If you’re looking to support a worthy cause in style, then Pasadena’s 14th Annual Big Night Out is certainly for you. The dinner event, which consists of meals served at 20 of the area’s most historic and architecturally significant homes, is the main fundraising event for the ASC (AIDS Service Center), which provides services for [...]
What would Pasadena’s grand tour-worthy homes be without the well-kept gardens that surround them? This May, the Garden Conservancy is opening six private gardens up for public viewing as its Open Days Program comes to Pasadena. On May 1st, the Conservancy is offering self-guided tours to support their efforts of garden preservation across the country. [...]
Pasadena now has more historic districts than Hollywood has marijuana dispensaries, but it all started with Bungalow Heaven, Pasadena’s first Landmark District and a recent addition to the National Register of Historic Places. Bungalow junkies, whose numbers are legion, clear their calendars in April to be ready for the annual Bungalow Heaven home tour, which [...]
Rain or no rain, it’s time once again for Pasadena Heritage’s spring home tour, this year dubbed “The Legacy of Wallace Neff.” The drive-yourself tour, which includes six private homes, highlights the work of Southern California architect Wallace Neff. Neff was known for creating Mediterranean Revivals that he called “California Houses”—European-influenced architecture adapted to Southern [...]
With tomato-planting season fast approaching, the L.A Arboretum will soon be offering its annual “Great Tomato Sale & Talk” with expert Steve Gotto. Back for the tenth year, this event will begin with a seminar on all the proper techniques for choosing, planting and growing your tomato crop, which will be followed by a sale [...]
What a wonderful story by Emily Green in today’s Los Angeles Times about Altadenan Leigh Adams’s dry garden. We at Hometown Pasadena have known Leigh for years—she taught most of our kids Spanish and the art of gourd painting at Sequoyah School—and have watched in awe as she’s continued to grow as an artist and [...]
Want to learn how to make the most of the inordinate amount of rain we’ve had this winter? Come out to a free workshop on March 12 to get the run-down on rain harvesting with barrels and on the basics of rain gardens, which conserve water and replenish the ground water. In our semi-arid climate, [...]
If you are itching to plant your summer garden, or ready to eat from your favorite cook’s, you would do well to hightail it to the Arboretum this Saturday for an event built around a remarkable new book. Co-hosting is the fine Garden Conservancy, not known for hightailing it most places. In honor of my [...]
Just when it feels like summer, one more chilly night appears. Without smirking, now, tell your friends and relations in Chicago and Buffalo that we, too, are knee-deep in winter. But since we don’t have a raging pub culture in Southern California, we celebrate the season with winter-blooming camellias. This regal shrub flowers in shades [...]
In a town where roses consistently occupy a place as the most popular flower, home gardeners may be surprised to find that the upkeep of these beauties is more difficult than might be expected. What better place to learn to make your rose garden as thriving and beautiful as it should be in the Rose [...]
