Planning a trip to see wildflowers this spring? Make sure your itinerary includes a stop at The Huntington, where a major new exhibition,“When They Were Wild”,  draws on a rich heritage of wildflower illustration to take a closer look at California’s natural and horticultural history.

The exhibition is a collaborative project of The Huntington, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, Calif., and the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants in Sun Valley, Calif. Works from all three collections, along with loans from several other public and private collections, will be on view in the Huntington show, with related displays at the two other institutions and at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.

California has one of the most diverse floras in the world, spread across several distinct floristic provinces—regions of plant distribution defined by shared climate, geology, and geography. Three of the state’s primary provinces are the Californian (chaparral, coastal sage scrub, oak woodland, and grassland), Vancouverian (mixed evergreen and coniferous forests), and Desert (cacti and desert scrub).

“When They Were Wild” is arranged thematically into four sections: Heritage explores the conditions that gave rise to the most diverse flora in the United States.

John and Ann Betar of Fairfield, Conn., said “I do” on Nov. 25, 1932, and have been happily married for 80 years. Together they have five children, 14 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

The couple was selected for the 2013 award by Worldwide Marriage Encounter, based in San Bernardino, CA.  An award ceremony will take place this month at the Fairfield, Conn., home of one of the Betars’ granddaughters, Heather Mitchell.

Though the couple is hesitant to give out marriage advice, their secret to so many happy years together is simple: compromise and don’t hold a grudge.

John, 101, met Ann, now 97, while growing up in the same Syrian community in Bridgeport, Conn. Breaking with tradition, Ann defied her parents when they set up an arranged marriage for her. She ran off to Harrison, N.Y. to elope with John. Now, she says she knows she made the right choice.

The Betars were chosen out of hundreds of couples nominated during the project’s submission period, which ran from October of last year to January. There may be other couples who have been married longer in the U.S., but none was formally nominated, according to the group.

As seen in Yahoo! News.

Cindy Wigglesworth, of the The Huffington Post, travelled to the East Coast despite warnings of an impending Hurricane.  She survived.

Her appointments were cancelled, her conference postponed. Yet she was glad to be there in Manhattan for the week.  Why?  Because it was a chance to experience (not just think about) life, and what really matters.

To read of her experience please see We Survived Hurricane Sandy. Now What?” as found online.

Flower arrangement  by bbrrooks member, Elan Flowers, in NYC.

Easy-care items like sedums, echeverias, crassulas, Scotch & Irish moss, are used to accent  unique Marina di Chioggia pumpkins in this lush and textured outdoor table centerpiece.  As seen in October issue of  Southern Living.

Hurricane Sandy, a massive storm described by forecasters as one of the largest to ever hit the United States, is making her way towards the population-dense East Coast. Evacuations have been ordered from Maryland to Maine, where storm surge and high winds are expected to wipe out power to millions.

To see more on storm system see www.weather.com/.

These handmade creations are more than textured eye-catching pieces of garden art.  Known as bug hotels, they offer shelter and even food for beetles, solitary bees, and spiders! Beetles and Spiders nestle down between pieces of wood, while birds take wool and yarn for their nests.

All these creatures are essential to the ecosystem, says Lisa Benjamin, founder of Urban Hedgegrow, a collective of artists in California and the United Kingdom who create these dwellings.  Items shown can be ordered from Urban Hedgerow.

San Francisco–based landscape  architect James A. Lord, principal of Surfacedesign won the  2012 CH+D Award for Landscape Design for the extreme makeover  of his family’s home in Palos Verdes Estates.

“Skinned knees, basketball games and lots of concrete—those are my  childhood memories of this space,” says Lord.  “My parents have always been modernists… I enjoyed the  challenge of marrying their aesthetic with their environment.”

Drought-tolerant barrel cactus, dudleya and euphorbia succulents bear  sculptural geometric shapes—hearty rosettes, spikes and stars provide a visual and textural counterpoint to the rusticated sandstone  floor.

As seen in California Home Design, Feb/Mar 2012 issue.

Flowers and landscapes are at the heart of Ori Gersht’s mesmerizing photographs.  …Except… he blows them up…  Quite literally!

For his 2006 series “Exploding Flowers,” the Tel Aviv–born, London-based artist worked with a florist to create elaborate bouquets inspired, he says, by Henri Fantin-Latour’s lush 19th-century still lifes. Gersht clicked the camera’s shutter as each bouquet was ignited with a small explosive. The resulting photographs are gorgeous and a little unnerving; the artist describes them as “celebratory and violent.”

Gersht’s career is exploding too. A graduate of the master’s program at London’s Royal College of Art, the photographer is on a creative tear. This past summer alone, Gersht had solo shows at CRG Gallery in New York and at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Meanwhile, he continues to travel throughout Europe and beyond to shoot new photographs and short films, including a video he made at a bullfight in Andalusia, which was part of a group exhibition organized by Ron Arad at London’s Roundhouse.

To read more please see  Elle Decor, October 2011 issue.

Winter seems wintry-er these days, with more snap to the cold than ever. In my neck of the woods, more often plagued by smog than snow, the days have been short, gray and nasty. As one long-spoiled by a mild, sunny clime, I’m having a heck of a time believing spring will ever come. To keep the faith, I’ve begun tricking myself – with a little pot here and a little pot there. And though I’m playing mind tricks with myself, it’s not the kind of pot you might think. The pots are full of daffodils.

Nothing cuts through winter’s drear better than a bright bundle of posies. Better still if they’re blooming in the pot. A stand of bright red cyclamen or a flourish of fragrant paper whites can fool you in to thinking spring is days away. Go for a big punch of color – pots of kalanchoe in hot pink or yellow, pulsing orange pincushion plants, or daffodils in their slicker-yellow shade are a great surrogate for sun.

If frilly little blossoms aren’t your cup of sunshine, a cactus or two might do. The giddy Christmas cactus, so named because it bursts into bloom at the holidays, is a virtual fireworks display of lurid fuchsia flora. Other long-lasting delights can be found in the orchid family. Easy-care “moth” orchids (phaleonopsis) in purple-veined chartreuse or intense magenta offer a welcome shot of visual heat in a pale room, or swirl nicely into a décor done in saturated colors. Don’t turn up the furnace when the gray days grate – crank up the color!