LUCIOLE DESIGN JOURNAL

First ceanothus of the year! Valley Violet

There might be a lonely insect flying around out there in the cold, drippy fog. If so, he’ll be a happy creature when he finds that the Ceanothus ‘Valley Violet’ launched itself into riotous flower just for him.

Valley Violet is a great plant, once it’s established (we lost one plant and had to try again). It’s compact, slow growing (really, really slow) so you won’t be pruning it much, if at all. It stays low to the ground, becoming a low mounding shrub. I wouldn’t call it a ground cover, mainly because it’s so slow to get going, at least in our garden.

We’ve got it planted on a mound in clay soil, and it’s been through two wet winters and one drought without any major problems except going a bit more dormant than usual during the dry spell. It did get some supplemental water in the summer, something it seemed to appreciate.

The blooms are more of a pleasing soft accent than a spectacular riot of blue-violet. Still, when massed they’re a great accent for the winter garden. Out of bloom, its a tidy plant with small, dark green leaves.

Not just for the butterflies: California Dutchman’s Pipe

It’s a time when nothing in its right mind should be in flower. Fitting, since with flowers like this you could argue that the California Dutchman’s Pipe vine (Aristolochia californica) is on very friendly terms with the Mad Hatter.

Later in the year, the vines will leaf out and perhaps be crawling with strange spiky looking black caterpillars – the larvae of the pipeline swallowtail butterfly. For now, the vines are naked except for their flowers. Flowering season has just begun, and the show will continue for weeks as new flowers appear.

The vines don’t get supplemental water from our side of the fence – they could be sneaking a bit of moisture from the neighbors, but they favor a dry existence. They can be a bit tricky to find and get established, but once they’re in the ground and thriving we pretty much leave them alone.

Their native habitat is along riparian areas in our region, anywhere you typically see a lot of pipeline swallowtails in flight. We’re out of the corridor, so the butterflies have a harder time finding our plants. I often imagine how many more butterflies we’d have if everyone stuck one of these vines somewhere in their garden!

The vines are pest free (I don’t consider caterpillars a pest). About the only thing I’ve done with them was to train them on some wires so they could climb toward the sun if they felt like it (they didn’t, much).

California has a few other native vines that work well in gardens, but most are large and none of them blooms in winter. The pipevine’s bare stems are a bit unkempt during the period between leaf drop and flowering, but after that it’s a floral display followed rambling mass of leaves and perhaps interesting seed pods. The other horticultural bonus here is that these vines prefer partial shade, allowing their use as screens on wire fencing or dividers for outdoor rooms when trained on an artistic support.

Monterey Park garden growing up

The goals: color, year-round interest and water saving – using plants that grow naturally in the site’s alkaline clay soil. There’s been a bit of trial and error – there’s a big difference between a plant that’s supposed to grow in certain conditions and a plant that actually does grow.

This garden is on a slope facing the ocean in Monterey Park, a suburb of Los Angeles. Before developers dropped houses on the site, it was likely a mixture of coastal sage scrub and chaparral. We went native on the slopes, although not entirely – there was some existing lantana, bougainvillea and Cape honeysuckle doing well. We simply added native toyon and lemonade berry to the mix, along with some coast live oak trees in strategic locations (and one tree added by scrub jays and left to grow).

The flatter portions of the garden are a test bed for a mix of native and exotic low-water plants with year-round interest and seasonal color. Here’s a list of what worked, what didn’t and what’s hanging on, in no particular order.

A major portion of the garden is planned for renovation – mostly because of a brick wall that’s ready to fall over, built along with the house, running alongside a too-narrow path. We’re using our successful plants list to plan what will go into the new section, but we also have a wish list of very interesting succulents that will require a trip to Fallbrook when it’s time to plant.

Successful plants

Artichoke agave (Agave parryi) remains compact, although it does send pups out to colonize the surrounding garden.

Agave parryi. Foundation plant. Semi-native succulent.

Agave attenuata. Foundation plant and accent. No spines on this agave, and pretty much bulletproof where there’s little or no frost.

Agave salmiana. I stuck this in the ground and it’s doing very well, but we can’t keep it. Although beautiful (if you like agaves) it’s just too big. We might keep the pups and find friends with big gardens, although transplanting a large agave is difficult (heavy) and dangerous (spines for us, and the plants are fragile).

