Amy Stewart

January never really feels like the beginning of the year to me. September, with its end-of-summer, back-to-school vibe, is the time of year that makes me feel like I’m starting over. January just feels like more of the same: more cold, more wet, more long, dark nights. But I can’t help but look ahead and […]

Among garden bloggers (a small but mighty force in the blogosphere) there is a tradition of posting a photo of whatever happens to be blooming in your garden on the 15th of each month. It’s a useful practice for a gardener; if you keep it up for a couple of years, you will be able […]

It used to be such a simple, innocent question: What do you want for Christmas? Tell me and it will save me the trouble of buying the wrong thing. Tell me and you’ll probably get it. It’s a question we’ve heard from our spouses, parents, children, friends — what do you want? And just like […]

Last week I posted a survey on GardenRant, a group blog I’m a part of, asking gardeners if the economic downturn had put a dent in their horticultural shopping habits. Of the 85 people who voted, a third are going to the garden center a lot less than they used to in order to avoid […]

I am writing this on the morning after the election, trying to tame my hangover in time for more champagne at another victory party tonight. During his acceptance speech last night, President-Elect Obama laid out many challenges that Americans face, but he overlooked our most pressing problem: What to do with all those hours that […]

It was just another typical evening in the Stewart-Brown household. ME: Honey, would you like to hear some fun facts about bats? SCOTT: Actually, I was just wondering if there were any fun facts about bats I hadn’t heard already, so your timing is perfect. ME: Did you know that there’s a guy at HSU […]

Those of us who garden on California’s North Coast tend to live in a state of denial about the fact that we are actually gardening in the Pacific Northwest. We like to think of ourselves as California gardeners. You know, California. Santa Barbara. Monterey. That sort of thing. But the fact is that we have […]

As the Summer That Never Quite Was draws to a close, I submit to you my final report on the state of my straw bale garden. Thanks to all of you who keep inquiring about it — actually, I’m surprised that the idea has sparked so much interest. In the last few weeks several people […]

For months I’ve been ignoring the Facebook and LinkedIn invitations my friends have been sending me. I spend too much time on the computer anyway; the last thing I need is to get sucked into social networking. A cousin who is also a writer told me that Facebook was a wonderful way to procrastinate. While […]

It’s not easy being a plein air painter. You have to haul your materials to remote locations, struggle with changing weather and shifting light, and finish as much of the painting as possible in one go, since it may be hard to return to the same scene and the same conditions day after day. And […]

For the last month, I have stood guiltily by and watched my flower garden fade. The daisies, feverfew, butterfly bush and catmint have bloomed so aggressively that I couldn’t possibly keep up with them. After hacking his way through the flowers to get to the chicken coop recently, my husband meekly suggested that I could […]

A couple of months ago, I spent an afternoon at the di Rosa Preserve, a private art collection housed on a lovely piece of land between Napa and Sonoma along the Sonoma Highway. The collector, Rene di Rosa, is almost 90 years old. His collection of modern art, which now totals over 1,700 pieces, fills […]