Some more drawing and my birthday

Since my peeps are off having adventures I took myself to a nice little gouache painting workshop at ARCH Art Supplies w/ Nathaniel Bice for my birthday. He was super nice and a good teacher! I think this was my first time painting on one of these gessoed panels. I liked it! I especially liked the magenta underpainting idea and I kind of wish I had left a bit more pink peeking through on the final painting.

Other drawing stuff I have been working on is in procreate. I need to get my Dirt Bag stickers finished!

OMG my screen was so dirty, please don’t judge.

I also came across this sketch I did at the ASLA conference workshop with Chip Sullivan. I’m back to being inspired bye the idea of tarot-like cards for landscape design principles. How can I work with this idea? I ned to sketch more!

Tunnel Tops Field Trip

There are so many things I would like to be doing but I swear I am just absolutely bone tired. SO TIRED. All the time. Like, really, really, really tired. I suspect perimenopause and I do not like it.

Anyway, my tiny baby is going off to college and before that he is heading off to Iceland with his Dad. I am not joining them because it is a biking trip and like I said, I am too freaking tired to do that shit. I can however muster the energy for a local field trip to Tunnel Tops park.

We started with lunch at the cute little cafe and then lounged around in the windy sun. There are lots of good seating areas to choose from and we tried them all. I do love the wooden benches that echo the distant landscape of Marin.

I may have talked a bit too much about plants. but look how gorgeous these colors and shapes are. I just want to paint them.

We visited the very cool natural playscape. I stacked some wood with some little girls and had fun with them. I absolutely love a playscape with natural loose parts. They had an area with smaller loose parts and this area with much larger sticks to build with. So cool! I took a picture of Jack jumping on some tree stumps and I MUST find the pic of him doing the same thing at the playscape I designed at his elementary school. It looks like they might be expanding the garden in some way too. there is a new undeveloped area fenced off.

Our ultimate goal was to make it all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. Walking along the beach and lagoon areas was also very beautiful!

Gorgeous color and texture along the SF bay coast

As we approach the bridge I am getting a bit tired and it is so cold and windy!!!

It has been like 30 years since I have been around this particular area. I swear there were not so many gift shops back then.

We got like 5 steps onto the bridge and turned around. :D

There was no way I was making it back so we rented Lime scooters and zoomed back really satisfyingly. This was definitely a very good and satisfying field trip.

A landscaping project is never done...

Landscapes are ever evolving. Plants die and circumstances or tastes change. It is one of the reasons I like landscape design but I also see that, for some folks, it can be a source of frustration. “I just spent all this money on plants! Why do I have to spend MORE money on plants?!!!”

You don’t HAVE TO but it is awfully nice to go in to a mature landscape and fill in little gaps or just see what has worked and what has not worked. Plants are living things and, as such, can be squirrelly little shits. One plant thriving and the same plant, two feet away, has died a painful death. Maybe there is slightly less light in that spot or maybe the irrigation clogged and the plant wasn’t getting enough water for months, or a gopher moved in, there can be all kinds of reasons.

I’m thinking about this because we have visited a couple of our installed gardens this week. I swear we started designing this, like, back in 2017. I post about it several times before here and here.

These are the two concept sketches I made probably in 2017ish.

The tree I posted about in that last post ended up NOT bouncing back and spent several years looking like shit and making everyone sad. I’m so sorry we failed you sweet tree! :( We decided to replace it with a 36” box Arbutus marina. Here is the loyal little Ditch Witch bringing the chonky new tree in.

There are a couple of other spots in this landscape that just need a few more plants to fill in. There is also one-planting bed that is like, half sun, half shade under a big tree. Everything in that bed seems to fail and I’m just not sure why... Root competition? Dogs running rampant? Gophers? Compacted soil? IDK, but I want that bed to look as nice as the other areas in the landscape. Sadly, also, one of the counters in the outdoor pavilion kitchen cracked. It just wasn’t on a stable enough surface and was flexing too much. so that also has to get replaced. A TOTAL BUMMER!

Here are some nicer shots of areas that are working. Check out those crazy Senecio Skyscrapers! And in the 4th picture you can see the happy, relocated palm! That bed needs a few new plants though.

I have never been a dog person but since starting this profession I have come around. I could never be a dog owner but I do love meeting everyone’s dogs! Please behold this absolute sweetie face of a German Shepard puppy!!

Picture of a german shepard puppy with big, soft ears lying on concrete in front of a pretty garden bed.

Here’s a pavilion shot. Obviously, you can see the kitchen is back under construction. :(

Bay Area Trees for Fall Color

I grew up mostly in the south in place without a lot of fall color. It got cold but the trees were mostly tall pine trees. They always seemed kind of depressing and dour. but I did like braiding the needles when I was little.

The Bay Area is not exactly know for fall color either. But there are several trees that can really bring it! Every fall I think, oh yeah I should document what trees are doing what right now and that time has finally come! This thought often occurs to me as I am driving through a particularly colorful street. And, yes, I did stop in the middle of the street to get this shot.

