Design for time

Landscapes, unlike buildings, aren’t really complete until many years have passed. They go in the ground only as potential, the design something that will complete itself with time. The plants will grow, surfaces will acquire patinas, unexpected things might happen.

These photos were shot around January of 1999. It’s now January 2016, seventeen years later. Very few gardens look their best in January, so they’re usually shot in spring when everything is green and blooming. Shooting in January gives a more realistic view of seasonal changes, and helps build stronger year-round designs.

Too often, landscape renovations take for granted that existing elements work, without looking at how the garden should be laid out. Here, a too-small path linked the driveway to the porch, but did not allow adequate planting space between the path and the house. It didn’t lead to the front door, either. We’ve watched the neighbors replace their paths, and the typical solution is to rip out the old path, pour new concrete in the same space and consider it “new”. We thought about where we walk from the driveway to the door, and watched the mailman. That’s where the new path went, and it gave us enough space for a new mound between the path and the house to boot.

Although the “blob tree” screened the street, it worked too well. There was no way to watch friends arrive or check to see the UPS delivery until they got to the front door. Replacing the tree with a planted mound improved drainage and screened the street, but still let us see out and  more light into the north side of the house, too.

There was no direct path from the door to the street. Again, watching the mailman – and anyone willing to arrive via the lawn – showed the logical path of travel. This path, being the main route to the door is paved in concrete. The other – a side route parallel to the street – was paved in urbanite to create a hierarchy of travel.

Watching plants grow
Some plants might sulk, never growing to their full size. Others may exceed expectations and require judicious pruning. Some may not look as good as that brochure at the nursery and will be yanked out of the design in favor of something else more likely to fit the requirements.

Only the river birch remains from the original design, along with a holly bush that we keep for the mockingbirds, who like its berries.

The lawn went away, along with all that mowing, aerating and feeding. There’s now a direct path to the street, and the original too-short, too narrow path is something that follows actual circulation patterns. The boulevard cypress died and needed to be removed. Low voltage lighting washes parts of the landscape with pools of light.

Mounds now screen the street so views from the house focus on plants instead of asphalt. They’re still low enough to see over – the intent was only to hide the street, not totally block views to the house.

Some plants have spread, others muddle on. There’s a bit of Mexican lobelia that throws out a few flowers each year, a coyote bush that was supposed to spread but never got beyond two feet wide, a lavatera that wasn’t so drought tolerant and perished.

Scrub jays planted a native oak in a non-irrigated section of the garden, promising more shade and future changes. For now, we’ve added to the area with native wildflowers, a redbud and a ceanothus. There is some lavender for the bees and a Jerusalem sage for a bit of yellow to complement the blue ceanothus.

Other plants – rosemary, manzanita, rushes, Santa Barbara daisies, agapanthus and the officially invasive feather grass have thrived. A couple of Tasred dianellas have taken years to grow to about a foot tall. A native rose is being tested among the rushes.

The river birch has hosted multiple families of mourning doves, but has yet to have a tenant in its nesting box. Black phoebes built mud nests under the eaves, but never laid eggs.

Before and After: more depth, more interest, more color in season, more usable space