Garden Designers Roundtable: Celebrating Regional Diversity – Silicon Valley style!

This month’s Garden Designers Roundtable topic is “Celebrating Regional Diversity”.

I LOVE this topic – embracing that which makes each of our regions unique and how we celebrate it through garden design.

My client base is in Northern California’s ‘Silicon Valley’ – an area typically defined as stretching from San Francisco down to San Jose.

With Silicon Valley’s top ethnic cultures now consisting of  Hispanic, Indian and Asian, you can be certain you’re going see every conceivable garden style here – quite often all on one humble, residential street.

In fact, my very first client was an older woman from a small provence in China who wanted me to create a garden for her that reminded her of ‘home’.  A garden complete with little white Christmas lights placed at the far end of her garden, so when looking out her kitchen window she would be reminded of the distant village lights of her past.

Many of my clients are from the Middle East and India – where great importance is placed on planting fruit trees and edibles throughout both the front and back gardens (whereas in the past, typical American gardeners kept edibles strictly confined to a designated ‘out of the way’ spot in the back garden).

One of my recent clients is from Jerusalem.  She wanted to create a very specific cactus garden within her main garden, in memory of her father’s gravesite ‘back home’, where many of his favorite cactus were planted.

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I think it’s wonderful when a client wants to create a garden which reminds them of ‘home’, wherever their home may have been…be it India, China, Jerusalem or even when it’s one of our own Eastern States.

However, it’s a fine balancing act creating a garden which respects both culture and climate.  California’s Number One resource challenge is it’s limited water supply.  We’ve been in a drought for several years now with no end in sight.  We receive very little (if any) Summer rainfall, so outside of Winter our gardens rely solely on supplemental watering.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that people here (especially those from other countries) are becoming more and more aware of respecting our resources and of the importance of gardening within those confines.

I’ve noticed that these ‘New Californians’ rarely come to me wanting to install huge water-guzzling lawns but are usually open to alternatives such as smaller lawns, or a meadow consisting of drought-tolerant grasses.

I always try and be as flexible as possible when a client tells me their ‘wish list’.  It really goes against my nature to tell someone what they can and cannot have.

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You want a Mediterranean Garden? You got it.

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Is it a Succulent Garden you desire? You got it.

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You want only topiaries?

You got it.

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(No – I didn’t design this garden, but they’re prolific in this area – especially in San Francisco-  and I really respect the people who create them.  Many years ago when I lived in San Francisco, I loved watching the older Japanese men who took such pride in carefully manicuring their ‘babies’).

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Is it an English Garden you desire?

One that’s lush and green, complete with peonies, hostas and other non-stop flowering borders? Perhaps surrounded by a giant lawn?

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It’s here we begin to have a problem.

As I stated earlier, I’m not one to say a person can’t have what they want, but instead I try and show them ways they can get a similar look while gardening within our state’s climate.

For example, instead of installing that huge, sweeping wall-to-wall lawn I might suggest a drought-tolerant meadow.

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Do you love the beautiful lilacs that prolifically bloom back East?  Well..our warmer temperatures make it a little difficult, so I’d recommend a Vitex agnus-castus (Chaste Tree) – a shrub that loves our hot and dry climate and it blooms for months at a time…

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And if you MUST have a lilac, then I’d recommend the variety ‘Miss Kim’, as it seems to do fairly well with our warmer weather and you can still get that wonderful lilac scent…

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Most everyone loves Hostas and wants them planted in their garden…but what they don’t realize is that due to our abundant ravenous snails and slugs, your Hosta will end up looking like it went through a paper shredder.  Instead, if it’s the large, lime green leaves you love, consider a Bergenia ‘Lunar Glow’ (snails don’t seem to like Bergenia, they grow in the sun or shade and they’re not water-thirsty!)

I once had a client from the Midwest who just had to have a ‘Pinxter Azalea’ (I had never even heard of this plant!)  Unfortunately they don’t grow in our mild climate (plus they’re thirsty plants), so I suggested a native Ribes sanguineum as a substitute (which the client loved just as much).

It’s the substitution of  regionally-appropriate plants like these which can achieve a look that may be ‘regionally-inappropriate’.  I  use the term “California Fusion” when describing this garden design style.

What is California-Fusion?   It’s blending whatever style the client desires with regionally appropriate plants.  It’s having a garden that’s appropriate for our climate – a garden which is drought tolerant and can withstand our long dry summers, but doesn’t necessarily end up looking ‘desert-y’ (a term I’ve heard from so many people who seem to think that’s what a drought-tolerant garden will resemble).  I don’t think the photos below look ‘desert-y’ at all, do you?

You see, you can achieve a lush, dense and layered garden by using a combination of grasses, native plants and those which look ’delicate’ but are actually tough as nails.  With stunning results, too.  Some of the plants above which are my standard ‘work-horses’ are:  Manzanita ‘Howard McMinn’, Correa pulchella, Euonymous ‘Emerald Gaity’, Balotta, Euphorbia wulfenii, Foxtail Fern, Philadelphus ‘Belle Etoile’, Anigozanthos ‘Harmony’ and many types of succulents.

When a combination of these types of plants are used, a garden can be absolutely beautiful – filled with color, texture, fragrance and year-round beauty.  And with a little creativity the client gets exactly what they wanted…and at the end of the day, isn’t that what they’re hiring us to do?

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Please make sure you read my fellow Roundtabler’s own perspectives on this topic.  And if you have your own perspective on celebrating regional design in YOUR area, please join in – it’d be great to hear from folks everywhere!

 

Scott Hokunson – Blue Heron Landscapes

Susan Cohan – Susan Cohan Gardens

Susan Morrison – Blue Plant Garden

Ivette Stohler – The Germinatrix

Laura Schaub – Schaub Designs Fine Gardens

Michelle Derviss- Michelle Derviss Landscape Design

Genevieve Schmidt –  North Coast Gardening

Dan Eskelson- Clearwater Landscapes

Pam Penick – Penick Landscape Design

Tara Dillard –  Landscape Design Decorating Styling

Jocelyn Chilver –  The Art Garden

Susan Schlenger -Susan Schlenger Landscape Design

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