When Growing Up is Your Only Option…

A lot of the reason I love my work so much is because of all the great inspirational stories we get to tell that include my favorite subject: gardening. And if you didn’t know this already, gardeners are the most awesome people on the planet. In this episode, I had the pleasure of working with three of them and the experience will last a lifetime.

This episode was all about gardening in small spaces. The point was to show that just because you don’t have a lot of room to garden, it doesn’t mean you can’t create beautiful spaces. From back and side yards across America, to even a floral designer devoted to selling and using only the organic flowers she grows in a rented parking lot, this episode was packed with great information, interesting people, and fascinating stories.

On most shoots, the typical scenario is two days of filming from sun up to sundown. In addition, there’s little if any downtime and barely enough time to finish. We have a full agenda while battling Mother Nature, every landscaping crew in town and most of the time, local flight plans that are rerouted to fly directly over our location for the entire time we’re there—but not today.

Sometimes all the stars align as they did this time. With Theresa and Nathan, along with Christa and the Pennington brothers, we had the A Team all present and accounted for and the mojo was flowing.

Our guest-talent for the first day was the dynamic duo of Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet, expert small space gardeners and co-authors of Garden Up. Our location for the day was Rebecca’s amazing home and garden. It oozed with charm and taste, as you’ll see from the episode. Unlike a normal day when we’d hit the ground running upon arrival, this day was like coming over for a visit to hang out with friends. I had to remind myself that we had a job to do. So several lattes’ latter, we finally had things back under control and the cameras rolled and so did our guest hosts.

Rebecca and Susan and not only great at what they do and how they tell it, (as you’ll also see in watching), but they are quick witted. The only thing better is when you get them together. The banter is hysterical. My only regret is that we didn’t get that on camera. By the end of the day, we accomplished our agenda with just enough time left for some great pizza and wine and a lot more laughs before having to call it a night.

By 6:AM, we were heading north into San Francisco for part two of our episode with organic floral designer Baylor Chapman, owner of Lila B Design. What makes Baylor’s story so interesting is how resourceful she is in carving out her niche in an already narrow market. Beyond the challenge of working primarily with only what she grows, the only place she has to do that is the perimeter of a rented parking lot.

Imagine being able to grow organic flowers on an urban asphalt surface in nothing but tubs and containers to a level of perfection worthy of the finest weddings and magazine shoots.

Besides the incredible designs she and her talented staff put together every day, Baylor’s apartment and patio deck are the best part of really seeing how talented she is at her craft. The fact that Sunset Magazine had just featured Baylor’s patio in their most recent addition, affirmed that we were definitely in the right place.

By mid-afternoon, we had filmed and interviewed Baylor at her business, apartment and even the parking lot garden and we still had time for a drive back to hour hotel, detouring VIA the scenic route of the Pacific Coast Highway.

Having those extra few hours at the end of the day, and time to finally take a moment to smell the roses, knowing we had captured some inspiring and interesting stories of three very talented professionals, made these most memorable two days even sweeter.

Watch the full episode here: 214 Small Space Gardening.