The more efficient rotors and multi-stream rotary heads will be allowed 15 minutes per cycle and up to two cycles per day, per watering station.

The revised ordinance also streamlines the phase system whereby emergency conservation measures take effect, while leaving in place existing bans on hosing pavement and creating runoff. Click to get more information on the rules or to request variances, or to learn about rebates for efficient irrigation nozzles.

The new ordinance will take effect after being signed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, probably by Labor Day, but it’s a safe bet that the Department of Water & Power will not be citing early observers.

-- Emily Green

Photo credit: David Gannon / AFP / Getty Images

Our recent article on backyard bartering is making the rounds on social networks, and one question that's popping up is: Are businesses run from home legal? The answer depends on where you live and what you're doing. Laura Randall reported on homeowners who aren't working from home themselves. They're letting yoga instructors, massage therapists, gardening coaches and other service providers use the property as part of a barter agreement.

The Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning has a list of frequently asked questions about home building and property usage. It says home businesses generally are OK if they meet certain criteria, including:

It is not located in an illegally converted garage or carport.
It is not located in a detached accessory building.
No signage is permitted.
Products or materials for the business cannot be stored on-site.
No mechanical equipment can be used other than light business machines such as computers, fax machines, and non-commercial/industrial copying machines.
No commercial vehicles, tractor trailers or heavy-duty delivery trucks can be used for the delivery of products to or from the premises.
A maximum of one nonresident employee is permitted, and one on-site standard parking space is required for the employee.
A maximum of one client or one vehicle visit per hour is permitted only from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday.
It cannot create or cause noise, dust, vibration, odor, gas, fumes, smoke, glare, electrical interferences, hazards or nuisances.
The home-based occupation must cease when it is a nuisance, is in violation of any regulations or is detrimental to the public health, safety and welfare.

As our article states, these types of arrangements may not thrill neighbors but do help entrepreneurs trying to eke out a living. Interested? Read the full article.

-- Craig Nakano

They say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but I’ve never wanted to catch flies. Moreover, as borrowed phrases go, I far prefer, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, sit by me.” And so, I issued an invitation: If you are skeptical about the vogue for vertical gardens, sit by me.

A few smart people from the worlds of gardening and landscape architecture took the chair. Here’s what they had to say.

“I’m intrigued, fascinated and hesitant,” said Richard Turner, editor of Pacific Horticulture. “I’ve seen some of Patrick Blanc’s walls, and they’re amazing, but I’m concerned this might be a passing phase, and I’m worried about people jumping on the bandwagon without understanding the long-term significance.”

Blanc is the French botanist who, since the 1990s, has been steadily vegetating the sides of urban buildings in Europe. Turner describes having lost an afternoon to enchantment after encountering Blanc’s vegetated wall at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris.

The underlying secret to Blanc’s system is hydroponics. “Do plants really need soil?” he asked on his website. “No, they don’t. The soil is merely nothing more than a mechanic support. Only water and the many minerals dissolved in it are essential to plants, together with light and carbon dioxide to conduct photosynthesis.”

Yet as a French novelty takes hold in California, many of the green wall systems do involve some soil, suspended in bags or brackets. Some are contained, some drain out against the wall. The more elaborate have drip irrigation. The emerging systems are so new that Bay Area landscape architect April Philips is painstakingly testing different types and writing about them for the sustainable design and development blog of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

“To me, it’s all about the care,” she said. “More information is needed.”

Harvard University design critic Michael Blier designed his own system for a vertical garden that his Boston firm, Landworks Studio, is doing in Taiwan, where he says green walls work well, particularly in high-density urban settings. However, adaptations would have to be made for an arid setting, he said.

“There’s lots of evaporation,” he said. “It’s a trade-off. You have to be smart about species selection.”

Such reasonable experts. My own feeling about vertical gardens in Southern California is that they are a plant fetishist’s tool for hastening climate change. Take a look at the Culver City party venue called SmogShoppe, owned by the folks selling a vertical garden system called Woolly Pockets. Succulents such as sedum and senecio that are so hardy in the ground need constant irrigation to cope with heat and wind after being suspended in felt pockets against SmogShoppe’s hot walls. The concrete wall behind the bagged-and-hung garden is wet with runoff from an automated drip system. The sacks are calcified with irrigation scale. Even in an open-air setting, get close and there is a whiff of mold. It’s hard to imagine a less savory or more whimsically destructive system for a region in a water crisis.

Recently, L.A. has been gripped by a challenge from the Woolly Pocket manufacturer to put its planting bags on fences in hundreds of schools. I dread seeing abandoned, tattered pocket remnants fluttering from chain link.

School gardens should connect kids with Earth. As for other settings, the idea of using plants to animate walls -- be they in civic arenas, offices or homes -- is intriguing. But if we truly want to accomplish this in a way that speaks to the dry majesty of our region, then the right approach is to leave out the irrigation and work solely with appropriate building materials to create suitable planting habitat -- then seed it. Bring back the lovely old dry stone walls of yore. If you really want to marvel at the majesty of plant life, witness a wild buckwheat flowering from an abandoned stone wall in the foothills.

Proponents praise vertical gardens for beauty. This charm is irrefutable. Just as Turner became mesmerized in Paris, pedestrians stop short before the SmogShoppe. Yet enthusiasts lapse into nonsense when extolling ecological virtues to do with heat insulation and repositories for gray water. If you want relief from the sun, hang an awning, build a porch or plant a shade tree. Gray water is still water, and wasting it is still a socially disastrous idea in the dry West. Far better to put gray water in the ground, where it will be protected from evaporation and remain available to plants.

Finally, there is the energy profile. Roughly a quarter of the state’s energy goes to transporting water; of that, the majority is spent getting it from the Bay Area and the Colorado River to Southern California. Once that water gets here, the region needs a better way to green and cool buildings that doesn’t involve dinky pockets of captive flora.

-- Emily Green

Green's column appears here every Friday.

First photo: As blogged previously here, the restaurant Raphael in Studio City installed a vertical garden using a system called Plants on Walls. Credit: Christina House / For The Times

Second photo: Also previously blogged: the vertical garden displays at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show earlier this year. Credit: Craig Nakano / Los Angeles Times

Third and fourth photos: The popular Woolly Pockets -- subjects of much coverage in Dwell, Sunset, Apartment Therapy and, yes, the Los Angeles Times -- are pictured at Marvimon, the L.A. party venue founded by the inventors of Woolly Pockets. (Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times) and Frida Kahlo High School in Los Angeles (Credit: Woolly School Garden)

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You might see Ponderosa Pinks, Early Girls, perhaps some Cherokee Purples on Saturday at the Fullerton Aboretum, Orange County's largest botanical garden and host of the annual Tomato Tasting and Sizzlin' Summer Salsa Contest.

Urban farmers will show off their crops while the rest of us taste and judge. Contestants should place home-grown tomatoes in clearly labeled bags and bring them to the tasting tables, where they will be cut up for sampling and voting.

Salsa will be divided into three categories: "wimpy or mild and mannerly"; "Now you're talkin'!" (medium to hot); and "hot cha cha cha!" (bring a fire extinguisher). Salsas must be made with home-grown tomatoes and peppers. Competitors should provide three 2-ounce containers of salsas and four cups for guests to taste.

The tasting runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Fullerton Arboretum, 1899 Associated Road. Go to the open pavilion of the arboretum's Orange County Agricultural and Nikkei Heritage Museum. Admission is free but donations are welcome. Information: (657) 278-4010.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Fullerton Arboretum

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This is Adler's first-ever rug sale, and it applies to all in-stock pieces including the 4-by-6 Lollipop rug at right, regularly $650, now $520; a 6-by-6 green and white Southampton rug, regularly $1,080, now $864; and an 8-by10-inch navy and natural Talitha rug, regularly $2,200, now $1,760.

You also can design a custom rug in the size and color of your choice and receive the 20% discount.

Sale prices apply only online at jonathanadler.com and at Jonathan Adler retail stores; local shops are in Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Newport Beach. All sales are final.

More information: (800) 963-0891.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credits: Jonathan Adler

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Michele Sommerlath, owner of furniture store French 50s60s, is delving into a new era: the '70s and '80s.

The French-born retailer has just opened another store, called Michele Sommerlath. Located in Culver City, the new outpost conjures up images of the Studio 54 and big-hair decades.

I couldn’t help but imagine someone like Halston lounging next to the fabulously curved Pierre Cardin-designed white lacquer coffee table ($5,800), above. Or Crystal and Alexis Carrington cat-fighting from a pair of Giancarlo Piretti acid-green velvet chairs from the 1980s ($2,400 for the pair), left.

“A lot of people think of the '80s as a time of bad taste, but there are really quality things that come from the time. More and more, I’m finding interesting pieces from the '70s and '80s,” says Sommerlath, who carries some of the era’s big names: Karl Springer, Milo Baughman and Charles Hollis Jones, the Los Angeles designer known for his work in acrylic.

But Sommerlath isn’t leaving midcentury behind. Two months ago, she opened a larger French 50s60s on Abbot Kinney in the former Equator Books space, where she focuses on lower priced vintage furniture, lighting and accessories. “The space is for great high-quality pieces that don’t have a designer name attached to them,” says Sommerlath, who adds that consoles in the Abbot Kinney store run about $800 to $1,200, compared with $2,500 to $6,000 paid elsewhere by “people who want the designer name.”

For those of you keeping a scorecard, Sommerlath's three midcentury stores are: French50s60s, 1103 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice; Le Depot, 4321 W. Jefferson Ave., Culver City; and Galerie Sommerlath, 9608 Venice Blvd., Culver City.

The new store for '70s and '80s design, called Michele Sommerlath, is next door to the Galerie, at 9620 Venice Blvd.; (310) 838-0102.

-- Alexandria Abramian Mott

Photo credits: Michele Sommerlath

Unsure where to place the chaise? No worries: Gus Modern's Jane Bi-Sectional features an ottoman that can be switched to the left or right side depending on your needs or mood. Break it up. Keep it together. It's up to you. The cleverly designed sectional is 103 inches wide by 30 inches high, with button-tufted cushions and a stainless steel base. An animated demonstration shows the sectional in its various configurations.

Regularly about $2,950, the sectional is 20% off as part of Gus Modern's upholstered furnishings sale running through Aug. 15. That's a savings of about $600.

Gus Modern is sold through online retailers such as Bobby Berk Home, Allmodern and 2Modern. Or you can search for local dealers.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Gus Modern

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On the first Thursday of every month in San Pedro, art lovers wander the streets of L.A.’s port town hunting for discoveries. If they stop by Gallery 741, proprietors George Woytovich and Patti Kraakevik will gladly show their art, but more treasures reside upstairs in the husband and wife’s stunning two-story loft, a former ’30s Montgomery Ward.

Inside their self-described “cabinet of curiosities,” maple floors and natural light streaming through loft windows provide the stage for their vintage gems. A brass spotlight from a Japanese cargo ship faces the Pacific. A blue bumper car from the ’20s flanks a green car from Pacific Ocean Park, the Santa Monica amusement park, circa 1953.

Every turn of the head reveals a different find: a glass case with programs from the opening days of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. A wall-mounted operating panel and floor dial from the elevator of the original Los Angeles Stock Exchange.

For more on the San Pedro loft, check out our 19-picture PHOTO GALLERY.

-- Joshua Lurie

Photo credits: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

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There are many lists of freshman dorm necessities floating around on the Internet, but one list making the rounds among parents on L.A.'s Westside is especially thorough. It's an Excel spreadsheet that usually lands in in-boxes with a disclaimer from the sender saying something like, "I know it's a little much, but it's nice to have it all spelled out."

Some people see helicopter mom in this list; others might see just plain neurotic person. After all, an 18-year-old who has managed to get into college is surely capable of buying his or her own Blistex. But there is something else in the time, care and energy spent by the unknown parent who put it all together: the desire -- however absurd -- to take care of everything, just one last time.

Read more about the emotions behind the college dorm room shopping trip.

-- Deborah Netburn

Photo: Sharon Lerman shops with her son Ben, center, and his friend Daniel Gordon at Bed Bath & Beyond in Los Angeles. Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times

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When Arlene Battisill and Desiree Estrada decided to rip out the tangle of ivy and juniper bushes that choked off their house from their Silver Lake neighborhood's active street life, their frontyard became a meeting place.

That's because along with new landscaping, the couple put in a lively burbling brook that runs through the 980-square-foot frontyard. Now nannies bring toddlers to splash in the water, and the couple will often come home to teenagers with their pants legs rolled up, wading in the stream.

Battisill and Estrada shut down the stream during the week to conserve electricity, but even when the recirculating water pumps are turned off, the dry riverbed, calm pond and serene flora maintain their allure. "It's still pretty, and people still stop by," said Estrada, who admits that it took a while to get used to people wandering through the yard. "But now it's nice," she said. "It reminds you of times past, when people left their doors open."