Street lined with colorful orange, red, and yellow Pistacia chinensis trees in the fall.

Pistacia chinensis - Chinese Pistache is a great tree for a streetscape or a residential setting. It doesn’t get too big, grows at a decent rate, provides a nice dappled shade and this amazing fall color. Here you can see an example of a 24” Box Keith Davey specimen at the nursery.

Lagerstroemia indica x fauriei 'Muskogee' is a nice crape myrtle that does well in this area and has gorgeous fall color.

Also consider this non native Buckeye - the Aesculus Early Glow. See some better pics here.

Next we have the Liriodendron tulipifera. This tree is in the magnolia family and has a really cool flower! I feel like I don’t actually see this tree very often. It does get HUGE soft may be that it is just too big even for the larger suburban neighborhoods in the East Bay. It is really pretty though!

Nyssa silvatica - Black Gum tree. This is another great tree for fall color. I’ve never spec’ed this tree but every time I see it I wonder why. Here is one in the background of this lovely patio at one of our projects.

In the nursery you can see this one has some set fruits. I don’t think it is a super messy tree though.

There are a million different Prunus varieties. When I first moved here the Prunus leaves fallen in the streets all yellow and red and spotty madame take up watercolors and sketchbooking. I don’t have the patience to figure out which ones these two are but I love how the leaves look intermingled on the ground!

Okay, one more. This Cercis is just looking very lovely with it's yellow leaves spread out under it!

All the Acers and Cornus trees have great fall color too.

My Animal Crossing New Horizons Island

I got a Switch Lite in 2020 during the pandemic and it was a huge source of comfort. I had played one of the other Animal Crossings, one that was on my phone and I eventually deleted it because it was taking too much of my time. At some point in 2020 I had to back up my island and move it to another switch and I thought I lost the save data and I cried. In front of my kid. Since then I have started a bunch of new islands. This newest one is called Eschscholz and my character is Poppy, obviously.

I am at the point in my island where I have most of my villagers and am already crapping up my layout.I need to get this thing under control so I have made a bubble diagram.

Key Elements/Areas

  • Shopping/Commercial District by the airport

  • Housing areas - mainly the suburbs, a beach community, and my personal estate.

  • Secondary housing areas - Hermit in a woodland swamp that leads to my cheesy Florida Beach Motel.

  • National Forest and camping area with a large lake. I might add an island in the middle that you can access using the Mario pipes.

  • The River Anduin that leads through river valley to The Argonath and Mount Doom where I will attempt to create a rock circle.

Why, you may ask yourself, is an adult obsessed with this kinda silly-seeming decorating game? Because it's awesome, that's why. It's a cozy, low-stakes game where all my cute little animals are happy to see me. I can decorate their houses and yards to match their personalities, and I can terraform and breed flowers to my heart's content.

Moving people through space and 'decorating' that space is what landscape design is all about, after all. We're constantly thinking about circulation patterns, sightlines, and spatial hierarchy. Where should paths lead? How do you create inviting gathering spaces? What views do you want to frame or conceal?

While the flower colors and textures are limited, breeding them is fun, and so is experimenting with color combinations and accessories for the gardens.

Personally, I think this is a perfect video game for landscape designers.

I should do a post about flower combos at some point!

Project In-Progress

Oof, projects in-progress can look like a mess! There is some order to this chaos, I swear! Although, I will say that I prefer less chaos. In my ideal installation EVERYTHING gets done and then, like a week later, we come in with the plants, place them, ponder everything, and then plant. If contractors leave enough wire with their lighting fixtures we can then adjust those at that time. In this install we just din’t really have control of that. I can also see here that the sheet mulching is…. not great. I need several layers of OVERLAPPING cardboard. what happened here was that they literally planted the plants BEFORE they sheet mulched? It didn’t make a lot of sense.

This very small backyard was very boring. Why have a boring backyard when you can have color, and texture, and useable space?

Before picture. Photo is a long narrow lawn with a house on the left and a retaining wall on the right.

Currently, It looks like this. You can see we have added a new path and meanders through the middle of the landscape rather than crammed uncomfortable against the house. We’ve got some colorful plantings, a few small trees to help the absolutely scorching heat, and towards the far end there is a small patio with some raised beds, some really cute terracotta pots for herbs, and a self-contained ceramic water feature. We also bought a nice trellis from Terratrellis to help break up a very large and boring hot wall.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

Garden Design Styles

When I tell people I am a garden designer, they often ask me what style of garden I design. The answer is usually that I design (to the best of my ability given a million variables) the garden that my client desires. The garden needs to work for the client! I know many designers prefer to design in one style or another, and so their portfolio reflects that, and then people wanting that style seek out that designer. I have not really reached that point and I probably never will.

I did name my business Wild Things, in part, because I love a wild and unruly garden with lots going on and colors and wildlife and fun garden elements and nooks to explore. That kind of garden is great but not always practical. I ALSO love designing super modern gardens with clean lines and architectural plants just as well.

