Books
GARDENISTA: The Definitive Guide to Stylish Outdoor Spaces
By Michelle Slatalla with the Editors of Gardenista, Artisan Books 2016
Contributing Writer, Expert Advice Section
Magazines
SAVOR THE SUMMER
The mulch-covered path from kitchen garden to dining table at McEvoy Ranch is only a few strides long, the time from harvest to prep sink so brief that dew still clings to the baby lettuces destined for lunch. Raised beds just steps from the kitchen door rein in a colorful tangle of organic vegetables, herbs and flowers, while trees nearby in the apple orchard dangle with Granny Smiths used to cleanse the palate between tastings of the Tuscan-style extra-virgin olive oil for which the ranch is known.
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NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mad for butterflies, orchids and odd exotic things, Jeffrey Doney and Xavier Caylor have turned a passion for the natural world into a fresh and quirky collection of art—and their just-renovated Victorian flat in San Francisco is the pitch-perfect showcase for it. One can almost imagine Darwin or Huxley in the front parlor, pondering the intricacies of a phalaenopsis orchid or the iridescence of a butterfly wing.
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POTAGER POWER
As Mick Kopetsky digs his shovel into the mound of soil piled along the kitchen-garden path, the smell of good, clean dirt rises along with warm compost steam into the morning air. “Secret recipe,” he smiles, as he picks up a handful of the earthy concoction and lets it sift through his fingers, like the fine crumb of a pastry mix.
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LAWN & ORDER
The tumbledown charm of a neglected 100-year-old stone winery inspired a certain pioneering spirit in Diane Morris the moment she first saw it along a country road in Napa Valley some 20 years ago. “There was nothing but a crumbling stone building, no water, maybe one tree on the property that wasn’t dead and some vines that were being dry farmed,” says Morris. But there were more than 16 acres for sale, and she had a few romantic notions for the garden. “So I bought it.”
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TOASTING THE HARVEST
The grand exit of summer in Dry Creek Valley—one of Sonoma County’s most bucolic and sleepy vineyard regions—is marked by a hot breeze followed by the intoxicating perfume of earth and fermenting grape skins. After weeks of playing hurry-up-and-wait for the optimum time to harvest, growers breathe an exhilerated sigh of relief and toast their ripest hour, comparing notes on cluster counts and juice yields.
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THE FRENCH COLLECTION
Sharon de Rham smooths her hand over the surface of the antique French country farm table anchoring her kitchen. The sheen from a meticulously applied coat of wax highlights the table’s nicks and grooves from centuries of use in a Provencal country home. “This is definitely the greatest table I’ve ever seen,” she says with characteristic passion.
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TULUM WITH A VIEW
The secret to getting away from it all in the Yucatan is to step off the plane in Cancun and immediately head south. Don’t stop until you reach Tulum. Unpack, claim a chaise lounge on the beach, and don’t leave until two hours before your plane departs for home.
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EARTHLY PARADISE
Monastic. Earthen. Solid. Organic. It all started with this shared vocabulary between a trio of like-minded architects and a couple in want of a contemporary guesthouse on their vineyard estate in Sonoma’s Valley of the Moon. Standing sentry over 50 rolling acres of grapevines, the resulting 3,200-square-foot space is a modern study in natural materials, proportion and light.
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A WORLD APART
Few places have as many stories to tell as Rancho Mineiro, a 60-acre refuge in the Sonoma hills for a San Francisco couple and their menagerie of family, friends and animals. There’s the one about the trio of 240-pound ostriches who roamed the pasture—along with peacocks, chickens and two picturesque paint horses—until the ostriches grew testy and started charging anything on two legs at highway speed.
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OF WINE AND STEEL
Tiptoeing isn’t Jayson Pahlmeyer’s style, not when it comes to crafting his gutsy, award-winning wines or realzing his vision for a modern house built of unadorned industrial materials. “My philosophy of wine-making has to do with my philosophy of life,” says Pahlmeyer. “Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.”
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HARVEST PICKS
Autumnal hues and notes of whimsy highlight our crop of stylish buys inspired by the harvest season—from fabric with ripe plum stripes to vintage tools for uncorking.
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AN ORGANIC KITCHEN GARDEN
Garden Design Magazine
A collaboration between a garden designer and a culinary-arts-trained homeowner results in the ultimate potager, one so productive (and delicious) that chefs throughout Sonoma County clamor for its surplus.
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Gardenista
In a sunny woodland clearing with a backdrop of redwoods and ferns, the chicken coop that Chiquita and Bob Woodard built in their Mill Valley, California, garden for their feathered brood of four (and growing) has all the casual charm of their 1902 shingled farmhouse.
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