See more pictures of the creek on Tesla Avenue.

-- Anne Harnagel

Photo credit: Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times

The West Adams Heritage Assn. celebrates the preservation of historic houses, but earlier this month, a markedly modern installation in Jefferson Park shared its “best garden” prize. Look at the home of Marina Moevs and Steve Peckman, and it’s obvious why: Few gardens could do a better job accenting but not overwhelming their lovingly restored Craftsman home.

After having taken pains to strip, then stain the clapboard for a weathered, muted effect, the first criterion that Moevs and Peckman put to a local garden designer was to keep the plants low. Herbs would be welcome, but they didn’t want any specimens taller than 3 feet. Furthermore, they didn’t want to water -- or at least water often. Finally, they wanted to capitalize on a  cash-for-grass program that offers rebates for replacing turf with a low-water alternative.

The designer, Renee Gunter of Urbanscapes, was so well-known among water-wise gardeners that when sprinkler restrictions were rolled out last year, ABC News went to her front yard to see what kind of garden was possible on a $10-a-month water budget. As it happened, Gunter was also a trusted hand among preservationists in the greater district encompassing Jefferson Park known as historic West Adams. The drought-tolerant front garden of the area’s landmark South Seas House is her work.

The challenge for Gunter with this new job was height. Her gardens had never kept such a low profile before.

Perhaps it was a client named Marina, or maybe it was the vaguely oceanic tint to the clapboard stain, but Gunter began thinking in terms of sea floor vegetation. After poring over the succulent collection at the Jungle garden center, she had a palette in mind dominated by lavender, milky greens and occasional dashes of orange.

“I started putting together a flat of plants and took them home to just look at them,” she said. “They were like pieces in a puzzle.”

Once she got a sense of how they might be grouped to the most dramatic effect, the next challenge was dealing with a space that was to be not only low, but also flat. As the build began, Gunter began moving earth to create subtle berms. She then intersected the garden with gravel paths, one of which she planted while leaving the other clear for access from the driveway. She topped weed cloth with three inches of Del Rio gravel, creating paths that serve as sinks to trap rainwater and prevent runoff to the ocean.

For more explanation of the design, photos of the finished project and details on the rebate Moevs and Peckman received for replacing their lawn, keep reading ...

During installation, Gunter followed drawings, but not religiously. She worked with the homeowners as they considered the garden from every conceivable angle. When Moevs suggested moving the gravel paths  closer to the house, Gunter looked at her client and said, “You know, you’re right.” The change perfected the view from the most important vantage point. Seen from the front porch, the ruffle of Cleveland sage flowers gave way to successively dipping ridges of lavender, rosemary and succulents.

Although it was not on the clients’ list, wildlife habitually finds its way into Gunter's designs, so it was no surprise to her when a continuous flowering cycle of fall and spring lavender, winter rosemary, spring sage and summer succulents brought a family of nesting hummingbirds to the Moevs-Peckman home. She also knew that the tawny flowers of Mediterranean santalino would lure summer butterflies. Yet, nearly a year since the garden was installed, what surprises her is how the senecio, a succulent known for its finger-shaped blue foliage, flowers so gloriously in July, adding a lacy fillip to the summer garden.

In switching from turf to succulents and herbs, Moevs and Peckman were among the earliest of homeowners (426 in the latest count) to take advantage of the LA DWP cash-for-grass program. After documenting the work, they got $700 from the water supplier for replacing water-hungry turf with a garden that needs only occasional refreshment from a hose.

Design and installation of the garden cost another $10,000. If this sounds expensive, that's because it is. But it’s not half as costly as keeping a lawn. A controlled study by the city of Santa Monica put maintenance for a turf-based front lawn the size of Moevs and Peckman's at $3,000 a year; care for a drought-tolerant alternative was estimated at less than a third of that. (Moevs and Peckman, pictured at right, said they spend virtually nothing on their garden -- even their city mulch is free.) But using the Santa Monica metric, their garden would pay for its installation in five years.

Meet the couple and one suspects that they would have paid for the change even if it didn’t save money. They regard Gunter as an artist and their front yard as a showcase. He is associate director of the Broad Stem Cell Research Center at UCLA; she is a painter. They care about the future and they care about style. Standing out in their garden one evening last week, he said, “It’s so beautiful, I go out to get the paper in the morning and just stand there.” 

