Showcase Feature
This beautiful garden, designed by Nicole, and installed by Nicole and Andrew, has a natural, tranquil ambience. It all starts with the parking strip, home to two redbuds that create a privacy screen for the house, while their understory of cheerful rosy buckwheats create a welcoming feel.
This inspirational front garden, once a lawn, now contains both prostrate (‘Little Sur’) and a larger (Pajaro) manzanita, which provide structure and greenery throughout the year. Pink flowering currant border the stairway; their beautiful pendant flowers bloom from winter to spring, their sweetly scented flowers and leaves make entering the house a pleasure, and their speckled, pale blue berries delight birds.
A potpourri of fuchsia, sage, showy and narrowleaf milkweed, flannel bush, rosy buckwheat, and aster enliven the garden with their cheerful red, purple, white, yellow, pink and purple blossoms; these, combined with the evergreen manzanitas, give the front garden a full, lush look.
This garden has something in flower most of the year. In spring and summer the back garden is a riot of color, with pink clarkias and lavender phacelias, lupine, and Sonoma sage blooming first, followed by rosy pink buckwheat, lavender aster, and orange poppies, all of which tumble about, growing where they are happiest.
In fall fire engine red fuchsia and cream-colored buckwheats brighten the landscape: they were in full flower on the October day that Nicole and Andrew were married on the small lawn in the back garden.
Other Garden Attractions
• Only new plants and the edibles are watered.
• An attractive dry-stacked stone retaining wall borders the driveway.
• The back garden contains a variety of fruit trees, including mulberry, apple, fig, lemon, and productive vegetable beds.
Gardening for Wildlife
Milkweed was planted for the monarch butterflies: this is the only plant this threatened species can lay its eggs on. Native bees adore the rosy buckwheat.
Keystone species (watch this talk by Doug Tallamy!)
Keystone species—our own, local ecological powerhouse plants— in this garden include pink flowering currant, manzanita, and buckwheat.
Green Home Features
Solar panels reduce the PG&E bill, and power the electric vehicle.
At least partially wheelchair accessible? No
Parking will be tight: be prepared to walk a block or two.
Photos
Click to see as a slideshow:
