Tag Archives: garden inspiration

Design trends

A Day in an Enchanted Garden

Decorate your own old garden shed with yard sale items.

I’ve visited this garden in Bonny Doon many times including when my friend Kate was part of Valley Churches Garden Tour back in 2018 and it’s still as spectacular as ever. So on a perfect June day recently several of my landscape designer friends and I spent the afternoon enjoying delicious nibbles and being inspired by this awesome garden.

Because I’ve always enjoyed the stunning view of the bay from Kate’s house and garden, it always amazes me that when Kate bought the 5 acre property in 1981 they had no idea it had such an incredible view. You should see it now. The view was a surprise to them after they cleared some of the Douglas fir that grew close to the house. Now the area between the cultivated areas of the garden and those outside the deer fence are filled with lavender. After the CZU fire when a neighbor’s house nearby burned to the ground, Kate removed more Doug fir on another slope for fire safety.

When you first enter this garden and are greeted by Kate’s English springer spaniel puppy “Buddy”, as you walk past the storage shed. Now this isn’t just any ol’ shed. Kate is a yard sale shopper extraordinaire and it is decorated with repainted watering cans, vintage gardening tools and wall art, bird houses and pots of all sizes, shapes and colors.

There are so many “garden rooms” in this garden-from the Japanese maple garden filled with perennials of all types to the sunken vegetable garden that occupies the old above ground pool area that was sunk in the ground and surrounded by decking. When the pool developed leaks that persisted no matter how many times it was repaired, Kate had it removed and created an incredible sunken vegetable garden using galvanized raised garden planters of all sizes and shapes. From fruit trees to artichokes to tomatoes and perennials to attract pollinators, this garden has it all.

The generous decking surrounding the sunken garden has a gazebo covered with fragrant climbing roses. Colorful perennials, dwarf fruit trees and more roses grow happily in containers here alongside a seating area with a view of the bay.

Strolling past dozens of perennial and succulent beds, you encounter the fruit trees. Kate swears by the Frost peach which is resistant to peach leaf curl. She has others such as Donut peaches but despite her diligent winter spraying it was recovering from peach leaf curl. The Mission Fig tree looked quite happy as did the pear trees.

Then you enter another area with Japanese maples and a gazebo. Kate has moved several Autumn Moon Japanese maples from this area as it gets too much heat and sun and many were not thriving. Don’t be afraid to move a plant or tree that is struggling to a better spot in your garden. The one Autumn Moon that remains near the gazebo was a vision of burnt orange and bronze on my visit in early June. In the fall its leaves will turn vivid orange and red.

Next came the garden room in a shady spot with blooming rhododendron, Chinese ground orchid, hydrangea, coral bell, Exbury azalea, hosta, hellebore and a recirculating 3-tiered water fountain. With small pebbles underfoot, it’s a lovely spot on a hot day.

Surrounding this home are wrap around porches that Kate has filled with potted ferns and rattan garden furniture. She spends a lot of time reading out here with her puppy Buddy nearby. Her extensive collection of hydrangeas grow happily to border the deck. What’s not to love about this garden?

Get ideas and inspiration from other gardens, both large and small. They all have something to offer.

Happy New Year

Thoughts for 2019 from the Mountain Gardener

It?s always hard to me to get my head around the fact that not only has the calendar turned over to 2019 but with days getting longer a new gardening season is upon us. I?ve already seen magnolia soulangeana blooming. Those huge tulip shaped purplish flowers would get anyone?s attention.

I did fulfill a few goals I had for last year by adding more pollen-producing flowering plants to attract beneficial insects. They?ll keep the good guys around longer to eat the bad bugs. And I learned what quite a few of the good guys look like. I?m going to count this as two resolutions.

I sat in my garden and enjoyed it– not jumping up to rearrange containers or deadhead. This one was easy.

I accepted a few holes in my plants and walked around the garden regularly to identify if a problem was getting out of control and I needed to break out an organic pesticide.

You, fellow gardeners, are unique. I can’t imagine any group of people more diverse and feisty and independent than gardeners. Yet we have such a connection. We love and are fascinated with nature. We find our deepest satisfaction in coaxing plants from the earth, in nurturing their growth. We are enduring pragmatists.

Enjoy your garden. Set realistic goals. After all, who cares if there are a few weeds here and there when you’re sitting under a shade tree next July? Enjoy a beverage of some kind often in your garden. That clean up or transplanting will still be there tomorrow.

Allow some empty places for new plants, transplants or garden art. It makes a garden your own. Add whatever makes you happy and your heart soar when you’re in your garden. Pay attention to the size that a plant will attain. It will save you lots of problems later. Weed often but not when you?re enjoying a beverage.

Dreaming is more than an idle pursuit. It’s good for you and improves the quality of your life over the long haul. We gardeners are eternal optimists. Why else would we plant a tree, a seed or a garden?

New Years resolutions for gardeners should be mere suggestions. Don’t worry if you don’t get to everything you hoped to accomplish. It’s all in the baby steps. Your wish list will serve you well during the cold, wet days of winter even if you don’t get them implemented. Sure planning a landscape that conserves water will benefit the environment and your budget and ordering seeds for the spring garden is great therapy for winter blues but there’s always next year or next month or the summer after next.

Learn something new every day. Whether it’s something new in the garden or elsewhere, keep learning.

Plant more edibles if you can. Edibles in the garden feed both the body and the soul. More than just vegetables and fruit, growing food connects us to the earth and to each other.

When you grow something you are being a good steward of the land as you enrich the topsoil using sustainable organic techniques. You connect with neighbors by trading your extra pumpkins for their persimmons. Knowledge of how and what to grow can be exchanged, seeds swapped. Do your best even if you only have a few containers to grow an Early Girl tomato or some Rainbow chard.

Enjoy the simple things. Laugh often. Life is not measured by the breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away. Everyday is a gift, that’s why we call it the present.

Happy New Year to all of my fellow gardeners from The Mountain Gardener. May your tomatoes be sweet and your roses as fragrant as a summer’s eve.

atmosphere in the garden, Garden art, garden design, garden inspiration, stone

A World in Stone

wall-fountain.1600
Lion’s head wall fountain

There?s a reason that stone in a garden gives us the feeling that it has been there a long time. The rustic elegance of a dry laid stone wall, natural stone paver patio, huge stone slab steps, outdoor stone fireplace or flagstone garden path reminds us that we humans have used stone for over two million years when we first started making stone tools.

sauna_wall-closeup.1600
Ocean Pearl sauna wall detail

Stone is much more than the Wikipedia definition of ?a naturally occurring solid aggregate of one or more minerals.?? Granite, for instance, comes from igneous rocks formed slowly as it cooled deep under the earth?s surface. Sandstone and limestone are sedimentary rocks formed by the compaction of grains or pieces of any kind of existing rock material then cemented over millions of years by the movement of the earth?s tectonic plates and sometimes contain fossils formed at the time of deposition. Then there is metamorphic rock like marble and slate that were formed at extreme high pressures and temperatures beneath the earth?s crust from other types of rock. The presence of swirls, linear patterns or banding is a key characteristic of this kind of stone.

wall_inserts_anchor_agate_shell.1600
Whimsical wall detail- anchor, agate, shells

In Ben Lomond lives a stone advocate who has created a spectacular decorative stone wall, a stone shower and sauna room, stone patio, paths and slab steps and he?s invited me to come and view them at his home before he puts it on the market.

Jon Troutner has been in the stone business for a long time. He owned Antolini Masonry and Landscape Supply in Santa Cruz for 20 years until he lost his lease and sold the company in 2008. Afterwards he used his expertise and some choice materials he saved to use at his home in Ben Lomond and another in Aptos. Jon?s primarily a musician these days but his creative vision in stone is a magical experience as he walks me around his home.

eel_head_rock.1600
“eel-head” rock peaking out of wall

Jon?s property is located near Love Creek up on a hill and has a lovely canyon view. When he bought the property 5 years ago the backyard was just sand but now it is fully landscaped. Ocean Pearl, one of his favorite stone types that he used in his whimsical wall and sauna, comes from a quarry on Vancouver Island that he used to own. Jon gave this this type of quartzite it?s unique name because of the subtle hues and shadings in the stone.

whimsical_stone_wall.1600
“Where’s Waldo” stone wall

Jon?s creations in stone have a look of their own. Being a harmonica player he puts an old harmonica somewhere on each of his unique walls. It?s his personal signature and he pointed out one in the sauna and one in the ?Where?s Waldo?? wall as he calls it.

mermaid_in_wall.1600
mermaid in stone wall

?What?s a ?Where?s Waldo? wall, I ask?” Jon just laughs and explains that this 1987 children?s book is about the travels of Wally where readers are asked to locate him hidden in an illustration and to re-explore each scene locating other objects too. Jon showed me three mermaids, five otters, two turtles, three seahorses and an eel-shaped rock poking out from the ?waves? of ocean pearl stone veneer on the showpiece wall he created to enclose the patio. There are also ship net balls, an anchor, abalone shells, fossils and his signature harmonica. ?I pictured this wall as the ocean floor,? Jon explained.

fossil_in_wall.1600
fossils in stone wall

As we walk around, Jon points out the Vermont slate floor and the ocean pearl veneer sauna room, the basalt shower with rounded cobble stone floor, the Indian rainbow cut sandstone shady patio, the Connecticut bluestone slab steps, the ocean pearl columns, the tumbled Arizona gold flagstone path and the 125 pound crystals from Brazil that are lighted at night.

This place is magical and timeless. Jon?s creative vision will live forever in his stone creations.