“He needs more time now,” Moevs said, poking him.

“That never happened with lawn,” Peckman added.

Renee Gunter may be contacted at urbanscapesgardens@sbcglobal.net; the stripping and staining of the clapboard was done by Steve Pallrand of Home Front.

-- Emily Green

Green's column on low-water gardening appears here every Friday morning.

Photo credits: Emily Green

At age 89, Highland Park artist David Weidman is finally getting some of the recognition and appreciation that collectors and admirers have long thought he deserved. From 1964 to 1979, Weidman created about 300 silk-screen designs and made thousands of serigraphs by hand. Few of those richly textured prints, however, ever found a buyer.

But now? Gingko Press is in its third printing of "The Whimsical Work of David Weidman and Also Some Serious Ones," and youth-oriented retailer Urban Outfitters is introducing the artist to a new generation through Weidman pillows and wall art.

As promised earlier, we have an extended photo gallery of the vintage silk-screen artwork and the Urban Outfitters pieces as well as David Weidman's Los Angeles home.

-- David Keeps

Photos, from top: Old hat blocks in David Weidman's Highland Park studio bear the artist's touch; his rambling home is a modern open plan filled with vintage style. Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

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Willhigh-end Danish home storeDK Voguebe the latest retail casualty to hit West Hollywood? Store managers are cagey about whether the Beverly Boulevard shop is actually closing (even though “For Lease” signs are up), but price tags on the inventory definitely look like a clearance sale.

Tableware is 50% off, including funky-cool connecting vases by Louise Campbell (now $98) and Monica Ritterband’s glass tea-light holders ($18 for a pair). Clean-lined sofas are all heavily discounted, going for about $3,000 to $5,500, but the real deals are the store’s stackable dining chairs.

A variety of styles by big-name designers from Denmark are as much as 70% off. In my most recent visit, Arne Jacobsen’s timeless Series 7 chairs, originally $600 and up, are now $249 to $399, depending on color and finish. Tom Stepp’s Funk walnut wood chairs are $249 each, down from $850. AndVico Magistretti's lacquered ash Vico Duo dining chairs (originally $860, now $249) come in bright green, pale blue and other fresh colors.

Some of the store’s most iconic items also are on sale, but don’t expect pricing miracles. Four of Verner Panton’s famous Cone chairs in royal blue, red and black are on the floor for $1,299, down from $2,695. And Poul Kjaerholm’s iconic PK 22 lounge chairs are $1,500 to $2,565, down from $2,565 to $5,133.

9020 Beverly Blvd., West Hollywood; (310) 385-8645. Open Monday through Saturday.

-- Alexandria Abramian Mott

Photos, clockwise from top left: Jacobsen's Series 7 chairs, Panton's Cone chair, Kjaerholm's PK22 chairs, Campbell's vases and Ritterband's tea-light holders. Credits: DK Vogue.

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French imports discounted through Aug. 15

Heath Ceramics Los Angeles will be collecting dinnerware donations during the month of August in exchange for 25% off any corresponding piece of Heath dinnerware.

Here's how it works: Bring in 10 of your own dinner plates and you will receive 25% off 10 new Heath dinner plates. Bring in eight mugs, receive a 25% discount on eight new Heath mugs and so on. Heath will then donate the collected dinnerware to the nonprofit Skid Row Housing Trust, an organization that develops and maintains innovative and affordable housing for residents of skid row.

Heath Ceramics Los Angeles is located at 7525 Beverly Blvd., at Sierra Bonita Avenue. For more information, call (323) 965-0800.

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-- Lisa Boone

Photo: Heath

Earlier this week, David A. Keeps blogged on the revival (again) of vintage subway and bus signs as a decorating motif, and lo and behold, what should land in the e-mail box this morning but the note pictured at right announcing Room & Board's new British trolley banners.

Each authentic, vintage sign is framed in a black wood shadowbox. Small banners are about 3 feet square and cost $699 apiece. Larger banners are 3 feet wide and 6 feet tall, and they cost $1,199 each.

You'll see both on Room & Board's wall art page.

-- Craig Nakano

The fourth season of "Mad Men" may not premiere until Sunday, but fans are already celebrating. Wanda Soileau, owner of the vintage store Playclothes, is hosting a "frock 'n' roll" party tonight and serving cocktails that would please Don Draper -- Manhattans, Tom Collins and dirty martinis. Also planned: '60s music by the Painkillers and a "Mad Men" costume contest.

