I love massing one kind of echeveria in pots and letting them multiply like crazy. Echeveria lilacina has completely filled in at the base of the shaving brush tree, Pseudobombax ellipticum. One E. liliacina in bloom is a novelty; over a dozen in bloom is an event.
Pseudobombax ellipticum in July 2014
I instagrammed the blooming echeveria and was asked about the tree. Which got me wondering about the age of the shaving brush tree, which led me to this post “Back on the Home Front” in July 2014. (The tree bloomed this year, an event also noted on Instagram.) I’m still unsure about the exact age of the tree, now with an over 8-foot trunk, but the earliest entry I could find was 2014. Looking at the rest of the post, July 2014 struck me as a fairly ambitious month in the garden, a time when I was working on more color for summer, whereas the 2019 garden has grown shrubbier, with more aloes and agaves grown among sesleria and horned poppies/glaucium. And since I often feel that followup on all the plants I talk about over the years can be somewhat inconsistent, it seemed like a good opportunity to revisit some of the plants grown in July 2014. Where are they now?
July 2014 “Really brightens things up. Corokia virgata ‘Sunsplash'”Continue reading →
I sensed a New Orleans influence — which is weird since I’ve only visited NOLA once. Credit goes to the owner’s skillful transposition of childhood memories
I toured this garden designed by Judy Horton back in May as part of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days for Los Angeles and recently uncovered just a few photos, not really enough for a proper blog post as far as overall layout and flow. But looking at the photos in late July, I’m struck by how the garden makes the barest nod to spring, choosing instead to enfold its owners in vines, hedges and lacy tree canopies, the OG counterpart to living walls and green roofs inspired by the owner’s childhood in New Orleans. This garden takes the long view, practicing in spring the cool look it will need for a hot summer, a balmy fall, a barely there winter (15 inches of rain in a “normal” year), and so back to spring. Formal gardens, after all, are an ancient design strategy for hot, dry places, dating back to the Egyptians, when it’s thought the genesis of the geometric grid layout began with following the axis of irrigation canals.
the “Tree Room” under a Chinese elm, with acanthus in bloom, potted nicotianas, tropicals in Versailles tubs, topiaries on tables. Throughout the garden there’s an insistence on clarity in the modeling of spaces.
It’s a disciplined garden far removed from my own small plant collector’s jumble — but then the portraits that gardens provide of their owners are one of the key pleasures of visiting them. The rigorously clear design intentions hinted to me of a fastidious sensibility that looked outside California for inspiration, and I wanted to know more. (Links provided at end of post). What really fascinates me is that this design, purposely drained of most colors but green, was pondered over a dozen years by the owner, the interior designer Suzanne Rheinstein, and is an aesthetic choice as much as a response to a mediterranean climate: “Part of my garden was inspired by Nicole de Vesian, the head of design at Hermes for many years, who had an extraordinary garden in Provence that I was so fortunate to visit. She used a lot of gravel in her gardens, which was also a perfect solution to gardening in our Southern California climate.” (Nicole de Vesian began her influential garden at the age of 70: “She had a feeling for space just as a musician has a good ear.” Modern Design in Provence by Louisa Jones)
Garden designer and friend Judy Horton was handed “all the magazine clippings I had been saving over many years and brought them to life.” Hedges conceal the pool and lounges with black-and-white striped canopies, with a garden room off to the right.
The function of hedges is often viewed as the mute, utilitarian backdrop to floral exuberance, in conciliatory climates like those of England and Holland. As the Sissinghurstian trope goes, formal layout, informal planting. In this summer-dry garden, the importance of hedges is moved from background to foreground, their clipped geometry providing volume, scale, enclosure, and soothing studies of shadows and green. And the cooling abilities, bird cover, and pollutant-trapping powers of all those small leaves are not to be underestimated either. (“Plant hedges to combat near-road pollution exposure.”)
The seedheads possibly belong to the South African bulb Veltheimia bracteata, which blooms in late winter“I knew I wanted a green garden, because for me that was so reminiscent of the gardens I grew up with in New Orleans. I believe it all starts with the green architecture, and then things just happen to flower.” Small panels of lawn surround a small pool with bubbler. Other surfaces are gravel, bluestone, brick.the Tree Room is opposite the house’s deep porchPots of nicotianas (lime green, of course!) were interspersed throughout the garden. Behind the hedge is an enclosed potager with espaliered figs, vegetables and flowers
Shade structure at Theodore Payne Foundation in April
Cooler with some moisture: I haven’t done an ODWR in quite a while, but today inspired me to file a report. The pavement was wet this morning. Wet I tell you! Enough drops were falling to drum some spare syncopation on the pergola’s corrugated roof. The fleeting tap-tap-ping! concert was enjoyed while sitting on the bench under the pergola with the first cup of coffee. And with the moisture-saturated air, it’s noticeably cooler. Supposedly we’re going to drop out of the 90s today. Yes, Long Beach is technically a beach city, but we’re always the hottest beach city in Los Angeles County. And the overall climate? Heat records breaking all over Europe. Political climate? Cowardice/avarice at the highest levels of U.S. government prevail regarding mitigating the effects of heat-trapping emissions. Facing an epic failure of leadership at the national level, I just have to bring up trees again, and this piece deserves a spot on your reading list: How Trees Can Save Us: “A tree is a piece of equitable green infrastructure…For some people, having access to trees can be a matter of life and death.”
Just something I’ve observed about Yucca rostrata. Whether it’s MCM, Spanish Revival, Craftsman bungalow, Streamline Moderne, you can’t go wrong with this yucca, native to Texas and Mexico. Seen here standing tall amid a privacy buffer of crassula and foxtail agaves between two properties in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Personally, I’d love to jackhammer some permeability into my own driveway
Wisely, the architecture is left to shine and not obscured by heavy foundation planting. There’s a tracery of vine, cycads, and that limbed-up shrub I couldn’t ID from the sidewalk.
dymondia is achieving champion coverage
Most of the houses on this street are Spanish/Mission Revival with the occasional chateauesque property as seen looming in the background.
I wouldn’t mind my own Yucca rostrata privacy screen
I took these photos back in April. Along with the yucca in bloom, you can see star jasmine in bloom just about mid-photo. So this is one example of what a “spring garden” looks like in Los Angeles, with succulents, cycads, yuccas, agaves, dymondia, decomposed granite mulch.
And throw in a couple Dasylirion longissimum for good measure
In truth, this is a dry garden that mostly ignores the seasons and will change very little throughout the year. It will effortlessly shrug off this week’s temperatures in the high 90s. In this neighborhood back in April, there were also front gardens in profuse spring bloom from California natives and dry garden exotics, and I’m a fan of those as well — especially if they sneak in a Yucca rostrata or two or three…because they really do go with everything.
“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom…You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.” — William Blake
What I really enjoyed about one of the gardens I visited recently in Colorado was that it was a small garden that wanted it all and refused to say no to any of it. After a long winter, spring in this garden emerges unbowed, with a pronounced strut and swagger. Saturated colors, silky petals swooning against rusted metal, gnarled driftwood sinuously threading itself alongside narrow footpaths pressed on all sides by a profusion of flowers and emphatic spikes, with no opportunity to plant treasures among the rocks and stones left unturned. The owners are clearly having a blast and their enthusiasm is entirely infectious. Exuberant, maximalist, raucous, it was difficult to point a camera without interrupting a sight line or industrial salvage vignette.
This garden flamboyantly courts excess like poppies shamelessly court honeybees. And it’s obvious this is not mere cheerful naivete at play. There’s a knowingness to the extravagance, the profligate gestures. For one thing, the command of the planting was first rate — irises, oriental poppies, Shirley poppies, California poppies, alliums, larkspur, columbines, all the sexpots of spring were here, all doing precisely what they had been asked to do. One of the owners, Dan Johnson, has spent his lifetime in gardens, the last 22 years with the Denver Botanic Gardens. Home is clearly where he lets his hair down.