Aloe ferox. Accent plant. Exotic succulent.

Aloe ‘Blue Elf’. Exotic succulent. Form and color (red flowers), hummingbirds.

Opuntia santa-rita. Near-native cactus, accent shrub. Purple pads and some of the nastiest glochids anywhere in the the plant kingdom. Worth it for the flowers and the pad color, planted well away from any path and given lots of room to grow.

Epiphyllum hybrids. Flowering cactus. Although they’re epiphytic jungle cacti, they’ve proven to be happy inhabitants of the garden, requiring just enough water to keep their branches from shriveling. They’re growing in pots on clay pipes sticking out of the ground so they can cascade – their preferred growth habit since they grow on trees in nature. These are divisions of an old plant, and seem to love the pot/pipe combination. We’ll see next spring when it’s flowering time.

Opuntia littoralis. Native cactus. This thing has taken over a good section of the hill, with yellow flowers in spring and tasty magenta tunas in fall.

Kalanchoe beharensis. Accent plant. Exotic succulent. Will grow larger than shown in photo to become more dominant – right now, it’s the same size as the Aloe ferox but this won’t last long since it grows much faster than the aloe.

Aloe hybrids – maybe ‘Pink’. Exotic succulent. Ground cover, perennial. They’re small, tough and turn pink when it’s hot. Frost wipes them out, as we found out in Sacramento: instant black mush.

Penstemon eatonii. Native perennial. Looks like this variety might put on quite a show in spring. It’s supposed to be short-lived, but short lived still gives us a few years of bloom and food for hummingbirds. Short-lived.

Deer weed. Native perennial, butterfly food plant (if the right species are present). Formerly known as Lotus scoparius, it was renamed Acmispon glaber (the previous name was too easy to pronounce?). Goes dormant when dry, perks up with first rains. Hopefully will reseed as time goes by.

Desert mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua). Flowering perennial. A desert species, this took a couple of years to become established, but has since grown and even reseeded.

Puffs of funky bright red flowers, little water, takes heat and cold.

Baja feather duster (Calliandra californica). Foundation shrub. Another desert species that apparently loves dry clay soil. Red flowers for color, too.

Aechmea fascicularis. Bromeliad. Everyone’s idea of the typical bromeliad used in Sci-Fi movies everywhere.

Aechmea hybrid. Bromeliad. Ground cover, if you consider something that grows about two feet tall a ground cover. It can also grow up trees, rocks, whatever by clinging on with its roots. Just fill the reservoir cups between the leaves occasionally to keep it happy.

Eriogonum fasciculatum. Native ground cover. This was an especially low-growing variety from Theodore Payne. One of the plants that would have grown here 200 years ago, along with the toyon, lemonade berry and live oak.

Senecio mandraliscae. Ground cover. Exotic succulent. Form, color contrast.

Cordyline ‘Burgundy Spire’. Exotic accent plant. Form, color contrast.

Graptopetalum paraguayense. Exotic succulent. Ground cover, blue foliage. Pretty much bulletproof.

Just Hanging On

(so far – they could either decide they’re established and grow or curl up and die)

Salvia canariense. This did well in the past, but the current plant is struggling. Unless there’s ample rain, or something. Then the plant pops up and blooms. It probably does not like our clay soil.

Echeverria species. These rosette forming succulents look great, but they’re fussy. Some fussier than others, and some do very well for years followed by decline and death.

Dead and gone

Capparis spinosa. Foundation shrub, edible buds (capers), flowering accent. It’s supposed to grow out and cascade over the retaining wall, but so far it’s just growing a little bit each year.

Arctostaphylos ‘Howard Mc Minn’ (manzanita). One branch turned black, then the other. Plant dead. A second plant is hanging on, barely. Perhaps with good winter rains it will recover.

Digiplexis plant — The plant is starting to produce numerous lateral flowering stems, so it’s time for a decaptiation to restore a more attractive growth habit.

Digiplexis ‘Illumination Flame’. It looks like this thing wanted more water and possibly less heat. It grew, bloomed and died when summer arrived.

Geranium canariense. This plant does not like summer heat, even when it only gets in the 80’s. So far, it’s recovered in the winter. It’s also possible that it wants more water than we’re giving it.

Penstemon ‘Marguerita BOP’. Native perennial. Not happy campers, although perhaps since we’re getting rain this year they’ll perk up.

Dudleya hassei. Native succulent. These things were our attempt at a native alternative to the Senecio. Maybe if we had the perfect habitat they might have grown, but as it was they all went downhill and never recovered.

Lighting your landscape

Lighting gives you two landscapes in one. By selectively lighting focal points and use areas, you bring the best points of your landscaping into focus while letting everything else fade into obscurity.

As landscape designers, we look at all use of a garden – both day and night. Properly applied, lighting will make the landscape glow, without hot spots that detract from the overall view. The right light in the right place – not too close to the subject, but not so far as to lessen the light’s effect – is key to creating a softly luminous landscape.

We’re in the middle of a lighting revolution. The light bulb and its variations are finally obsolete, replaced with long lived, energy saving LEDs. LEDs make changing bulbs a thing of the past, and use much less energy than the incandescent lamps they replace.

Better yet, they come in a wide variety of shapes: linear, spot, glowing square… so light can be applied precisely for the optimum effect. Many high end fixtures can be programmed to wash walls or structures with intense colors.

The other side of the revolution is transformers. They’re becoming more connected, often allowing you to program your outdoor mood as you’re sitting in your garden. Since LEDs require less voltage, their transformers can be smaller, too.

Contemporary patio

Water feature and patio
livestock trough fountain

By day, this patio is pleasant enough, but the wall to the right isn’t very interesting (it’s the neighbor’s wall, so we couldn’t paint it nor add sculpture). Nothing is highlighted, and every element of the design appears of equal importance.

After darkness, the water takes on an ethereal glow. The formerly blank wall to the right is decorated with shadows, and increased contrast brings drama.

Where window light spills out, landscape lighting isn’t always needed.

Mid-century modern entrance

Entry path and gate
Entry by night

This front entry is bold enough by day, but the path is just another path, and the inset lights are just a motif. It’s not even obvious that they’re lights.

By night, lighting built into the path guides visitors to the door, bracketed by scones set on the walls. There’s also a security function at work here, since anyone walking up the path will be highlighted by multiple lights.

Southwest Fantasy

Pool and patios
Across the pool, lights project shadows of twisted tree trunks onto a blank wall. The cactus is lit but the agave in front of it is not, so that the agave’s leaves become a silhouette against the lit cactus. Some spaces were deliberately left dark to create contrast and make the highlighted areas stand out even more. (click on the image to view the panorama)
art wall, day
art wall, night
From farther away, the niche lighting silhouettes people sitting at the patio, surrounding them in a warm glow
evening view of the garden
Exotic nightscape
These niches glow warmly at night, inviting people to sit in the nearby outdoor sofa, sip some wine and enjoy some hors d’oeuvres.

Although the plants’ forms are dramatic, the overall effect is uniform. Comfortable, interesting but not something exotic and ethereal.

Closer up, the pindo palm becomes a fountain of light. The unlit fountain fades into the background, with the water sound accenting the night.

The nocturnal effect brings exoticism, transforming the palm into a glowing sculpture.

A specimen prickly pear flanks a series of lit alcoves displaying a succulent arrangement and ceramics. (see “prickly pruning” for more info about the cactus)

There’s an art wall, too. It works pretty well night and day, but night adds dramatic highlights and shadows.

When you’re considering installing some new landscaping, don’t forget to set the stage for night, especially if you live in a warm climate where you’ll spend a lot of night time in your outdoor spaces.

And don’t be surprised by the amount of fixtures you might need to get things looking right!

Nature in B&W

Sometimes color gets in the way of seeing. Pure forms emerge from shades of gray; spiraling, twining, repeating, expressing their inner nature.

Wood in wood

Umbel seeds

Three spires

Corn Lily

Rosette II

Woodpecker Holes

Rosette I

Mule Ears

Rock Stripe

The Joys of Fennel

You get pollen and seeds for seasoning, a ferny looking plant that uses very little water and comes in bronze, a potential food plant for anise swallowtail butterflies and a year-round home for aphids – all in one plant. We use bronze fennel because it’s much more ornamental than the green stuff.

Why would you want a permanent aphid colony? To keep predators around, of course! As long as you have a food source and aren’t applying insecticides, you’ll probably have aphids, syrphid flies, soldier beetles, lacewings, tiny wasps… So when aphids decide to move to your ornamental plants, an army of predators will be there ready to deal with them, keeping infestations short.

Not all predators are insects. These guys are bushtits, who find aphids delicious. They move in small flocks from bush to bush, scouring the plants for insects. With all its bugs, fennel is a perennial favorite for the hungry birds (if you look closely at some of the images, you can see aphids stuck to the bird’s beak).

Fennel pollen is an expensive spice, easy to harvest in spring with a few taps on the flower heads and a clean bowl. The seeds are good for seasoning, too. All have a licorice flavor that complements fish, chicken and lamb. If you’re using bronze fennel, it doesn’t form nice fennel bulbs for cooking – that’s another variety.

As long as you’re in an urban area where your plants can’t spread, having some fennel around is a good thing for your garden. Odds are, even if you’re not in an urban area there are some feral fennel plants running amok nearby. There are stands of fennel in the American River Parkway, thick masses lining highway 37… still, if you’re in a Mediterranean climate next to a fennel-free natural area, best not to plant it in your garden.

Bushtit, artsy photo — Hanging upside down is a favorite bushtit attack strategy. Hiding on the bottom of the plant won’t help you, aphids!

Prickly Pruning: thinning out a specimen prickly pear cactus

Prickly pears can get dense, becoming a mass of spiny pads instead of a sculptural element. Although not for the meek, they can be pruned. Be very careful, since the nastiest thing isn’t the spines; it’s the glochids. These are micro-spines that you often don’t see or feel right away located near the spines. Worse, some prickly pear (Opuntia) don’t have spines at all, like the notorious “Bunny Ears”

Cacti, despite their rugged appearance, are heavy and fragile. They bruise easily, cut easily and the pads can crack. Since they’re full of water, they weigh a lot, although fortunately they’re lighter than water and float if the pads or branches happen to land in the pool.

Opuntia Santa-rita (pictured above) is probably the nastiest in the glochid department, although it doesn’t normally require pruning.

As the Art of War would say, the best time to do this is when the pads are young and have just grown out for the year, sometime in spring. That way, they can just be broken off with a pair of tongs before they get woody – although a very sharp knife or machete can work, too.

As the pads age, they become woody, eventually fusing into a trunk. At this stage, pruning is more difficult. You’ll need a pruning saw, protection from spines, and know how to guide falling branches by proper cutting technique. Otherwise you’ll need body armor or have enough agility to dodge falling pads. In any case, you can make things easier by removing the upper pads on a branch to be removed before making any big cuts.

Depending on the cactus species, you’ll probably get nailed by glochids while you look out for the spines. These are the sneaky part of a prickly pear’s defense system: small, hair-thin spines with a shotgun approach. Instead of a single jab from a few spines, these things attack along a broad front with tens of micro-spines.

Unless you have supernatural powers, you will get poked with a spine, even perhaps through thick fabric. Even though individual spines can often penetrate cloth, wear protective clothing and goggles – that will spare you from (most of) the glochids and protect your eyes from anything nasty.

If the cactus is really huge and treelike, call a professional. This is not a time to be in a “dumb video” competition! A professional will haul away the cuttings, too. Unless you want to start a cactus farm by rooting them…

The safest looking is Opuntia microdasys, cutely called Bunny Ears. Each “dot” on the pads is actually a nest of glochids just waiting to torment you for days once they get into your skin. Not very safe, after all! If a pad falls on your unexposed arm, you’ll see a pattern of glochids stuck to your skin. Duct tape may remove most of them, but it’s likely you’ll be tweezing them out for several days as they work their way into your skin.

In this case, the prickly pear is intermediate between the wicked yet beautiful Santa-rita and the spineless (or nearly so) Opuntia ficus-indica. Note to cactus-loving people who prefer theirs safer: Luther Burbank developed “nice” cacti just for you… well, actually for cows, but you’ll benefit, too. You can read more here – there are a lot of varieties to choose from.

The first step is to walk around the plant, determining where it can be trimmed.