After 12 years in Studio City, Soileau moved her vintage store to Burbank last month. "It was just a dream," she says of the space, which had been spruced up for the film "Valentine's Day" before she moved in. The mix includes clothes as well as furniture, fabrics and lighting — all reasons why it has become a shopping stop for "Mad Men" set decorators.

Current inventory includes shell-back lawn chairs from the '30s to '50s, fruit and floral tablecloths from the '40s and '50s, lamps from the '60s and a hand-painted wooden folding screen from the 1930s. "I just got in a new Hoosier kitchen cabinet," Soileau said. "A set of Franciscan Apple dinnerware — and it has the glasses to match, which you don’t see very often."

7 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, July 22; 3100 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank; (818) 557-8447

— Lisa Boone

Photo credits: Julia Dillon; AMC

ON THE JUMP: We've reposted our 2007 "Set Pieces" feature on the art direction and set decoration of "Mad Men."

Originally published Oct. 18, 2007:

Midcentury Modern? Not here

The offices in 'Mad Men' are pure period chic, but the show's homes tell a different story about how America lived in the '50s and '60s.

By David A. Keeps, Los Angeles Times

The AMC drama "Mad Men," which paints a gin-soaked, cigarette-stained, ulcer-inducing picture of Manhattan's advertising industry circa 1960, is a period-perfect re-creation of the past, colored by the emerging trends of the present: When those hard-driving executives leave their masculine Modern office suites, they go home to the feminine Colonial Revival homes of suburbia.

Call it an antidote to the Midcentury Minimalism that has become so prevalent in Los Angeles home design today.

"Do I think homes will be filled with frills and knotty-pine paneling?" asks New York City designer Jeffrey Harris, who's hooked on the show. "No, but I do think that we will be seeing reinterpreted elements of that look."

We already are. Take the headboard in the bourgeois boudoir of main characters Don and Betty Draper, whose names, series creator Matthew Weiner says, are a tip of the pillbox hat to Dorothy Draper, the most influential Manhattan decorator of that era. Swathed in button-tufted velvet in a frosty shade between blue and green so in vogue now, the headboard is an amped-up, Doris Day version of models found at showrooms such as Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams and Restoration Hardware.

"Mad Men" set decorator Amy Wells swapped out the mahogany headboard that was part of a vintage bedroom suite used in the show in favor of a replacement whose elaborate curves and tufting made it "very sexual-looking," she says.

"The headboard scared me," admits Weiner, whose show closes its first season tonight. But he soon realized that the bedroom was important to Betty's character and needed a "special flavor," of which sexuality was an important component.

Wells says she practiced "presentism -- the act of interpreting the past through the present." She was an admirer of the Hollywood Regency headboards in Kelly Wearstler-designed hotels and had been shopping for a tufted headboard of her own at Cisco Bros. and Williams-Sonoma Home.

An even more over-the-top version of the headboard pops up in a female secret agent's apartment in the NBC comedy "Chuck." It all reflects what Diamond Foam & Fabric owner Jason Asch says is a growing interest in upholstered beds.

"Button tufting is really an art," he says. "It's like pleating or smocking on a James Galanos dress -- a sign of craftsmanship and luxury."

The result is a classic, finished look that more people are turning to as the starting point when designing a bedroom, says Dave DeMattei, president of Williams-Sonoma Home. Two years ago, the firm began offering tufted headboards inspired by the 2003 Diane Keaton film "Something's Gotta Give."

Now, custom-upholstered headboards account for the majority of the company's bed business.

"The fact that the headboard in 'Mad Men' and the ones that inspired Williams-Sonoma Home both look so current speaks to the timelessness of this look," DeMattei says.

For the distinctly different vibe of the Madison Avenue offices in the series, Wells found inspiration from still-popular Danish modern furniture and the corporate American designs of Florence Knoll.

"I got the whole suite of furniture in Don Draper's office from Futurama and Denmark 50 in Los Angeles," she says. "Futurama made me a beautiful coffee table with a magazine ledge, and their reproduction couches are the only ones that are comfortable on the set."

The Manhattan furniture is as sleek and tailored as the pegged skirts and bullet-bras worn by the secretarial pool, but the pinch-pleat curtains that Wells bought at JC Penney and the skirted davenport in the Draper home are meant to be as ladylike as June Cleaver's crinolines. Wells describes the Drapers' home in Ossining, N.Y. — decorated as a counterpoint to the modernist Manhattan office furnishings — as a "page out of a 1955 House & Garden."