“Curator of Native Plants and Associate Director of Horticulture, [Dan] has been at the Gardens since 1996. Though much of his focus is on xeric and native plants and naturalistic design, his work has included all corners of the Gardens. He has been involved with Plant Select since its debut in 1997. His horticultural exploration has included all four of the world’s Steppe regions and beyond, including the western US, South Africa, Argentina, Spain and Pakistan. Publications include the revised and expanded “Meet the Natives” wildflower guide, “Steppes” and many articles in gardening periodicals.” DBG Horticulturalist’s Bios
Sounds like a sober, all-business, scholarly type of fellow, right? If so, the garden completely blows that cover.
purple wall and Homecrest chairs to match in a patio at the bottom of the back gardenthe narrow front garden is bounded by a low wall. The rose reminds me a little of ‘Zephirine Drouhin’view from the tour bus window — I started taking photos as soon as we pulled upglimpse of front garden patio in the backgroundfront and back gardens were entered through elaborate archways
I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely feeling a southwest influence too, in the paint colors, stucco walls, the sotols and agaves…
the stream at the bottom of the back garden, photo by Dan Johnson via Fine Gardening (paywall protected)
I found a reference in a Fine Gardening article that there is (or was) a garden in Tucson, Arizona too. A single reference. And now I can’t stop imagining what a Tucson garden by these two must look like…
( garden visit made possible by one of the best garden tours around, the Garden Bloggers Fling)
I asked Josh Rosen if Mitch could pay him a visit with his camera to see what he’s been up to, which turns out to be quite a lot. The landscape architect, aka airplantman, is moving away from full-time landscape architecture and focusing more on product design and custom work for clients as farflung as Singapore, as well as teaching a plant materials course at UCLA Extension. For such restless creativity, one thing has remained constant for the last decade or so with his design process: there will be tillandsias.
From Josh’s website airplantman: “I’ve fallen in love with these absolutely incredible species of plant that have the unique adaptation to live without any soil. They can grow suspended in air, on treetops or rock faces and absorb water and nutrients right through their leaves.”A home visit reveals Josh’s appreciation for all kinds of plants
Mitch caught up with Josh at his home/design laboratory in Mar Vista, California earlier this month.
the back garden doubles as design labwhich means keeping lots of tillandsias on handmash-up of staghorn fern, tillandsias and succulentsit’s a whole new epiphytic world at Josh’s housedog eyes the increasing encroachment of plant world warilyHis classic air plant frames come preplanted, in an array of sizes.Most recently, I saw his work featured in 2018 at a local design show
I think I first saw his modular air plant frames back in 2012 at Big Red Sun in Venice and was immediately struck by the serious design chops that honored these little epiphytes’ growth needs as well as cleverly exploited their potential for a soil-less life in a stylishly modern framework. Already in 2012, the public’s infatuation with tillandsias was in full swing, and air plants were routinely being asked to live out their increasingly dessicated days under glass in twee dioramas — no wonder they developed an undeserved reputation for being difficult to grow. Good air circulation and easy access for drenching or frequent spraying are paramount needs that can’t be ignored. And if twee isn’t your jam, grids made on sleek, powder-coated frames provide a) great design b) optimal air circulation c) crucial ease of watering.
Tillandsias have had the staying power of succulents in their rootless hold on our imaginations. (Actually, they do have roots, but they’re used only as anchors and not for nutrient or water uptake, which all happens through the leaves.) Indoor care is more exacting than for outdoors. Mine are all outdoors and get sprayed a few times a week. For indoor care, Josh says if you position them not more than 6 feet from north or east-facing windows and soak them, as in submerge them, 6-10 hours once a week, preferably in room-temperature tap water left to sit for 15-20 minutes before use, you should be good to go. His frames and vessels are all designed to facilitate this type of care. Grow lights indoors are fine too, no particular spectrum required.
If spraying is your only option, do this several times a week, and make sure no water pools in their crowns because that will surely cause rot, so dry them upside down to avoid pooling. Again, air circulation is critically important, and rotating indoor tillandsias outdoors when possible is a good idea, or at least keep a window cracked. And don’t manhandle them either — oils in our fingertips can mess with their ability to uptake water, so keep handling to a minimum.
Tillandsias are in the bromeliaceae family and, like cactus, are found only in the New World, more than 600 species hailing from South America and up into Texas. Their tough, epiphytic ways are a recent adaptation, which Josh finds metaphorically inspiring, now that we face a possibly rootless modernity ourselves that will require quick adaptive moves as year after year becomes the hottest on record. And as far as plant obsessions go, it doesn’t get more lightweight and transportable than tillandsias.