Here’s the left side of the plant: low branches over the pool (potential ouch!), right branches growing into pathway

Lower limbs on the left are crushing adjacent plants, and the upper part of the plant has pads poking into each other.

Pruning your prickly pear

Once you’ve contemplated your cactus, make some light cuts. We took out the small pads between the main trunks first so that we could open up the structure and decide what to do next.

We wanted to keep as many fruit – also called tunas – as possible, since they will turn bright red in fall.

Remember to keep circling the plant as you work, checking for symmetry and to make sure you won’t leave highly visible cut from a different viewpoint.

Once the decisions were made, we took off a few more pads, thinning out conflicts at the top of the plant. The low-hanging branch over the pool went, too – an obvious choice.

Then, we headed back the major branch growing to the left from the base. This did two things: avoided future growth over the walk, and opened up views to the structure of the plant. This was a case where breaking the pads early would have worked better, since we had to make a large, visible cut.

After pruning

The cactus has two clear trunks. The pool now shows through the plant, and succulents around the base have room to develop.

The big cut is hidden by the agave at the base. With more sun, the bunny ears cactus should develop to further hide the cut. Thinning upper pads opened views beyond, to a limited extent.

We left one, higher branch over the pool where it should be well out of range of anyone not deliberately leaping out of the water. Removing it would have left the plant looking less balanced.

This cactus has gone through several cold winters, so it’s likely hardy enough to be worth the trouble of pruning.

Our cactus at home, however, is likely to freeze in a cold winter then grow back from a stump the next year – so this would be wasted effort.

What’s next

The fruit, now green, will become a very ornamental red when it ripens.

If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere warm enough for the fruit to ripen completely, you can make ice cream or gelato out of it. Read carefully online for the best method; glochids in your fingers are nothing compared to glochids in your tongue!

Next year, any pads growing from the base will be snapped off before they become large, keeping the plant in check. Over time, decisions will have to be made regarding its height and spread.

Depending on your species of prickly pear, the young pads – nopalitos – May be edible when carefully prepared and cooked. Grilled over mesquite, mixed with scrambled eggs for example…

Textures for a Los Angeles garden

Southern California’s mild climate creates an opportunity to go wild with plant color, texture and shape. All manner of subtropical plants from arid climates jump onto the plant palette, and more are introduced every year. This garden has one zone adjacent to the main living area that receives moderate irrigation; the rest of the garden is planted with plants requiring very little water, a mix of California native plants, Mediterranean shrubs, succulents and cacti. The main ground cover is a succulent, the cacti are used as accents and for flowers, the natives are trees, perennials, shrubs and ground covers, and plants from Mediterranean climates bring mass and color.

The garden’s theme is artistic/eclectic, with vibrant tropical colors and bold plant forms. Sculptures get thrown into the mix, enhancing the artistic theme.

To keep everything together, we try to have one major focal point per view or space – there are typically secondary focal points, but only one can be dominant. Mass plantings and repeated themes keep the design coherent, and variations on a theme – such as echeverrias – keep things from going flat.

There’s a lot of Ghost Plant (Graptopetalum paraguayense – actually from Mexico) used as a ground cover, sometimes mixed with trailing gray-blue Senecio for a form change and Tradescantia pallida for color contrast.

These photos are from a June stroll around the garden. Some of the plants are still small and will only get better as they develop.

Down with binders!

The office bookcase sagged under the weight of years of accumulated binders filled with catalogs, promos, product information, new plant announcements, those samples of fake grass that arrived one day long ago…

Binders are part of an old paradigm, where companies kept everyone up to date by periodically visiting, throwing out the old data and replacing it with fresh, shiny updates. Not at all sustainable.

So we’re slogging through mountains of product data.

Find the company information on the sheet, catalog, whatever. Check for a web site. Enter the URL. Does it work? If yes, bookmark in the browser and toss the contents of the binder. Not valid? Search for the company name. Nowhere? Bankrupt. Toss the contents. Repeat.

Slowly, space is growing on our shelves. We’ll use the empty binders for project files, keeping them out of the landfill, the rest goes into the recycling bin.

Some of the information was over five years old. Much was duplicated. None was easily searchable. Many of the documents dated back to 2008 before the Great Recession, their companies gone.

