Theodore Payne Foundation tour 2016

After a three-year hiatus, we agreed--once again--to be part (house #11) of the Theodore Payne native plants garden tour, April 2. We hired a professional pruner to shape-up our gardens and filled in all backyard gaps with new plants and a small path of up-cycled concrete stepping stones. If I say so myself, our yards look especially glorious this spring. See for yourself what a little bit of rain can do:

 

 Ready for the hordes to descend--some 80 people

visited our gardens on tour day

 

Backyard: the calm before the storm

 

 Luckily, our octopus agaves (two!)

decided to bloom in time for the tour

and were both magnificent

 Close-up

 

Top of the blooming agave in the backyard

(note bees enjoying the blooms)

 

Base of the backyard agave, surrounded by burberry,

manzanita, and poppies

 

Backyard view through our leafing redbud

 

Wildflowers

 

Baby blue eyes (detail)

 

Happy homeowners! (Yes, that's a brace

on my knee--long story . . .) 

Home Improvements

As those of you who know us know, we've been tinkering with our yards for several years now. Three years ago we tore out the backyard and planted drought-tolerent California natives. That worked so well, we did it again the following year in the front yard. Then last year we converted our garage into what realtors call a "bonus room"--that is, we now use it instead of cars.

Since the garage is no longer auto-friendly, I decided the rear concrete driveway was just wasted space and so asked our landscaper Joel to design a third garden. We quickly dubbed it "phase 3" of our ever-growing re-landscaping project. He did his magic and we now have a wonderful new garden right outside our backdoor. The concrete was demolished, but saved to create a step-stone path from the remaining driveway to the garage. The backyard was extended to the front of the garage as well and two new small gardens were planted: one along our wall and the other beneath our backdoor steps. In addition, our gate was pushed forward by 8 ft. so we can now hide the trashcans on the side of the house. The new plants (mostly natives) are still in their infant stage, but I already feel like this is how our yard and patio were always meant to be. And, oh yeah, we also bought new front and back doors and, of course, painted them red! Looks pretty good, don't ya think?

"Before" and boring

Demolition

Construction (notice the white back door)

All done: the path from the driveway to the garage door

Trashcans now live on the side of the house (hooray!)

Peering through our new side fence

The backyard and patio

Garden Tour

One of the first things I did, when deciding whether or not to landscape the house, was go on the Theodore Payne Foundation’s annual spring garden tour. Located on the north side of The Valley, the Foundation is a natural preserve that grows, promotes and sells drought-resistant California native plants. The tour features homes throughout the county and is a fun way to educate folks about the joys of going native. I was completely inspired and swore that if our yards ever looked half as good as the ones I saw, I’d ask to be part of the tour.

Two-and-a-half-years later, I applied to have our house included on the 2010 tour. The application--a multipage questionnaire--not only asked which plants we have (tour homes must have at least 50% California natives), but also our gardening philosophy, how often we water our plants, which animals (birds, bugs, etc.) visit our yards, how we discard cuttings (we recycle), etc. I also sent photographs of the yards from the previous spring.

Several weeks later, the tour coordinator paid a visit to see our gardens firsthand. Although we had worked our butts off getting everything ready, the front yard was clearly a disappointment, with its abundant hawthorne bushes, star jasmine, euphorbia, and flax (all non-natives). But she loved the backyard, which far exceeded the 50% rule, especially since most of the plants there were purchased at Theodore Payne. Two months later I received an email congratulating us on being invited onto the tour. Now the real work work began!

For weeks on end, we spent hours and hours and hours weeding both yards and pruning unwieldy wildflowers and plants. We bought and spray-painted a metal bench for the backyard and were thrilled when our agave started to grow an enormous 15-foot stalk. We held our collective breath in hopes it would bloom in time for the show.

Finally the big weekend arrived: 50 houses over two days. For a small fee, aficionados got a tour booklet listing addresses and descriptions of the featured gardens. It was then up to them to decide which homes they visited. Our house was open 10AM-4PM on Saturday.

I woke-up that morning at 4AM. Tim got up an hour later. Too dark to go out into the yards, he decided to pull together a “before-and-after” slideshow, which we showed on our old computer (everyone loved it!). I organized the garage. As soon as it got light, I did one last round of weed-pulling, sweeping, etc. Tim put up the umbrellas, while I got the water and cookies ready. Our first customers arrived at 10:05AM and pretty much didn’t stop until 4:30PM.

The star of the show was, of course, the agave, which had indeed started to bloom the week before. People gasped in joy as soon as they walked through our gate.

They also loved our dramatic dendromecon (i.e., Catalina Island Bush Poppy), western redbud tree, and glorious wildflowers. At least one person had a Kodak moment as a friend took her picture sitting on our red metal bench. Several visitors said they wanted to move into our house and a professional photographer asked if he could feature our yard in a magazine about drought-tolerant plants. (We’ll see!) The garage was a big hit, too. No doubt the guys at Garage Envy, who remodeled ours, will soon be getting calls for an estimate.