Some of his favorite species include T. chiapensis, T. caput-medusae (most tolerant indoors), T. latifolia, T. ionantha, and of course the dramatic T. xerographica. Many will begin to blush just before bloom, and some of the flowers are incredibly scented.
Josh helpfully points out where the new pup is forming at the base
After flowering the mother plant will die off but leave you with some pups, or offsets.
For smaller-scaled, table-top displays Josh has developed air plant vessels in powder-coated steel, ceramic, and wood.
Felted-wool kokedamas on customizable pegboards give lots of options too and look addictingly playable. Josh is exploring working with cacti like rhipsalis and others that, unlike air plants, do require some kind of substrate in which to grow.
One of his latest designs has the working title of “airplantern,” which came about from some recent custom work when a client asked for a lantern planted with tillandsias. Josh envisions the airplantern as more for outdoors than the frames, say for hanging from a tree in temperate climates.
The bigger spheres come with misters and lights, and the flexibility of the design allows it to be pulled into other shapes as well.
I think I’m in love
Thanks so much, Josh, for sharing your home with us and giving us a peek of your new work!
Flowers? What flowers? This eastern end of the pergola is pretty much identical to last summer. Maybe a few more bromeliads — added a new one just yesterday, Bilbergia ‘Catherine Wilson,’ not in this photo
The blooming backdrop to July in my coastal zone 10 garden, the background fizz abuzz with winged creatures, continues to include grevilleas, horned poppies, flowering tobacco, Salvia chiapensis, Verbena bonariensis, little erodiums, and I’ve been adding a few odds and ends too like that new agapanthus ‘Indigo Frost.’ Summer is such a permissive time in the garden, isn’t it? Go ahead, grab that sexy thing and plant it is my July mantra. Planting in the ground mid-summer can be dicy, though I’ve been doing that too this marine-layered July, but pots can always be shuffled out of a heat wave if needed. There have been a couple surprises too, like Sinningia ‘Invasion Force,’ planted last year, with new blooms just noticed last night at the dryish base of a young Yucca rostrata (no photo). And how did I miss that bud developing on the night-blooming cereus? (last photo below) The grasses are blooming now too, one of my absolutely favorite things about summer. And despite these foliage-heavy photos, let me just affirm I do like summer flowers, especially little incidents of them, but they’re just not in the driver’s seat here. So let me point out some of them, because you’d probably miss them if I didn’t.
new — Penstemon kunthii against foaming backdrop of the Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ that is perennial here. Agave salmiana var. ferox ‘Medio Picta’ is finally starting to get those leaves off the ground and up into a graceful arch. Grass is Sesleria ‘Campo Azul’
Even before I visited Denver’s gardens filled with penstemons I was testing the beardtongue waters again this spring at home with old standby hybrids like ‘Midnight,’ just whatever I could find local. This little species penstemon from Mexico, Penstemon kunthii, looked like a baby phygelius sitting on the sales bench at Xera Plants in Portland, Oregon, during a July 4th trip up the coast. Lots of penstemons flowed through my garden decades ago, sourced outside the U.S. by Lester Hawkins and Marshall Olbrich of Western Hills Nursery in Occidental, CA. The hybrids inevitably grew too large and flopped, and then the budworms found them. Seeing some of the compact species in Colorado rekindled the old penstemon flame. Maybe I need to look at the smaller species and grow them lean among the succulents. I remember ‘Midnight’ in particular getting out of control as far as size fairly quickly.
