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Sunwriter7@cox.net AWARDS AND CLIPS | |
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Debra's articles appear in Sunset magazine, Organic Gardening, Gardening How-To, the Los Angeles Times, Better Homes & Gardens, BH&G Special Interest Publications, Western Interiors, Garden Compass, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles, among other print and online publications.
During her
20-year career as a journalist, she has earned more than 30 awards.
Please also see the Articles section of this website.
RECENT AWARDS
Awarded by the Garden Writers of America:
Category: Newspaper Writing "Did Succulents Save Her Home?" Los Angeles Times (firewise landscape article)
Category: Excellence in electronic media Designing with Succulents Plant Palette CD
Awarded
by
the
San Diego Press Club: Category: Daily Newspapers - Gardening "Did Succulents Save Her Home?" Los Angeles Times (firewise landscape article) "Succulent Chic" San Diego Union-Tribune (waterwise landscape using succulents)
Category: Magazines - Gardening "Agave Appeal" Gardening How-To magazine (low-water garden design using succulents)
Category: Magazines - Architecture & Design "The High Life" SD Home, San Diego Union-Tribune
Category: Magazines - Column "In the Garden/Edibles" San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles
In 2007, Debra swept the category of Garden Writing at the San Diego Press Club Journalism of Excellence awards and won three in other categories, too, for a record-setting total of six awards in one year. The San Diego Press Club is one of the largest in the nation with over 400 members.
Category: Daily Newspapers and Websites
- Gardening
Category: Magazines - Column Selected excerpts from earlier articles:
Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Steep Solutions" (San Diego garden) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Magazine Category: Architecture & Design
Three years ago, Jim Bishop looked at a mountain of gravel in the street in front of his Mission Hills home, and wondered what to do. Two truckloads had been delivered by mistake instead of the topsoil he ordered. The supplier told him he could keep the gravel -- at no charge -- or pay $3,000 to have it hauled away. Bishop recalls this matter-of-factly, along with other challenges that would have pushed most homeowners over the edge. Edges, in fact, were another thing that Bishop and partner Scott Borden contended with. "We had to warn anyone who wanted to stand on the back deck and look at the view," Bishop recalls. "A gutter ran along the balcony wall, and if you weren't careful, you'd step in it, lose your balance, and fall 15 feet into the scary swimming pool below." When house-hunting eight years ago, they had hoped for a level lot, so Jim could indulge his passion for gardening. The back yard they ended up with, behind a 1930s Spanish-style house that "smelled of dogs" and desperately needed remodeling, was near-vertical and dominated by a massive retaining wall above the pool. Beyond the pool, the rest of the steep, one-acre property had been Swiss-cheesed by gophers. Bishop didn't know about the gophers until every perennial he planted disappeared, and the ground caved away beneath him and he fell into a foot-deep tunnel. He soon discovered the buck-toothed rodents had undermined existing terraces and stairs to the point of instability. "I'm from Texas. All I knew about gophers was the movie, Caddyshack..." ______________________ Awarded by: Society of Professional Journalists For: "Walton's Farm" (Wal-Mart family's San Diego estate) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Magazine People who have the means to live anywhere normally don't choose National City, a San Diego suburb best known for its shipyards and Mile of Cars. Yet John and Christy Walton have owned a Victorian home on a National City hilltop for the past 17 years. "We love National City," Christy says, her voice so matter-of-fact, you wonder what she knows that you don't. What brought them there, and why they stayed, have to do with hard work, near tragedy and triumph -- things everyone experiences, even the son and daughter-in-law of Wal-Mart founder and (now deceased) billionaire Sam Walton. Back in the early '80s, John, who has a passion for sailing and boat design, worked in Chula Vista, helping to establish a boat-building company. "John told me to look for a home nearby," says Christy, who is no stranger to boat construction herself; she and her husband built a 44-by-27-foot sailboat "with one helper." So, when she wasn't "grinding the bottom of the boat," Christy cruised local neighborhoods, checking out houses. She discovered that older homes in nearby National City not only have "bigger back yards and more space," the city has many more Victorians than other San Diego communities. These date back to when the area was, according to National City historian Janice Martinelli, "the La Jolla of the 1880s." Christy fell in love with a crumbling 100-year-old "orchard home" on four-and-a-half acres. Surrounding homes range from low- to high-end, which was fine; the Waltons wanted "to be part of a mixed neighborhood. We didn't want a gated community." It didn't matter that "the chimneys had fallen off, wooden rain gutters had rotted, porch steps had fallen in, and the driveway was dirt." Christy saw the home's potential, and recognized construction of a quality superior to much newer houses. The faded mansion, however, wasn't for sale... ________________________ Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Historic Kensington Gem" (restored Cliff May home) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Category: Architecture and Design Visiting the Kensington home of Lee and Barbara Roper is like exploring the mind of a creative genius before he became famous. Theirs is the second house designed and built by Cliff May, who went on to launch an architectural style that, during the latter half of the 20th century, swept the U.S. like a warm Santa Ana wind. May, father of the ranch-style home, is perhaps best known for designing million-dollar mansions for Hollywood moguls, and Sunset Magazine's headquarters in Menlo Park. Thanks in part to "the magazine of Western living," which promoted May's work extensively, few architects have been so celebrated -- or so copied. But in1933, long before post-war prosperity and housing booms, May was 25 and nervous. Would he sell the second 2,300-square-foot "hacienda" he had built on spec? Kensington, San Diego's newest suburb, was far from downtown. May's low-slung, L-shaped house, with rooms opening onto a walled