APLD ~ APLD Members ~ Member of the Month

APLD Members ~ Member of the Month

Deanna Glory, APLD - A MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN

Fountain Simon and Lisa are a young couple living in San Francisco's Noe Valley district. Simon is from Australia and Lisa is from the SF Bay Area and both wanted a Mediterranean garden. Simon also wanted to incorporate a few Australian natives. As luck would have it, parts of both Australia and California have Mediterranean climates; so many plants grown here in California also thrive in Australia, and vice versa. The clients had just purchased this home and the backyard was full of nothing but weeds and an old rotting fence. Not only did they want a beautiful garden, Lisa wanted "bold, bright, Matisse style colors". The main purpose of the new garden was for viewing from the main living area three stories above and for entertaining parties of 15-20 people. The lot is 25' wide by 60' deep and slopes down from the house. The rise from the bottom of the lot up to the bottom floor of the house is approximately 9 feet.

The client did not want to invest in too many terraces and stairs to get down to the bottom of the lot, so we created a path of gold fines dg (decomposed granite) and salmon bay gravel. The path winds it's way down and through the garden of lavenders, salvias, rosemary and lion's tail (Leonotus leonorus). Although not necessarily considered Mediterranean plants, Euphorbia characias wulfenii, razzleberri (Loropetalum chinense), and Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuifolium) were used to add texture, color and movement. The winding path brings you to the entrance of the patio/entertaining area at the bottom of the lot.

Path Because the garden is to be viewed from the main living area three stories above, the focal point needed to be at the correct scale, which is to say it had to be large. We choose to design a custom 5' water feature made of poured concrete and installed it into the rear seat wall of the new patio. The patio, also made of poured concrete is 15' x 15' and has seat walls around its perimeter to accommodate the client's entertainment needs. Both the patio and the seat walls are faced with tumbled CA waterwash flagstone. To give the patio and fountain an old world Mediterranean look, we left the rough impressions made by the wooden frames and stained all the vertical surfaces of the concrete a mild ochre color. In a recent trip to Italy, the client purchased 3' tiles of a traditional yellow, blue and green pattern and wanted to incorporate them into the garden. We used them as the backdrop on the fountain backsplash, and then mounted a lion's head waterspout and decorative basin.

Steps Six steps are needed to descend into the patio area and gives a feeling of entering an outdoor sunken entertainment room. The steps are flanked with two potted 'Majestic Beauty' olive trees. Honeysuckle and potted citrus was added around the patio for fragrance. To obtain the "Matisse style colors" we added orange clock vine (Thunbergia gregorii), passion flower (passiflora edulis), crocosmia crocosmiiflora, princess flower (Tibouchina urvilliana) and various brightly colored salvias and geraniums. A few of the Australian natives that were used were Banksia prionotes, wooly bush (Adenanthos sericea), Myoporum parvifolium, and a Happy Wanderer vine (Hardenbergia violacea).

The clients love strolling through their garden and down into the patio area where they've spent many days and evenings entertaining their friends and family. They also enjoy listening to the water falling from the lion's head waterspout and gazing back up into their beautiful and colorful garden.

DEANNA GLORY, APLD is an award winning landscape designer based in SF, CA. She works in the entire SF Bay Area and specializes in creating outdoor spaces that compliment the quality of the client's home and personality. You can see more of Deanna's work at www.glorydesign.com

Certified Members seeking to be profiled should send before and after photos with SHORT design intent statement to:

Bethany Dennis
APLD Communications Manager
Email: communications@apld.org
Phone: 717-238-9780

* PHOTOS SHOULD BE CLEAR COLOR PRINTS OR JPEG COMPRESSED FILES