In the new system, everything is together. It’s as up to date as the supplier’s web site. It’s searchable. The information automatically synchronizes across all our computers, and it doesn’t lead to kilograms of wasted paper.

Unfortunately, manufacturers still haven’t quite switched paradigms. They did’t get that memo about waste reduction. They still promote paper based information, even as they tout how they’re green.

Lights, Camera, Landscape!

What do you think about reality TV landscape programs? Are those landscapes dreams come true or nightmares waiting to happen?

It’s amazing how in a matter of days an overgrown, weedy wasteland can become a beautiful new landscape. It’s nothing short of incredible. A brawny guy walks up with a plan, everyone squeals with pleasure, a crew arrives, the old stuff goes away, the new stuff arrives, and voila! Just like mushrooms in a lawn, there’s a new landscape out there, Wendy!

The question with these landscapes is that unlike Peter Pan, they will grow up. The closely spaced plants that look great and full on TV will develop, the untreated wood will age, snow and frost will act on footings and dry streams. Will that concrete filled with accelerating agents last as long as the stuff that takes time to cure?

From this…

… to this!

… virtually overnight!

For a landscape architect, watching these shows is like seeing the typical month long project compressed into a period of days. It’s not exactly reality. Still, if you can stand sitting through all those repeated commercials where the woman with the bad hairdo battles a giant green lizard with an accent it can become an intellectual exercise. What did they omit for speed? Are those plants appropriate for that area? How sustainable is the new installation? Will that design really work? What will fall apart first.

I’ll never know. There’s no “Yards Crashing” or “Lost Landscapes” program that returns to these sites at regular intervals to show how they evolved. I don’t think they’d want us to know.

As I watched, I took notes…

Somewhere deep in the Midwest

The designer struts up to the clients, plans in hand. With a flourish, he unrolls the drawings. They gasp, they jump up and shout, they’re in love. Never once do they ask a question. It seems that everyone on TV can instantly read a landscape plan.

Are these people even real? It’s good to ask questions. A common one is, “where are we now?” – just to orient themselves in the new plan. They give no comments. Not even “We want the structure color to somehow harmonize with the house, and it would be great if something matched the trim color of the house.” Just “Yippeee!”.

They scrape out a swale and dump in bags of river cobbles directly on the soil. First bad: there should be a layer of filter fabric (geotextile) laid down to prevent weeds from growing up through the rocks and to keep the rocks from mixing with the soil over time.

In goes the lawn (there’s always a lawn). No edging of any kind. Just lawn meets bark. Another bad: someone will have to constantly trim that edge if they want it to look neat.

There go the shrubs! Lots of variegated red twig dogwood – these things spread, so way over planted. What do you expect? It’s television. Another bad.

Illinois has wonderful native plants, but not in this design. Never even mentioned – but then the neighborhood shots didn’t have them, either.

There goes a Bald cypress? In Illinois? What are they doing, trying to harmonize with the bayou? It’s not a small tree, either…

Somewhere in the Northeast

Same thing with design, looks like it’s part of the format. This is not a collaboration with the owners: they’re getting on TV so once they’ve had a quick meeting to list what they want, away it goes. There’s the unveiling. Looks like Design 101: a gazebo, the artsy thing for the kid, patio, lawn, the usual gang of suspects.

Owners say, “It’s perfect!”, acting like they just won a new Chevy in a game show.

Design obviously isn’t the point. Flash, zing, rip this out, show that big truck, wow a giant balled & burlapped tree, look at that flagstone! Cut to bouncing bobcats, crawling dingos, ripping chainsaws…

There’s the gazebo. No time for real footings, just set the thing on concrete piers lightly dug into the soil. Did I see that right? My book says that the Northeast coast low temperatures range from -2°F to 18° F (-19°C to -9° C). The lows can drop almost to White Fang territory: -30° F (-28° C). In a freezing climate, we were taught never to install any kind of footing above the frost line, or soil movement will do interesting things to your structure over time. First bad.

Flap! The pond liner shoots into its hole, right on the ground. There’s nothing to protect it from anything sharp either below or above: no sand, no felt. Nothing. Grab those rocks and pile them in. Hopefully they won’t have any sharp edges, but then it may not start to leak until after the shoot wraps.

