Painted Ladies

Have you noticed the lightly wafting clouds of butterflies around town in the past few days? They are Painted Ladies, similar in color to, but smaller than Monarch Butterflies. All of the rain we’ve had this winter is causing wildflowers to bloom in abundance all over Southern California. More flowers, more nectar, more butterflies. Here’s a little more information at LAist.

I captured a bit of video on my street yesterday. Along with our native wildflowers, the Painted Ladies love the non-native Lantana with their tiny nosegays of brightly colored florets. If you get to 1:20 or so of the video, you can see the butterfly’s long tongue dipping into the center of each floret to reach the nectar. They are having a feast. Although spring officially begins on March 20 with the equinox, the ladies aren’t waiting around. As far as they’re concerned, spring has arrived.

Granadian Walls

Welcome to 2019! With the holidays behind us, I’m looking forward to a new year and new projects. But at the same time, I’m looking back to an amazing trip I was able to take in 2018 which will provide design inspiration for years to come. I took, literally, thousands of photos that I am just about done sorting and cataloguing. I will share a few of them in the next few weeks and maybe they will inspire others, too. Our trip in the fall began in Granada, Spain. We had beautiful weather even though it was quite cold.

One of the most striking things about the built environment of the city was the variety in the masonry of the walls. Everywhere there were mixes of brick and stone, sometimes very rustic and irregular, other times more stylized; some adorned with espaliered trees or dripping with lush vines. This architecture traces the complicated history of the city, from the caves and spectacular views of the Sacromonte neighborhood to the Albaicin (Albayzin) - the old Arab Quarter with it’s narrow, winding streets, to the Alhambra itself - which will be the subject of its own future post. Roman and peaked arches side-by-side attest to waves of European Catholic and North African Moorish conquests of Andalusia with Granada as the epicenter.

Not only is Granada one of the most beautiful cities I’ve visited, it’s one of the most delicious, where tapas are still free with a drink and a breakfast of chocolate and churros seems perfectly reasonable — which is why I’ll return some day.

A New Beginning

After more than 10 years, Echo Landscape Design has morphed into Echo Landscape Architecture Studio, Inc., or Echo LA Studio. Like the gardens we design and the landscapes that influence us, we continue to evolve and grow. We are grateful to the wonderful clients, friends, colleagues and family who inspire us. We are excited to embark on new and challenging projects. 

We have updated our website with our new name and a new logo. We have added projects to our Work page. Please see the new social media buttons below. We hope you will take a look and follow us on your choice of platforms: Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (click on buttons below). 

In the coming weeks, we'll be publishing new blog posts on topics we think you might be interested in. In the meantime, you can check out previous blog posts archived at ECHOES LD.