Some viewers might be surprised that the Drapers "don't live in Eames-ville and wear Pucci clothes," Wells says. "But we are portraying a very realistic view of a time when we were not such a throwaway society, and buying furniture was a lifetime investment."

Series creator Weiner thinks that what was going on in American homes then is the same now: a mix of antiques, tradition and comfort. He strove to make sure that furnishings were not all contemporary, "that every previous era was represented — the way it is in real life. I believe that Betty Draper, having an upstate New York home, would want to fill it with traditional furniture and family heirlooms."

The attention to detail impressed Jon Hamm, the actor who plays dashing but dark Don Draper.

"There was a towel holder in the bathroom with a clip shaped like a lady's gloved hand on a faux marble stand," he says. "My grandmother had one of those."

Production designer Dan Bishop based the Draper house on a 1916 Colonial Revival he found in Pasadena.

"It's a fairly prevalent style in older suburbs," Bishop says. "There's a huge chunk of this country that is still tapped into Americana and Anglophilia, folks wanting to identify with their historic past. It's certainly never going to go away for people who are raising kids and like to bake."

Bishop is responsible for creating that vibe in the Draper kitchen, Weiner says. "We talked about knotty pine because we all remembered it."

Mixed with plaid wallpaper?

"When I saw it, I thought it had the perfect match of tradition, taste and a little bit of flair that gave the room at times joy and at times a somberness," says Weiner, whose show has been renewed for a second season.

Designer Harris, a fan of wood paneling and Formica in unexpected places, says he is updating Colonial Revival furniture for contemporary interiors by giving them a fresh coat of paint or an outrageous upholstery fabric. The designer also has been working on a collection called Colonial Mod, which reinterprets Americana through the use of modern materials. Next year it will include deconstructed Colonial chairs and tables encased in acrylic boxes.

Is he a mad man? Hardly.

"It seems fresh and hip again," Harris says. "It adds history and nostalgia to a room and, at least to us city types, even a subversive touch."

Photo credits: AMC

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Artemide and Rezek hold another lighting warehouse sale this weekend, offering savings on discontinued, reconditioned and other "as is" showroom samples and production seconds.

A variety of lights will sell for 40% to 80% off retail. The selection will include Artemide's iconic Tolomeo table lamp, left, and the Jupe table lamp, right. 

The sale will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Artemide/Rezek warehouse, 4200 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City. Walk-in sales only; no Internet or phone transactions. Information: (310) 836-1572.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Artemide

Designer Angela Adams clearly doesn't sleep.

When not creating tote bags made of recycled sails for J. Crew or her own collection of rugs, furniture, fabric, tile, bedding, bath products and -- phew! -- other home accessories, Adams managed to find the time to design a new line for Anthropologie.

"Anthropologie reached out to us because they are fans of our couture tapestries," the Portland, Maine-based designer said Tuesday. "We designed bedding inspired by our tapestries and the end result is very dreamy and cozy. We had a lot of fun with the curtains and dishtowels as well. They have a storytelling quality to them and celebrate chickadees and seagulls -- two birds that live year-round in Maine and that are an important part of our world up here."

The Anthropologie collection includes, from left: Cherished Garden quilt and coordinating shams ($58 to $228), Honeycomb sheet set ($128 to $168), Chickadee curtains ($78 to $108) and the Budding Birch wool rug ($898 to $1,998).

More information: (800) 309-2500. 

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Angela Adams

When we checked in with them last month, the owners of the Italian furniture showroom Eccola on La Brea Avenue had just opened a second showroom on Beverly Boulevard, pictured above. At the time, Kathleen White and Maurizio Almanza said they planned to keep both stores open. “It may sound crazy to have two stores that are five minutes apart,” White said, “but we're discovering that a completely different kind of client is finding us on Beverly.”

Earlier this week, however, the e-mail landed: The old store, at 326 N. La Brea Ave., is closing after all. A moving sale with select pieces at 30% to 50% off is running through July 24.

It's part of a retail frenzy in L.A. right now: openings, closings and sales galore (see below). We'll track the scene here, and in the meantime, you can preview the new Eccola in pictures.

-- Craig Nakano

Photo credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

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