Like charging Ents, the plants gallop into the landscape. Nandina, azalea, Japanese maple, coneflowers (native), hydrangeas. Was that a Miscanthus? That’s an invasive weed in the Northeast if it’s the wrong variety!

Clack, clack, Dry stack retaining wall. Doesn’t seem to have anything to drain water behind the stones (we’d have geotextile over the soil, then washed aggregate, then the stones). If it falls over, it’s not a big deal since the wall is low. Unless it lands on someone’s pet turtle.

Lots and lots of turf. Nothing says green like lawn. In their climate it’s not a water issue, and it gives Dad something to do on weekends.

“It’s douglas fir, so it will stand up to the elements”. Yep, the book says it will. It will also get huge. What’s so bad about smaller trees?

The unveiling comes in a blur. The art thing is a built-in outdoor musical instrument that really doesn’t sound beautiful. There’s no sounding board or resonating chamber, so no surprise there. Instead of notes, it makes thunks. The kid gives it a few whacks and smiles for the camera. I thought to myself, “that’s probably the first and last time she plays with that thing.”. Anyone else think the same?

How come none of the wood structures’ colors match each other? They don’t match the house, either. One structure is almost attached to the house, but it’s raw wood. Huh? Adjacent pieces on the house are painted. What about that “seamless” look? Even the lanterns don’t match.

There’s the gazebo, right out of Design 101, right down to the narrow stairs – barely wide enough for one person. Since harmony and unity aren’t a goal here, the gazebo has a unique paint scheme.

Sploosh! There goes a bucketful of fat goldfish into the pond. What’s the freeze depth? Will these guys be fishcicles come January?

The camera pans across the back yard. A hodgepodge of differently colored and styled structures slog across the screen. If only, if only… one color would have tied them together. This looks like Structures R Us had a clearance sale, and the paint store didn’t.

Lost in Poison Ivy

There’s the design! It’s out! As soon as it’s out they squeal “Oh, my God!!!!”, “Aaaaah!”, etc. Repeatedly. Do they get extra prizes for this?

The owners understand every element of the plan instantly with a single glance. This time, they asked style questions, but only after the plans were done, not before. Hello? This should have been covered in the preliminary design meeting! The design is supposed to reflect the customer’s desire, isn’t it? Maybe not here, where it’s supposed to keep the audience tuned in long enough to sell them insurance and things they don’t need.

How to transplanting evergreen coniferous shrubs: rip them out with a skid steer and drop them in new holes where they want them. They’ll look good until the end of filming, at least. Probably not much of a root system, but it’s enough to hold them upright. Maybe this works in their climate. It didn’t work here with a carefully hand dug mugho pine, and it wasn’t recommended in the Pacific Northwest. True, it took that mugho pine a long time to die, way longer than the end of filming.

This design opts for a sea of sod. Lots and lots of sod with things floating in it. Activities will happen in each space. Right, you only get one activity per space. Nothing’s joined, the spaces just bob around in that turf, poorly linked. But that’s just my opinion.

Most construction books say to compact, wet and level the sand bed before laying pavers. In some climates and for pervious pavers, compacted aggregate goes down first to improve drainage, then geotextile, then sand, then the pavers. This usually involves setting boards at the levels you want and running another board over the sand to level it, using the set boards as guides. The board you run over the sand is called a screed, probably no relation to Dr. Seuss). As long as your pavers, bricks or whatever has a uniform thickness, this is the quick way to put them down level. These went in screedless.

The Big Day arrives, the owners emerge from their door like moles in the sun. They gasp, surprised, at the Wonderland that was their drab back yard. Amazed, they wander like sunstruck moles, touching the new structures, oohing and awing. If they understood the plan intuitively, instantly, deeply as they were moaning in ecstasy when it was presented, why are they surprised? Everything on the plan is pretty much there, in all it’s turf-enclosed glory.

What a great place for a party! Let’s have one tomorrow! You’re all invited! Invited or not, there were no shots of the festivities. As they say in TV Land, production values probably didn’t allow for them.

And that, dear readers, is that. I stepped into the garden. There were weeds to pull, plants to divide and sculptures to relocate. Then relax and enjoy the colors, fragrances and movement as the simply renovated garden grows in.