I took a certificate in horticulture from UCLA Extension’s two-year program in the early ’90s but do not work in the horticulture industry. My blog, A Growing Obsession, is the perfect distraction from my day job, which requires long hours at a computer in a home office that looks out — you guessed it — on the garden. Obsessiveness aside, I don’t baby plants. If a plant looks happy under my care in these blog photos, consider it growable by anyone in similar growing conditions: coastal Zone 10-11, no winter chill (which rules out quite a few classic garden perennials), amended clay. No synthetic fertilizers. With few exceptions (summer tropicals), I lean toward drought-tolerant plants.