I don’t know how many people notice that many of our significant pieces are given names of flowers. That’s not because it’s easy to relate a form or gemstone colors to various plants, it’s because I have a love of gardening. So many design principles are universal to both jewelry to gardening. Colors, forms, texture: they’re all there to play with. However, gardening is relaxing in a way that making jewelry definitely is not. It’s a great counterpoint to the meticulous concentration required of me in the studio. The garden is constantly changing, often surprising, and if I mess something up, I get to buy a new plant! Warning: plant collecting is every bit as addictive as gemstone collecting.

When we moved into our house in Walla Walla almost 5 years ago, the backyard was pretty much a blank slate. A few mature shrubs and trees in one portion, but not much else. It was an opportunity to start from scratch and implement a garden based on all my years of mistakes in Portland.

One of the main places I find inspiration for garden design is Fine Gardening Magazine. They have a daily online feature called Garden Photo of the Day which are curated reader submissions. I submitted a series of photos of my backyard in early June two years ago with the plantings just a year old. Click the link to see “Lizzi’s Walla Walla Garden” And just last week, they featured my backyard again, this time the photos are from late July. Click the link to see “Walla Walla Backyard Two Years Later” The plantings have filled in, the beds have been expanded, and of course there were some die-offs, some additions and some moving about, but that’s because a garden (unlike a piece of jewelry) is never finished.