In all, over a hundred people--including friends and neighbors--stopped by to see our gardens this weekend. It was a wonderful, WONDERFUL day. And though we were exhausted by the end, we can’t wait to do it all over again next year.

Happy Spring!

Happy Easter!

Another glorious day in Culver City! Our friends and family are all otherwise engaged, so we're spending Easter at home with our cats, the barbecue, and our amazing yards. The backyard, in particular, is resplendent in wildflowers—the offspring of last year's abundant crop. See for yourself by clicking on the home movies below.







BTW, in the second video, I goofed and called our lavender plants lilac. I do know the difference!

Have a happy day!

Going Native (Again!)

Those of you following this blog for a while will remember that last October I decided to demolish our backyard and plant drought-resistant California natives. Well, I didn’t do the actual demolition and planting; but, along with our fabulous landscaper Joel, I did help guide the project, which changed my whole outlook on gardening. Unable to tell a live plant from a dead one just a year ago, I am now almost obsessed with flora of all stripes.

Not a surprise then when I announced to Tim that we should plant natives in the front, even though we’d be the only house on the block without a lawn. Even more scandalous, I suggested that we build a low fence to protect our new yard, making ours, of course, the only house in the entire neighborhood with a fence. What would people think? Nonetheless, convinced that we were doing the right thing—especially as water becomes more and more precious—we decided to proceed in hopes that others would eventually follow our lead.

It is too hot to plant anything during the summer, so we waited till early October to actually begin the project. In the meantime, Joel and I toured nearby gardens and took pictures of possible fences. Then, finally two weeks ago, he came over and sketched out a plan for the yard. We would keep the hawthorne bushes against the house and our glorious Chinese elm, which everyone loves, but just about everything else would go. Demolition began shortly after. No turning back now!



Joel and I then schlepped over to Theodore Payne, the nonprofit nursery in Sunland, to pick out plants. We bought plenty of my backyard favorites—salvia (i.e., sage), artemisia (strange low-lying plants that look like tribbles), and yarrow—plus some California holly (i.e. toyon), a spiny barberry, and coyote bush. On his own, Joel selected a crepe myrtle tree, two petite maples, lilacs, and star jasmine, which will grow along the fence. Hesperaloes grace our short parkway along the street.

As you can see, the yard is now complete. All we need is a few months and a little bit of rain to get things growing. More pictures forthcoming in the spring!

Labor Day Stay-cation

As usual, we decided to stay in L.A. over the Labor Day weekend. Who needs to travel when there’s so much to do here?

On Saturday, we decided to brave the heat and head east to the Huntington Library to see the “This Side of Paradise” photo exhibit, which ends September 15. The exhibit, comprised of hundreds of famous and not-so-famous photos, succeeds at capturing the essence of Los Angeles from its beginnings to current day. Sure, there were the obligatory snapshots of celebrities posing and doing glamorous as well as silly things (e.g., Marilyn Monroe lifting weights); but the best were of everyday people working and living their lives: a man watering his lawn (ca. 1973); another man holding his baby at the beach (1963); a boy selling newspapers (1943); and porn stars taking a break in Woodland Hills (2002). (“Boogie Nights,” anyone?). My favorite was Michael Light’s enormous landscape of downtown L.A., looking west above the 5, 10, 60 and 101 freeways. The city looks like a giant gray squid entangled in a mass of concrete tentacles. Everyone who loves Los Angeles should see this amazing exhibit.

The next morning, we schlepped to Santa Monica beach, where we read the Sunday paper and watched as surfers tried to catch what little waves there were. The water was flat and glassy—so glassy, in fact, that we saw dolphins swimming among the surfers—something neither of us had ever seen in all our years going to the beach. What a thrill!

En route home, we visited Arlington West, a project of the antiwar group Veterans for Peace, who erect over a thousand crosses every Sunday to commemorate the more than 4,000 soldiers who have died in the Iraq war. The weekly memorial is installed on the beach just north of the Santa Monica pier and is extremely powerful. If anyone needs visual evidence of how wasteful and wrong this war has been, certainly this is it.

On Monday, we just putzed around the house and wished we’d taken the entire week off! Despite the heat, our backyard garden has surprisingly flourished this summer, with some plants actually still blooming. I’m looking forward to re-landscaping the front yard this fall, but that’s a story to be continued . . .

Spring has Sprung (Updated!)

Spring is here!

The evidence is everywhere — from Mr. and Mrs. Mallard, vacationing on our block before heading north after their winter migration, to flowers popping up in even the most neglected gardens. Our own yard is festooned in color thanks to the generous rains earlier this year. Wildflowers are in bloom in the back and even our usually benign bushes in front are covered in pink blossoms. Who wants to leave the house when there’s so much beauty just outside the door? Enjoy!