Also picked up at Xera Plants, Cypella herbertii. Closeup of its furled bud this morning. The open flower is an intricate wonder. A South African bulb often grown in rock gardens that may be a good fit for this little succulent garden. Blooms last just a day. And that’s completely okay. And then omg there are blue-flowered species too…Cypella bud is on the left. Dianthus ‘Single Black’ is beginning another flush of blooms and getting along well in the same conditions as its succulent friends. A small nepeta trialed this year with the succulents, ‘Little Trudy,’ is looking promising here too. The silver leaves belong to Dichondra sericea, which has a ground cover habit and larger leaves than D. argentea but not as rampant as the more familiar trailing Silver Ponyfoot. Dianthus ‘Charles Musgrave,’ ground-hugging with white flowers, is starting to bloom out of frame to the right.Slightly better photo of Dichondra sericea’s habit of growth, filling in around an aloe. It seems to expand its range in summer then retreat in winter. Really good plant.The grevilleas are always accompanied by a buzzing, thrumming soundtrack of beating wings. Grevillea ‘Moonlight’the leaves are bluer on the orange-flowered Glaucium flavum aurantiacum than the yellow-flowered Glaucium flavum, but this much blue is a trick of last night’s evening lightnew to the garden the last couple weeks, Salvia microphylla ‘Heatwave Glow’ grown by Native Sons, bought in bud and ready to jump into end-of-summer action. I thinned out some Aeonium ‘Berry Exciting’ to squeeze in three 4-inch plants.new — Xera Plants’ Sphaeralcea ‘Hot Pink’ — I’ve got my own mini trial of globe mallows going. Trialed a couple years ago, ‘Newleaze Coral’ is a monster shrub that I wish I had the space to let rampage. I think there’s a globe mallow out there for all-summer bloom in a small, dryish garden. Also on trial this summer is peachy ‘Childerley.’Miscanthus nepalensis, verbascum leaves, globemallow, Adenanthos sericeus. Heart-shaped, deep green leaves belong to Salvia purpurea gaining size Miscanthus ‘Silver Sceptre’locally grown Tradescantia sillamontana throwing a few flowers, as if those incredible leaves weren’t enoughbrown tips on leaves resulting from a sidelong blast of strong afternoon sun. To keep the leaves pure silver, ditch the strong sun, but I’ve seen it grown both ways. Good dry garden ground coverSolanum pyracanthum seedling from the garden potted up — there’s a big plant that wintered over blooming in the garden tooAnd actually there is a bloom in this foliage-dense scene. See it next to the Xanthosoma ‘Lime Zinger’? Pink frothy bloom is from Begonia ‘Red Fred’ An artemisia new to me, the Maui Wormwood, Artemisia mauiensis, very silky and more finely cut than ‘Powis Castle’ and hopefully much more compact. From Lincoln Avenue Nursery in Pasadena: “In the wild it is only found growing at elevations of 6,000-7,500 ft in Haleakala National Park on the island of Maui in Hawaii. Its Hawaiian name is Ahinahina and refers to its gray color.” — Bustani Plant FarmYes, there are some summer flowers — just added a coreopsis with a name so awful I hate to use it (‘Lil Bang Red Elf’ — imagine asking your nursery person if they stock that plant?!) The vine Senecio confusus is getting trained up fishing wire in the background. Just saw it grown spilling over a planter last week, so there’s always that approach.A stealth bloom from a night-blooming cereus branch discarded in a parkway that just recently rooted and was potted up. I hadn’t even noticed this bud form. The flower is flush against the fence because it was providing support while the cactus was rooting.
Wherever your floral ambitions lead you in the garden, May Dreams Gardens collects bloom reports the 15th of every month.
With this July being the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, it’s been nonstop space coverage here at home. I doze off and on, but Marty is absolutely rapt, so I can always quiz him afterwards on what I missed.
Poppy Northcutt — via Time (engineers come in all shapes — do you think there was any mansplaining going on at mission control?)
I was awake, though, to learn about Poppy Northcutt, the first female engineer in mission control, who was hired as a “computress” — where’s the movie on Poppy? It’s such an enthralling story. And she bears a remarkable resemblance to Kirsten Dunst, so the casting practically takes care of itself.
it came from outer space…bearing tillandsias photo by MB Maher
The shapes that inspire artists, engineers and designers are all around, and I can’t wait to learn more of the back story behind Josh Rosen’s latest creation pictured above and below.
photo by MB Maher
The airplantman has devised a new structure/habitat that maximizes the conditions for tillandsias to flourish — in a celestial shape that the eye just doesn’t want to let go. Hopefully we’ll all know more in the next few weeks.
magnification of the structure of tillandsia trichomes, the gatekeepers and mediators of moisture for these epiphytes via Science Source
More mesmerizing shapes. This silo belongs to the Denver Botanic Garden’s Chatfield Farms. We just got back from a road trip up the California coast into Oregon, where silos, barns, and granaries gracefully dot smallish farms with their intensely green geometric grids of summer vegetables. Whether in space or here on Earth, there’s so many inspiring shapes all around, whether purpose-built by natural selection or by us for our various schemes. I’m a city kid, born and raised, which might be why farm buildings exert such a powerful pull on my urban imagination. Buildings crafted to facilitate specific tasks are so incredibly stripped down and pure. Very reminiscent of the adaptations of plants in a way.
