The idea for this garden grew from years of paying the
gardener to cut the grass, watering religiously, and still having a
lackluster yard to show for the time, effort, and expense. The homeowners started by not watering and letting
the grass die off for months before demolition began. They can’t remember now which came first - the remove of ALL of the grass and
old plant material or the removal of ALL of the concrete, but it was quite a
site and VERY dusty!
They needed a permit from the city (an
easy task) to remove the sidewalk; it was damaged by the roots of a gorgeous magnolia tree. A huge patio slab in the back yard turned out to be
a double layer, as did the sidewalk between their house and the neighbor’s.
A beautiful installation of Turfstone, planted with mix of different ground
covers,, replaced the old driveway. Flagstone paths also have
ground cover and just regular ol' grass planted in between.
They serendipitously found a fantastic landscape
designer: Greg George of GWG Design. Their regular gardener and trusty friend
of 15 years, Alfredo Vasquez, who happens to work on irrigation at LMU,
gathered a crew of his LMU buddies, also from LMU, and they spent many weekends installing their beautiful new garden last fall.
The plants and trees include:
kangaroo paw, succulents, tons of fun ground covers, lemon, lime, & mandarin
trees (one each!), 10 gardenia bushes in the back, podocarpus henkelii, silver sheen, salvia waverly, and some
other salvia, shrimp plants an...oh my goodness, many more!
The owners invite you to come see their garden on April 20th! If it’s the first time you’ve done the tour,
you’ll have as much fun as they’ve had in the past as a “viewer.” Now it’s their turn to show you around. Click here to view photos of the demolition and installation.
