I stumbled across this picture of our side yard the other day. Wow! It is highly cringeworthy. But such is the price and reality of construction.
Um. It looks you might have left some stuff in the side yard…
About a year and a half later!!!
Just came across these two photos of the space in 2014 just after the basement was done. You can see we still had the metal awning, no stairs, no porch, etc.
I absolutely love the book Fearless Color Gardens by Keelya Meadows. I knew she was a local designer because she has a little exhibit at American Soil and Stone and I knew her home garden was open sometimes but I was not sure of the details. I joined the Garden Conservancy this year and lo! her garden was on the Open Days list! I made T. come with me.
I love all the quirky paving, concrete forms, and amazingly fun use of color. I wish my own garden was just like this. It was a bit over the top for T. though and I suspect he will object.
I’m desperately in love with that leopard-spotted Ligularia and must acquire one for myself immediately.
I heard the Sunset headquarters is going to move so I wanted to dash down there to visit it before it relocated. When I first moved to CA I worked just down the street but did not know about Sunset magazine at that time. Nor did I particularly care about gardens at age 19. Anyway, my friend and I jaunted down there to take some pics.
I’m so glad we did! I just love the color and texture they are playing with. The bright orange, round trellis is also speaking to me. I would like to own this moon gate trellis for myself!
I have an absurd amount of photos and I simply am having trouble picking which ones to upload so there will be a lot. I have already lost the actual garden info so this is for your eyeball enjoyment only.
This garden was amazing.
Look at this gorgeous copper gutter. I want this.
I like how they carried this purple color throughout the garden
I can’t even describe how delighted I was when I realized that fairy gardens are A THING. This combines two of my favorite things: gardens and tiny things.
As a kid I spent so much time with my tiny glass animals. I had a dollhouse for them and I loved taking them outside to create houses for them on the moss patches in our yard.
I’m not so much in to the fairy aspect. I prefer to think of trundling badgers in smoking jackets setting up a living room in my backyard. But I have found that most littles nowadays will respond to the idea that fairies might visit their garden and would enjoy having a place to rest and hang out. If I was a fairy i would totally want to hangout in the above picture. Look at that tiny little pot! squeee
I made this garden in a wide and low plastic container that I bought
Tah.Mah.Lah. is a really neat example of eXtreme green building for rich people. I’m glad rich people are trying out new techniques for green building and while trickle down economics is a giant piece of bullshit I can at least hope that trickle down green building can be a thing.
The entire site was amazingly gorgeous and the homeowners were so generous to let us visit and even tour the inside of the home! This was a tour with my classmates. I tried hard to not get other people or other people’s butts in my photos. :)
I am still overwhelmed by this visit. The property is huge and every nook felt highly deigned and fantastically executed. The first thing I was drawn to where the amazing willow structures made by Patrick Dougherty. They are billed as a play structure but honeslty they were BIG and DARK and not at kid scale really. So, while there was evidence of kids playing there, I didn’t feel like it was exactly FOR KIDS. It felt more like land art for rich people. Which is great and I’m all for that. It was beautiful.
I was also so intrigued by the swimming pool. I thought it was a natural pool and i had never hear dof that being a thing but damn! what a cool thingthat would be to have/build! Anyway, this pool is not that but they did build adjacent ponds to it looks like one. I am in love with the wooden walkway seperating the pool from the pond area. I felt like I could be walking through The Great Swamp I remember from RI. Not exactly but I did feel there was great scope for the imagination in that spot.
The warm gold of the paving materials was very inviting. It managed to soften the huge stone blocks around the driveway area. I also just loved the way the paving materials transitioned. In some fo the abve pics you can see how the paving softly transitions to the meadow or other areas.
I love the Lake Merritt gardens. It is the perfect place to take a 2 year old! We often come to the sensory garden and J. also loves the Japanese Garden.