Here in Los Angeles, the local gas refineries, with their low tanks and slim minarets lit up and sparkling at night, were exotic, glittering cities before I knew any context for their real purpose. Incredibly, the Saturn 5 rocket that took us to the moon burned more fuel in 1 second than Lindberg’s trip across the Atlantic. Ask Marty, he’ll tell you all about it. My next question to him will be: Can we get the manned mission to Mars off the ground with biofuel?
Okay, I admit I’m chasing the goal of 10,000 steps a day. Chasing it all over my hometown. And it’s amazing how familiar streets by car can turn up all sorts of unfamiliar scenes by foot. So this is technically a walkby, not a driveby, or possibly a hybrid of the two — I might have initially caught that searing blur of kangaroo paws when doing errands by car then went back to investigate on foot. My old standby, a form of pale yellow Anigozanthos flavidus, is blooming as strong as ever in my garden, but the rusty oranges and egg-yolk yellow forms have died out as the back garden grows shadier. This is one of the strongest, most vibrant displays I’ve seen locally.
See that snippet of low white picket fence? That’s a clue to how this front garden accomplishes depth and scope beyond its actual footprint — because whether by design or serendipity, it’s borrowing the view from the front garden next-door that belongs to that grey, black-trimmed house with the enviable casement windows.
From this view, the garden is luxuriously deep, building up mounding textures and spikes, backed by tall kangaroo paws and leonotis blooming like solar flares against that cool blue haze of a sprawling eucalyptus — a borrowed but nonetheless spectacular backdrop. In actuality, the gum tree takes up most of that neighbor’s front garden, as seen below.
limbed up to show that warm red trunk as is often done with manzanitas — this is what can happen when you whole-heartedly commit to a tree. You work around it. I should know. Half of my own front garden is taken up by a similarly sprawling Acacia podalyrifolia where agaves and succulents used to grow. And then there’s the issue of my back garden becoming too shady for kangaroo paws…what first appeared from the car to be a cut-leaf acacia, it’s more likely a eucalyptus sporting juvenile growth from extensive pruning. (Might be Eucalyptus pulverulenta.) The kangaroo paws and leonotis bloom in both gardens. Cooperation or competition? Just another example of how plantings often go viral in a neighborhood.both houses really know how to cover the ground, keeping shapes in scale. Little blue flowers from Convolvulus sabatius, the Ground Morning Gloryback to the shared view — salvias, lantana, golden coleonema, kangaroo paws, leonotis and agavesque yuccas
Two gardens, two houses, but I only took photos of this house because I love how it sits in the landscape, snugged into the view from the neighbor’s garden. (And privacy reasons too — the owner of the house belonging to the foreground garden was puttering outside.)
Mitch’s note to me: These are the images from Kelly’s house call — she’s such a delight — thank you for producing this! I was super early and drove by her place on my way to Market Hall for coffee just to see the angle of the sun and there she was out front in the yard deadheading and prepping and I was hit by a pang of guilt that she had taken time from Sunday with her family to create a photo-friendly fantasy for me, but then I saw her dog and her husband right behind her and remembered that we are visual people and that there’s nothing better than separating delight from chaos in your own space. I hope she wasn’t exhausted! Anyway, she threw me into her contractor truck and we drove across Oakland to see her projects and it was such a blast. She has more and larger scale work in Atherton and Hillsborough on the peninsula that we made plans to see next time I’m shooting in the Bay — so much fun — best, M
Kelly in her converted attic workshop
I’ve met Kelly a couple times on garden tours and blogger meetups, including the one she helped organize in San Francisco a few years ago, but to shoot her an email asking if she could give Mitch a tour of some gardens to photograph with just three days’ notice was a bit presumptuous, to say the least. That she said yes, after a busy workweek, says everything about Kelly’s generosity and steadfast support of garden culture. I don’t want to think about what exploiting that generosity says about me other than being mad about plants and gardens can make one appear just a tad pushy from time to time — which Kelly graciously chose to ignore because she completely understands. She is just the best.
I love that she allowed Mitch access to her work space as well, which is the converted attic of her home in the Broadway Terrace neighborhood of Oakland, California, that she shares with her husband Jay, their son Parker, and a kinetic bundle of black and white patches named Bessie.
the sometimes breezy attic necessitates a a collection of objects for paperweights to anchor design planstalismanic paperweights ready for duty
But let’s step outside to check out the kind of detailed planting that’s she’s known for, in sun or shade, for spaces large or small.
Kelly and a neighbor cooperate with borrowed views/walkways
At her own home, Kelly has cleverly persuaded a neighbor to pool their adjoining narrow side yards, ending up with a multi-interest space that is much more than the sum of its parts. In this particular instance, that maxim about good fences making good neighbors would only result in two rather forlorn narrow strips instead of these warm and welcoming shared walkways filled with ceramics and striking plants.
Bessie chose not to sit for her portrait, she had way too much to do welcoming visitors
And about these striking plants. Somehow, despite a busy design practice and an overflowing household, Kelly has managed to steadily inch forward to becoming a landscape architect and is now very near completion. Judging by her immaculate workspace and home garden — remember the minimal to no prep time for this visit? — this is one organized woman. I think it’s fairly well established that landscape architects do not routinely begin their training with an emphasis on plants first. Kelly’s design practice is built on a bedrock of a deep knowledge of plants and a love for ferreting out the most gorgeous yet site-appropriate choices for her projects. Her background includes a stint at the beloved Bay Area nursery for all that’s rare and wonderful in the plant world, Annie’s Annuals in Richmond.
a cussonia peeks around the corner
Even though the space available at home to garden is minimal, this is not a case of the cobbler’s children having no shoes. Kelly has exploited and polished every inch of available space. If you happen to be garden poor as far as physical space, it helps that your designer has dealt with these same issues as well and transcended them beautifully.
Kelly says they can pass cocktails through the open window
These narrow strips surrounding homes often get short shrift, design-wise, or are at best neatly hardscaped. Here Kelly methodically builds up layers with plants — ground covers, perennials, shrubs and even small trees. The cooling effects of plants and their ability to capture carbon make prioritizing their inclusion essential in even the smallest of urban gardens. And this kind of layered planting is incredibly bird friendly, as I often observe in my own garden, offering gradations of cover and shelter. That rocky pool of water at the base of the tree is a wonderful touch as a round, reflective surface in the design as well as a source of water for small creatures.
aspidistra, ozothamnus against the fence — a narrow side yard thoughtfully planted. And even the smallest spaces need trees for cooling as well as wildlife habitat — “Carefully positioned trees can save up to 25% of the energy a typical household uses.” U.S. Dept. of Energy
Great style paired with an encyclopedic knowledge of plants makes for very sexy gardens, and that is a hallmark of Kelly’s designs.
possibly the bromeliad Quesnelia ‘Tim Plowman’Fuchsia bolivianaYucca ‘Blue Boy’
Even on such short notice, Kelly was able to arrange to show Mitch a client’s garden in her neighborhood and tour if not photograph some of her other work. The nearby garden designed by Kelly was a crisp, cleanly organized space to relax and dine outdoors filled with beautiful plants — for screening, shading, for forgetting everything else while being utterly absorbed in their shadows, movement, patterns and forms.
And, again, the cooling effects of plant-centric gardens are often a secondary consideration to aesthetics for the general public, but such effects are very real and becoming increasingly more important as cities grow warmer. Kelly has skillfully layered in here dry garden-appropriate succulents and shrubs that will also be low care for the client.
Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Steroidal Giant’Soft, textural, almost cuddly, the coastal woolybush, Adenanthos sericeus, near the bottom of the stairs is a jewel of a shrub for the dry garden
Kelly, thank you so much for letting us drop in on you! We had a wonderful visit and can’t wait to see more of your stunning garden designs.