courtyard, demanded that buyers rethink their concept of "home." And even if people loved it, could they afford $9,500? On the same day President Roosevelt closed America's banks, a Navy captain and his wife showed up with their life savings in a satchel... _________________________ Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Low-Water Wonder" (drought-tolerant garden) Publication: Flower Gardening (a Better Homes & Gardens Special Interest Publication) Category: Science and Environmental Writing Susi Torre-Bueno is more likely to talk about "weaning" her flowering plants than "weeding" them. Her quarter-acre front garden is designed especially for its arid San Diego climate, where rainfall averages about 10 inches a year and a dry spell may last eight months. Homeowners in Susi's area tend to plant lawns for their front yards. People fond of flowers favor roses or tropicals that do well the Zone 10 location near the ocean, but such yards are thirsty and often have a sameness about them. Susi's garden, on the other hand, doesn't take much water, and it blazes with out-of-the-ordinary perennials, annuals and bulbs from South Africa, Australia, Mexico and the Mediterranean. In addition to dry-climate plants that bloom loud and long, Susi and her husband, Jose, wanted a garden that would enhance their home's architecture. The house, with angular walls the color of warm sand and circular clerestories, is sleek and modern -- a perfect backdrop for the softening presence of plants... __________________________ Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Rescue Mission" (restored adobe home) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles Category: Architecture & Design Five years ago, when Matthew Midgett finally found his dream house, it was days away from demolition. "The property had been neglected for more than a year," he recalls. "A bank owned it. Weeds were waist high. Trees were so overgrown, they hid the view. But when I saw it, I just knew." The three-bedroom ranch-style house occupied a two-acre hillside lot in what realtors call Escondido's "Old Adobe" district, south of downtown. The area is known for mud-brick homes built by the Weir Brothers from the '50s through the '70s. Despite layers of grime, paint "the color of cooked liver" and hideous terrazzo floors, Midgett saw sound construction and exquisite craftsmanship. He made an offer. So did a buyer who wanted a view lot to build on. Bulldozers, you might say, were clearing their throats. Normally a sane man, Midgett did two crazy things: He hired tree trimmers to lace oaks that blocked the view. Then, using a hose coiled alongside the driveway, he washed his car. Two simple acts any proud, confident homeowner might do. Except he didn't own the home... ______________________ Awarded by: Garden Writers Association of America For: "Winter Wonder" (profile of a poinsettia hybridizer) Publication: San Diego Union-Tribune Category: Newspaper writing It was a Quasimodo of a plant. Even so, Franz Fruewirth was intrigued by the gangly poinsettia he saw growing in a sunny corner of the Paul Ecke Ranch in Encinitas. The year was 1962, and for 40 years the Ecke family had dominated the poinsettia market nationwide. True, customers preferred traditional-looking plants, but that didn't mean tastes wouldn't change, given an appealing alternative. The oddity had a grand name, "Ecke's Flaming Sphere," but its ball-like red topknot and tightly curled leaves suggested not a comet so much as a tarantula. It had been discovered a decade earlier, in the mid-'50s, as a mutant shoot of a normal pointy-leaved plant. Maybe, Fruewirth mused as he went about his routine work of mating poinsettias, Flaming Sphere could light the flower market on fire. Sure, there were problems. Floppy, skinny stems. Small, widely-spaced leaves. And Flaming Sphere flatly refused to grow indoors. "It's a stripper," Fruewirth says. The term describes poinsettias that drop their leaves when deprived sunlight -- a problem with those sold as recently as two decades ago. This tendency for poinsettias to disgrace themselves indoors is a trait Fruewirth has bred out of the world's most popular potted plant during his more than three decades years with Ecke. Worse yet, Flaming Sphere was, to put it politely, sexually challenged. Its reproductive organs were almost nonexistent. Fruewirth could propagate the plant asexually, that is, he could take cuttings and root them, creating clones. Indeed, if he had wanted to, Fruewirth could have populated all 120 acres of the Ecke ranch with floppy Flaming Spheres. But without a well-formed flower, without ripe and lusty ovaries at the core of its ruby bracts, there was scant hope of cross-breeding Flaming Sphere with Ecke's more civilized -- and commercial -- poinsettias. Yet Fruewirth persevered. Tackling the impossible had become routine for him. But it would be 36 years before customers worldwide could evaluate his success... ___________________________ Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Lunch on the Fly" (profile of a carnivorous plant expert) Publication: San Diego Union-Tribune Category: Health/Science/Environment ZZZZT. Zzzzzt. A slender, vase-shaped plant on Malcolm Mitchell's patio buzzed with an unseen, angry bee. The bee had reason to be upset. It was about to be dissolved in acid, then eaten. At the curved rim of its entrance hole, the graceful green plant appeared to grin. "There's a beehive close by, and the pitcher plants have been feasting," said Mitchell. He sounded pleased, as though a pet had performed on command. Just like pet reptiles and fish, Mitchell's plants are meat-eaters. In fact, you might say some are meat-cravers, so voraciously do they seize their prey with snapping jaws. "I'll let you feed the Venus flytrap," Mitchell said. The plant seemed tame enough, dozing in the dappled sunlight. Its wedge shaped leaves ended in twin paddles, each rose-red and rimmed with what looked like green eyelashes. Mitchell gently brushed a pair of tweezers across one of the small, sticky hairs protruding from one of the dime-sized paddles. Nothing. He brushed it again. Like a clam shell closing, the fringed lobes swung shut, their hair-like teeth interlocking like clasped hands. "You have to touch it twice," Mitchell said. He explained that with a single contact, the plant likely has caught a drop of water or a piece of dust and won't close. Prey, however, doesn't sit still, so the second movement triggers the closing mechanism...
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View more articles written and illustrated by Debra Lee Baldwin.
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