Robert Irwin still marvels at Getty gardens 10 years later
-LA Times, July 24, 2008

ARTIST Robert Irwin, designer of the Central Garden at the Getty Center, sits on a small curved bench in the dappled shade of London plane trees he chose. In the 10 years since the garden opened, the trees haven't quite created the canopy Irwin envisioned, but they will -- just without him around.
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Beating the drought: An Orange County garden blooms with beauty, sans sprinklers
-LA Times, July 10, 2008

If gardens are autobiography, Sarah Sarkissian has spent 13 years writing hers on Modjeska Canyon land in Orange County. High school teacher, water harvester and amateur botanist, she lives with husband Geoff on a Santiago Creek-hugging acre that includes a front garden that is 75% irrigation-free. The backyard is also carefully designed not to waste a drop of water, with plenty of California natives and other dry-habitat plants that bring beauty and tranquility with minimal use of hose and not one sprinkler.

“The whole canyon is my garden,” she says.
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Orphan Plants Get New Life at L.A. Artists Colony
 - LA Times, April 3, 2008

"The theme of the Brewery is finding industrial things, making then pretty -- and making them your own," she says, surveying her pocket-sized garden with its painted cobalt-blue bathtub (inherited) planted with hot-pink and creamy-white bougainvillea. To the right of her lipstick-red front door is a rusting sculpture (rescued) that she and her husband, David, think of as the headless garden goddess.

This artists village practices a gift economy: Currency (read: rubbish) is deposited in public places and awaits withdrawal. It's an intriguing formula: One-part community-making, one part art-making.

Plant rescue, though, seems to be the source of the fiercest pride among the artist-gardeners. Zalkind credits her husband with "moving the garden forward," but when it comes to plants, she says, "David goes to garden stores, but I go to the Dumpster."
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(Photo courtesy of the Huntington Library )
The Artistry of a Chinese Garden Shines - LA Times
February 14, 2008
Although the garden speaks to the visitor through the senses -- echoes of rushing water, fragrances of blossoming trees, views of mountains -- it also addresses the mind. One thing stands for another; it's the idea of seeing the concentrated essence of things.
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Robert Irwin / The Getty Garden Center - February, 2007
The Central Garden at the Getty Center in Los Angeles is not just a collection of plants but a complex sculpture by contemporary artist Robert Irwin. Set like a jewel within the Getty Center’s imposing promontory overlooking Los Angeles, Irwin’s work is a critical element in Getty’s collection of contemporary art.

Break Out, Garden Writers and Writing Gardeners - February, 2007 (Word Doc)
Eyeing the demise of one gardening magazine after another, and the fast deflating if not flat market for gardening books, what's a writing gardener or gardening writer to do?

Why I Coach Writers
The world doesn't want you to be a writer. That's the starting point. The world wants you to consume: fossil fuels, french fries, faux furs, violent films, well-spun “facts” and unspeakable acts. The world doesn't want you to be an artist of any kind. The world wants you to be like everyone else. That's the starting point. So what are you going to do about it?

Gardener in the Wild - March, 2006
"One warm mid-January morning something happened between me and a manzanita that brought me back to ground and to my senses."
Also Online at Tricycle.com

Paula Panich is author of Cultivating Words: The Guide to Writing about the Plants and Gardens You Love (Tryphon Press, 2005), and gardens (in containers) in Zone 9

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