WHAT'S UP! San Diego gardening


author sprouts in Uptown Debra Lee Baldwin chats with Uptown News regarding her latest best seller before speaking exclusively in Mission Hills


By Glenda Winders SDUN Book Critic


Debra Lee Baldwin, the country’s undisputed authority on designing with succulent plants, credits Mission Hills and other Uptown areas with giving her career its roots. In her early days as a freelance writer she went there to look for story ideas to pitch to the editors of such publications as The San Diego Union-Tribune and Sunset magazine. “I’d cruise neighborhoods to see what people had done with succulents,” she said during a recent interview with Uptown News. “I’d take pictures and then send the owners a card asking for permission to use the photo.”


Her fascination with plants that store water in fleshy leaves and stems to survive drought had grown, in part, out of Southern California lifestyle trends. She recalled that her parents had planted succulents in the 1950s and ‘60s before sprinkling systems became widespread.


“In the ‘70s and ‘80s, once automatic irriga- tion became available, tropicals and fussy pseudo English flower gardens swept the scene,” she said. “Then in the ‘90s and after the turn of the century, gardeners were tired of all that work and they wanted to travel more. They wanted easy-care plants that wouldn’t miss them when they were away.” Drought conditions gave Southern Californians a compelling reason to get rid of their lawns, and they were also experiencing a new appreciation of the geometric forms and shapes succulents provided. And they were beginning to realize that foliage was an important component of their gardens. “A garden that emphasizes primarily flowers is ephemeral,” Baldwin said. “Flowers flash and fade, but foliage lasts. That’s the backbone of a garden.” The evolution of her own Escondido garden was another factor in narrowing her focus as a writer. As she covered garden shows, interviewed landscapers and learned everything she could from local nurs- erymen, her taste progressed from splashy flowers to roses and finally to succulents. Today giant agaves and aloes are the centerpieces of a garden


San Diego Uptown News | Jan. 21-Feb. 3, 2011


13


Alternative rock band Transfer: Jason Cardenas on guitar; Shaun Cornell, bass gui- tar; Matthew Molarius, guitar and vocals; Andy Ridley, bass guitar and percussion.


Transfer takes Europe


Local band forges ahead with an international tour, but not before one last show in San Diego


By Erin Goss SDUN Reporter


“Succulent Container Gardening” can be ordered online at debraleebaldwin.com.


that has been featured in Sunset, Better Homes and Gardens, and San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyle. “If you have succulents, you have great definition


all year round,” she said. “Without these behe- moths, my garden would look like a salad.” Decorative containers filled with every variety of succulent imaginable adorn the deck outside the home she shares with engineer husband Jeff Walz. “Anywhere you live you can have a garden like this,” she said, picking up a bowl filled with plants to prove her point. “When the weather turns inclem- ent, you just bring it in.” When she submitted more story ideas about suc- culents than Sunset magazine could use, gardening editor Kathy Brenzel suggested she use the material and photos she had gathered to create a book. The result was “Designing With Succulents,” published by Timber Press in 2007. Thanks in part to Baldwin’s network of gar- den writers and designers across the country, her first effort became a best seller in garden- ing circles. Then, after the publisher scheduled her to speak about succulents in rainy Portland, Ore., she got the idea for her next project. Just recently released, “Succulent Container Gar- dens” is an encyclopedic guide to pairing plants with containers to create designs that range from tabletop gardens, wall pots and miniature landscapes to topiaries and wreaths.


In


this second book Baldwin explains how to choose and care for plants and offers clever ways to present them. She suggests thrift stores and construction sites as possible places for


Debra Lee Baldwin with her books. (Photo by Terri Rippee)


see Succulent, page 14 L


ocal rock band Transfer is bidding San Diego farewell. No, the popular group isn’t succumbing to a tragic breakup but rather setting off on an exten- sive European tour in hopes of capturing the ears of music listen- ers across the pond. In a recent interview with


Transfer band member and Gold- en Hill resident Matthew Molarius, the singer/guitarist revealed how a year of touring both nationally and abroad has set the band up to conquer the European audience. Having just laid the ground- work for a U.K. fan base with an England-only tour this past fall, Transfer has already begun to reap accolades from our colonial cousins. The band was recently featured in the popular British music magazines Clash and Q, slated as the rising stars of sunny California.


“Things seem to be gaining momentum and the support has been an interesting thing to see develop. It’s brand new to most the people that you play for when you play an entirely different region. This definitely adds to the excite- ment of the experience,” Molarius said.


While the band has an upcom- ing two-month European tour just around the corner, it plans to capi- talize on its recent success abroad


by returning again shortly after for a round of festivals. “So far we have a pretty intense tour schedule in the U.K. and Europe coming up. We will be gone for about two months then we come back to a four-night stint at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. We also have been writing and recording some new material that we will work on while we are on the road, and then we›ll come back and record the next set of songs in April. After all that, we will head back to E.U. for some festivals in spring,” he said. However, Transfer won’t be leaving its hometown fans high and dry, or worse—silent. Instead the band will be playing an “epic Bon Voyage show” at The Casbah, located at 2501 Kettner Blvd., on Jan. 21 to celebrate. “We are quite excited to play The Casbah as a sendoff as (the venue) feels like home. It will be Casbah’s 22nd birthday so it will be full party mode. We have been writing quite a bit and I think we will kick the tires on some new material that night.”


While Molarius conceded “2010


was probably the best year yet” for Transfer, the band is off to a solid start and it’s only January. With a sendoff party at The Casbah and a European tour on the horizon there’s no doubt this will be one of the easiest goodbyes Transfer has seen.


For more information on Trans- fer, visit transferband.com.u


set your eyes on new sites


The Uptown District Center 1010 University Ave.


Ste. C109, San Diego in San Diego, only at the UnOptical


619.955.LENZ (5369)


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