A lot of what I love about designing residential gardens is the space planning aspect of it. I spend an inordinate amount of time imagining what my clients might want to do in the garden, how they will move about in the garden, what will happen at different seasons, what they say they want/need vs. what I think they might actually want/need, etc. Of course, I'm just imagining all this, and what I really need is for the client to be as articulate as possible about THEIR OWN garden imaginings.

There is a business plan activity that I have encountered several times now that wants you to describe your perfect client. One of the items on my list is a client that is really engaged and curious about the possibilities. They will have a Pinterest or Houzz board with ideas, they will have memories of gardens from their childhood, and they will have some practical views on what they and their landscape can manage.

It's actually a tall order. If someone has never designed a landscape, it might be hard for them to come up with all of these ideas. That's why Pinterest and Houzz are actually such good resources for folks. Just diving in and getting a feel for what might be possible and what you find visually intriguing is a great start. I do often have to sit down with clients and dive into WHAT about a picture they are drawn to. Is it a specific plant, the style, a color combination, etc.

So the job of figuring all this out is really what draws me to this vocation. I do, of course, love plants, but plants come much later in the design process.

I was thinking the other day about how I played as a child. And I basically sat around in my room with my dollhouse decorating it and redecorating it. I had a million of those glass or ceramic animals you could buy at the Hallmark store (there was one just outside my neighborhood), and they were the inhabitants of my dollhouse. Mainly because I thought most human dolls were creepy. So, that's a lot like what I do now. LOL.


Landscape Sketchbook - Vignettes

I like to do little landscape vignettes. Not a whole landscape design but just a bed or a small area. It’s fun to use these informal, made-up sketches to explore color and texture and layering of plants.

Here is one with lots of maroon, red, orange, and yellow plants.

Another one with some red and adding in some boulders and gravel, IDK, I find drawing these fun and soothing!

Remember moving that epic palm tree in Walnut Creek?

In order to get this project going we had to move this giant palm tree first. See my post from 2019 here: https://www.wildthingsgardendesign.com/blog/moving-a-palm-tree

This project is creeping along at a snails pace for a variety of reason! But I thought I would just post a three year update about this Brahea armata. Look how healthy it is! Operation move-a-palm was a success!

Healthy looking palm in it’s new location

This photo was taken from inside the partially completed new pool pavilion. all the other hardscape has been completed. The pool was resurfaced and new updated pool deck concrete has been poured. The retaining walls are in but not stuccoed yet. Sadly, the tree right next to the pavilion ended up getting a bit damaged. Will it recover? We shall see!

Here is a shot of the pavilion under construction. We’ve got some infrared heaters installed and some cute light fixtures! You can see the palm peeking out over the house in the left corner.

Children's Garden

This was a delightful garden to work on. The client had purchased a home with an enchanting, wonderfully quirky garden full of surprises around every corner. As someone who grew up loving the book 'A Secret Garden', I found myself not so secretly envious of the children who would grow up with is garden.

There was an area that was designatied as a children's garden and it needed a redo. It was hard packed dirt and weeds after refurbishing the two story playhouse. Other parts the garden were overgrown, the grape stake fence was overbearing and the gates no longer worked.

The designated children's area needed a complete makeover after the two-story playhouse renovation, leaving behind hard-packed dirt and weeds. Other sections had become overgrown, the grape stake fencing felt overwhelming, and the gates were no longer functional.

Our goal was to open up the space while maintaining its character as a children's haven. Given the shady conditions, we chose kurapia over traditional grass for the lawn. We were fortunate to find sod rather than plugs, creating an instant lawn that would also reduce bee activity in this shadier spot.

We installed a round TerraTrellis as the garden entrance and replaced the heavy grape stake fencing with an airy cable rail system. Both will eventually be softened with climbing vines for added privacy. The design includes a circular gravel seating area with a curved bench, plus natural tree stumps and boulders for play. A concrete patio with a picnic table for crafts, while raised beds provide space for growing vegetables, herbs, and flowers.

I guess I'm drawing apples now

I thought I would post some more pics of the random apples I have been drawing. This was the beginning of my florescent orange obsession. :D

More apples!

A couple of other drawings in this sketchbook… A jar of beets, I guess. and another nice moth.

Some Drawings

I’m getting in some more sketch time. this first drawing is colored pencil on printer paper. I was just trying out some different styles.

These are some pages in my sketchbook. I was remembering the summer class I took as a young teen at RISD. My aunt came to pick me up and had no idea what we were drawing. We were each standing in front of a huge piece of newsprint paper. What she dis not see was that wee all also had a tiny shelf made of card board taped next to us with a single piece of popcorn on it. Hahahahah.

Experimenting with different colors in watercolor.

Watercolor of a Mission Blue Butterfly

Landscape Sketchbook - Blobs of Color

I was just playing around with color in this sketch. I really love seeing a landscape where there is super bright color introduced. So far I have not really had a chance to get a client to do this. I have certainly suggested it and tried! I really have! I just love a bright contrast and pop of color!