Celebrity Gardens

Peter Strauss' Garden
Ganna Walska's Garden

July, 2000 - Millions of Americans who call themselves gardeners are out in their own private Edens this summer -- digging, planting, bending, and hauling. NPR's gardening expert, Ketzel Levine -- known as the Doyenne of Dirt -- has left her garden in Portland, Oregon, to talk with other like-minded plant fanatics.


Émigré Ganna Walska
Born in Poland and chosen as the most beautiful woman at the Czar's royal ball, Ganna Walska lived flamboyantly -- courting grandeur, marrying six husbands, and launching a stupendously bad singing career. Her lasting glory, however, came from her exotic, 37-acre garden, Lotusland, in Mendocito, California. audio button Listen as Ketzel Levine visits Lotusland for Morning Edition, in the final installment of her series on celebrity gardeners.


T.C. Boyle's garden
Actor Peter Strauss' garden

Actor Peter Strauss
"If life is a process of wearing you down", says actor Peter Strauss, "then gardening is a way of staying even." Strauss' Ojai, California, garden is a botanic paradise: plenty of of spiny and succulent plants, audio button a 30-acre orange grove, a Mediterranean garden, a native plant preserve and rose gardens. Listen as Ketzel Levine spends a day with Strauss in his garden.

  • Check out Strauss' planting mix for roses.


    T.C. Boyle's garden
    Author T.C. Boyle's garden

    Author T. C. Boyle
    The neighborhoods of Montecito, California, have well-tended landscapes and impeccably groomed gardens. Listen as Ketzel Levine audio buttoncontinues her series on celebrity gardens with a visit to author T. Coraghessan Boyle and a garden that's literally out of control.


  • Check out T.C. Boyle's Web site.


    John Spencer's garden
    Actor John Spencer's garden

    Actor John Spencer
    In the first of her summer series on celebrity gardens, Ketzel Levine visited the Bel Aire, California, home and garden of actor audio buttonJohn Spencer who plays Leo McGarry, the White House Chief Of Staff, in the NBC-TV drama, West Wing. Listen to Levine's report.

  • Read about Levine's day in Spencer's garden.
  • Check out Spencer's recipe for fighting mildew and mold on roses.

    Resources:

  • The California Native Plant Society Web site -- a statewide non-profit organization of amateurs and professionals with a common interest in California's native plants.
  • The Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden Web site - devoted to the collection, cultivation, study, and display of native California plants and to graduate training and research in plant systematics and evolution.
  • For detailed searches about plants native to California, check out this search engine from the University of California's Digital Library Project.


    NPR's Doyenne of Dirt, Ketzel Levine, is a contributing editor to Horticulture Magazine. Her first book, Plant This!, will be published this fall by Sasquatch Books.