Home Improvements, Pt. 2

After living all summer with a grassless, defoliated backyard, we heard from our landscaper Joel that the weather was finally cool enough to plant new foliage. So we schlepped all the way out to the Theodore Payne Foundation, a 22-acre California native plant preserve and nursery in Sun Valley, to go plant-shopping. With Joel’s (and, thank goodness, Karen’s) help, we selected three varieties of salvia (i.e., sage), three types of Manzanita bushes, two succulents, and an assortment of plants that will eventually cover the ground and (fingers crossed!) bloom in festive colors come next spring.

Joel also picked out a small tree (cercis occidentallis—i.e., redbud), which produces tiny magenta flowers in the spring, a luscious gardenia bush (my favorite flower), and tall brown-and-green cannas for two of my many pots. The real centerpiece, however, is the magnificent octopus agave that we decided to include rather last minute. It is the most dramatic element of the entire project and gives me hope that the rest of the yard will soon be just as beautiful.

The gardeners showed up to plant everything on Wednesday — the day I teach, unfortunately, so I wasn’t able to appreciate their handiwork until the next morning. I was surprised to see what looked like a lanky man standing on the front porch, though, when I drove up that night. It turned out to be one of the cannas greeting me with its brilliant orange flowers.

To say that I’m now obsessed with my garden would be an understatement. Much like a mother hen with her chicks, I check my baby plants daily for any signs of progress and even slunk outside before dawn with a flashlight, Saturday morning, to make sure they had survived the rainstorm the night before. Most of the plants are very small, but should start looking like their own nature preserve within the year.

Stay tuned . . .

10/14/07

Home Improvements

No home improvement project is ever simple. You make one small change, which leads to another and, before you know it, you’re neck-deep in a whole new project.

Case in point: After putting it off for several years, we finally had the outside of house painted last February. In the process, we had the painters remove the hideous old aluminum patio cover that the original owner had installed in the 1960s. The plan was to replace it with a new wooden structure; but when I saw glorious sunlight streaming into a kitchen that had previously been dark, I decided to leave the patio uncovered and paint it red instead. I then bought furniture and colorful umbrellas to create a much more festive atmosphere. I envisioned having lots of garden parties with friends as we luxuriated in the cool summer breeze . . .

But wait. What garden? Our backyard was a nightmare of brown grass and sad old rose bushes. Something had to be done!

I love our small postwar home and enjoy freshening it up with new furniture and interesting colors on the walls. But I know nothing about yards and things that grow in the earth. In fact, one of the first things we did when we moved in was hire a gardener to mow the lawns twice a month and periodically shape-up the bushes. As long as the grass was short and the plants neat, I was happy.

To get some help with this new project, I hired a landscaper named Joel, who was highly recommended by a friend. With water rationing seriously looming on L.A. county’s horizon, we decided to go with drought-resistant plants in the back instead of traditional grass. We then turned our attention to the front yard. Joel loved our fabulous Chinese elm—everyone does!—but was distressed at our neglected birch tree.

“What’s with this tree?” he asked incredulously.

“I don’t know. What’s wrong with it?” I innocently replied.

“It’s dead!” he announced.

“IT IS!?” I practically yelled, completely oblivious to the fact that it hadn’t sprouted leaves in more than two years.

With a great sweep of his arm, Joel declared that it had to go, while I stood there amazed that I could be so botanically-challenged. He also decided to yank the hideous junipers from our brick planter, but the camellia bushes, which do bloom once a year, could stay.

The backyard is another thing altogether. Everything has been demolished—including a fruit-bearing peach tree that I didn’t even know was there!—and replaced by mulch. Joel designed a short pea gravel-filled path that stops at the corner where the peach tree used to stand. It’s now up to me to find a birdbath to put at the end of the path—a much more difficult task than I imagined. Have you ever investigated birdbaths? Most of them are common monstrosities—the rest cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Needless to say, the quest continues.

It is too hot to plant natives during the summer, so my assignment these past couple of months has been to identify specimens that I’d like to see growing in our backyard. Joel loaned me a book to help me decide, but I ended up marking everything that produces red or purple flowers! So now I’m supposed to look at actual plants at nurseries or in other people’s yards. I hit the jackpot when we attended a wedding last month at the Estancia Spa and Resort in La Jolla. The grounds there were completely covered in California natives! I ended up taking more pictures of the plants than of the bride.

My second task has been to buy pottery to dress-up the patio and front porch. Tentative at first, I have now officially gone berserk and buy every pot I see. My downfall was a small store I spied as we were leaving our vacation rental in Shell Beach last month. For an hour I rambled through piles of Mexican pottery until I finally narrowed my search to three items. Now, of course, I’ve got to find plants to put inside them. I’ve heard of pot addicts, but pottery addicts? I think I’m the first.

We’re still waiting for the weather to cool down enough for Joel to return and plant the backyard. In the meantime, Tim has bought a lawnmower, which he uses every other week to trim the grass in front, while I occasionally pull weeds in the back. To be continued . . .

9/6/07