When you visit Eye of the Day Garden Design Center in Carpinteria, you’ll see a lot of things: authentic European and American terra cotta, statuary, fountains, a gift shop full of wonderful books and more. You’ll also see succulent planters designed by Mimi Richardson, whose eye for color, texture and scale has resulted in our collection of one-of-a-kind pieces that are ready to take home.

I sat down and talked with Mimi to find out more about her creative inspiration.

Q: How did your background growing up around horticulture influence the way you think about and design with plants today?

A: I grew up living on Seaside Banana Farm with my parents and three sisters. Playing in the dirt was more than just a saying for me. My dad raised fifty varieties of organic bananas plus other subtropical plants and fruits like passion fruit, mango and papaya, plus there was always a multitude of plants around that were being studied and tested. My inspiration for design came later, when I worked at Pan’s Garden in Summerland, CA, and then Island View Nursery in Carpinteria.

Q: Regarding the containers you plant up for Eye of the Day, what makes you lean toward succulents?

A:  While I try to be just as artistic with other plant materials, it is succulents I most prefer to work with.  As to containers, succulents give immediate instant gratification and they maintain themselves from the get go and anyone can take care of them. There are forms, textures and colors to satisfy everyone and their proclivities.

Q:. Can you comment on how color, texture and size of plants figure into the way you design the containers?

A: I don’t have a design layout for containers or specific forms. Like Jackson Pollack, I let the plants speak to me and for me and go with their flow and as they populate the container. As I work, I make adjustments, sometime even tearing them out and replacing them until I’m satisfied with the feel and look. Obviously, colors and textures play into it, but not until they are in my hands.

Q: Can you comment on the containers themselves: what you like about them, which one do you prefer, and why?

A: The contemporary form excites me as much as the elegant and high-colored French Anduze. We planted up a number of old French Cavalry stone troughs awhile back and although it was a challenge and they turned out beyond my wildest imagination. Each container allows me to escape into a new adventure.

Q: In terms of customers caring for these planters once they buy them, what do you suggest?

A: We plant them in correct soil and from there they just need to be groomed for old or dead foliage and watered sparingly (and don’t forget an occasional loving chat).

Brent Freitas, President of Eye of the Day, was recently sought out by for his expertise on garden containers. Interviewed for a story that is now live on the NHS website, Brent provided helpful information on the subject of extending the season by adding heat elements in the garden.

In an effort to make their gardens more distinct and more beautiful, many homeowners incorporate garden containers for use as fire pits–but this can prove both costly and dangerous if the wrong techniques are used.

As Brent says: “Customers often ask for pots or containers to use in their backyards for fire pits. They want something attractive and different from the average offering. They want to know if our concrete or terra cotta will stand up to the heat, and this is what I tell them: if you want to burn wood, no. But if you are going to install gas and use a flame delivery system that is properly install so the flame is diffused upwards through the rock or tumbled glass, well then, yes.”

Design experts Heather Lenkin, Debra Prinzing and Phil Maddux also contributed to the story on heat in the garden. Want to learn more? Click HERE to read the whole story.

is a high-volume consumer website that is funded and endorsed by a group of the nation’s largest homebuilders. The site includes new home listings as well as a resource center called the New Home Guide, which is full of articles to help with the home-buying process, designing your new home and settling in.

Greek Pottery.  Facts:  Greece, particularly Crete, has a rich heritage in the art of ceramics, dating back about 12,000 years and passed from generation to generation to the present day.  Earth and water are mixed until a workable clay is formed, then slowly the pots and urns are shaped and left to dry before being baked in traditional kilns fired with olive pits and pressed olives at high temperatures for at least 14 hours.  They are then cooled for another 14 hours, filled with water and left for at least 24 hours as part of the process to ensure excellent resistance to high and low temperatures.  The finished vessels have traditionally been used for preserving and storing food, ointments, oil and wine and for decorating the Minoan Palace.  They continue to be as practical and functional today as they have always been.

Greek Pottery. EXCITEMENT!:  Eye of the Day loves the days that bring a container of pottery.  French pottery, Italian pottery, American pottery.  This time the container was packed with Greek pottery – planters, pots, urns of an amazing assortment of shapes and sizes.  The Greek pottery is the only pottery we import that is still hand thrown.  It is affordable and excellent for Mediterranean and Southwest design, but Greek terra cotta is at home anywhere.  They are extremely popular and seem to leave the store with practically everyone.

We will be closed on Sunday and Monday for the Labor Day weekend.

Beginning Labor Day Weekend, we will resume our Fall and Winter hours:

Monday-Saturday       10 am – 5 pm

Closed Sunday

We will notify you as our hours change when our annual “Getting Ready for Spring” sale begins.

Visiting Roger Reynolds Nursery in Menlo Park, California is almost intoxicating.  It is two acres of Japanese Maples, perennial and annual bedding plants, fruit trees, roses, and lots of container plants.  They carry fountains, birdbaths, pottery and garden care products.  This beloved Bay Area nursery, situated in a mystical, one hundred year old redwood grove, has been in business and owned by the same family since 1919 and is truly an inspiration. Because of its solid place in the community and our good luck, Eye of the Day is about  to join up with Roger Reynolds Nursery.

The purpose of Eye of the Day’s Stanford Shopping Center pop-up store was to whet the appetite of the local market place in and around Silicon Valley.  Eye of the Day has been delivering to the area for years and with the success of our Marin location, now in its third season, it just made sense to find a location in between our two stores.

Throughout our month at Stanford Shopping Center we discussed finding a permanent location in the area and the name “Roger Reynolds” kept coming up.  So we invited owner Sally Halstead and general manager Antonio Ramirez to visit our pop-up as well as take a look at our website.  The rest is now history.  Kismet brought us together and we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship.

Great ideas come from everywhere.  At Eye of the Day we work hard to keep things fresh and interesting and to come up with great ideas to help our customers achieve their perfect outdoor space.   One way we do this is to carry what we feel are interesting and informative books and reference materials to help you achieve a more beautiful garden or landscape.

Rebecca Sweet, owner of Harmony in the Garden, is a featured columnist for Horticulture, a contributing author for Fine Gardening and a founding member of the Garden Designer’s Roundtable.  Her newest book Garden Up! Smart Vertical Gardening for Small and Large Spaces, adds a new dimension to garden design beyond traditional beds and containers.  It addresses narrow planting beds, small-space garden problems, vertical garden maximizing and outdoor living spaces.  This perennially useful book shows before and after photos demonstrating the key points of vertical gardening and simple DIY projects to get you started.

Star Apple Edible + Fine Gardening is a San Francisco Bay Area landscape design firm focusing on aesthetic edible gardening.  Stefani Bittner was a guest speaker at our pop up store and with her co-founder, Leslie Bennett, she has written The Beautiful Edible Garden: Design a Stylish Outdoor Space Using Vegetables, Fruits and Herbs.  This book offers tips on how to make your garden a place of year-round beauty that is appealing, enjoyable and fits your personal style and a fresh approach to edible  landscaping with creative ideas and beautiful designs, inspirational for novice and master gardeners alike.

We also have award-winning landscape architect, Billy Goodnick’s book here to help you plan the perfect outdoor environment, unique to your family’s lifestyle.  Yards is brimming with design secrets and money-saving tips, with an emphasis on low maintenance, enjoyability, and just plain beauty.

Eye of the Day also has in stock a number of other books on a variety of subjects including succulent gardening, vegetable gardening and container gardening.  Come in, leaf through our collection and find your inspiration.