100 Northwest Garden Nursery
July 17, 2024
102 Notable Nurseries, Episode 1
January 17, 2025
Pots Make a Makeover
M y readers know how much I “dig” container gardening. Can’t say it enough: I L.O.V.E. POTS!!!!!!
And, omigosh, did I get “pot-lucky” recently when a lovely couple who bought a 30-year-old house asked me to give their backyard a landscape makeover.
While chit-chatting about what sort of makeover they wanted, of course low maintenance came up, and they mentioned a preference for Mediterranean plants and colors. Very doable, I thought. Been there, done that well.
Then I heard words that gave me a boost of excitement: “We want colorful pots everywhere!” (Why can’t all my clients be this smart?)
And they added, “When the makeover’s done, we want to get married in our new backyard!”
A makeover with POTS and a WEDDING. Now my creativity was doing a waltz!
Since I’m not one to keep her genius ideas to herself, I gave them some creative “suggestions” which of course had them waltzing right along with me. (Who wouldn’t!?)
This chit-chat took place in front of the house before I’d seen the backyard. When we opened the side gate to walk through, I stopped and went speechless, which happens whenever I see either great beauty or great stupidity. Want to know which this was?
The “before” photos speak for themselves, but I’ll add some choice words about the stupidity. Then I’ll show and tell how the makeover brought the beauty.
Who in the hell installs 5 apples trees in a 33-foot by 9-foot side yard!? In a narrow 2-and-a-half-foot-wide bed against a failing fence!? And thinking it was a good idea????
It was NOT a good idea.
How did I bring beauty? Me and my crew ripped out those apple trees of course. In their place we installed Miscanthus sinenesis ‘Gracillimus’ and Agapanthus orientalis ‘Black Pantha’.
I took that photo during our excessive June heat wave which fried the tops of the Agapanthus leaves and flowers. But they will recover in cooler weather. Trust me.
Ready for more stupidity? (Gawd, I hope the previous owners of the place don’t read this….)
Who in the hell jams 5 Redwood trees and a Bradford Pear in a 12 by 12-foot corner of a fence?! The trees were so smushed together I didn’t know there were 6 until I got in the middle of them and noticed some itty-bitty trunks struggling behind larger ones.
Good lord, people! Get more expert advice before torturing living things with dumb ideas!
Now the beauty…
What a difference this collection of blue pots makes!
After we removed those trees I saw the neighbor’s trees still created enough shade to install shade plants in the pots. Evergreen perennials went in with Hellebores, Heucheras and Trailing Geranium. Also a Mediterranean Palm which will receive enough filtered sun to be happy there.
Now, can you tell what’s stupid in this next “before” photo?…
Okay, I’ll tell you.
Who in the hell installs a plum tree 3-feet upslope from a swimming pool so that it’s branches hang over and drop plums into the water?!
After picking a few plums, we tore out that tree along with everything else behind the pool and in the remaining yard.
What looked like this before….
Now looks like this…
To create more footage for the new sitting area, we took out the old keystone retaining wall and pushed the rest of the yard towards the back fence.
Due to a smaller budget than everyone wished for, we had to leave that existing concrete “as is.” The new sitting area presented the design challenge of making new materials look okay with existing concrete.
So here’s a tip for trying to match new product to old concrete:
Don’t.
Instead, go with the complete opposite in product and color.
I chose pavers with a bold color pattern and retaining blocks to compliment. The color is not for everyone, but of course I don’t care what others think. It’s not for them or me, but my clients. And they love it.
Here’s the new upper corner of the seating area and a view along that side fence…
Behind the pool where the plum tree and overgrown plants were, I installed beautiful cobalt blue pots to match newly installed pool tile.
Now about all the pots in this makeover…
When I shop at Pottery World in Rocklin, I always cruise the sale strip first. This time I found 2 humongous cobalt blue pots for $200 each that were originally $600. I found more blue pots on nursery trips with AP.
I bought the terra cotta pots at Cottage Gardens during a February sale this year.
In total, I spent a budget of $3000 for pots. Gawd its fun spending other peoples’ money!
The pots really do make this makeover work. They meet the client’s requirements and went beyond expectations. Besides, after tearing out all the trees and plants, the ground had so many roots it would have been impossible to remove them for new plants to be installed. (Have you ever tried digging a hole in Redwood roots?!) Pots are the answer to so many challenges.
In the course of this install, as sometimes happens, the clients made an unexpected request. They brought out a bag of tiles—replicas from an old church—and asked me, “Will you do something with these?”
Good Lord. A bag of tiles. Think, think, think! The clients wanted them outdoors, so I needed an application that could withstand hot and cold weather. Most importantly, the application must not damage the treasured tiles.
My first idea was to make a landing outside the sliding glass doors. But I laid them out there and thought, “Nope…don’t like.”
Finally I decided to set the tiles in a picture frame of beautiful hardwood and hang it on the newly painted fence. But how exactly to engineer that?
Oh, Miiiiike………
It got done but turned out to be a huge learning process, and that’s ALL I’m going to say about it.
A month after we completed the makeover, I received a phone call. The soon-to-be-groom asked if I would be their wedding planner!
I felt so honored to be asked I had to say yes, but “let’s be clear,” I told him. “I AM NOT A WEDDING PLANNER except for my daughter’s wedding, and she did everything herself. I just owned the checkbook.”
I have revamped 4 other landscapes for weddings but never imagined in a million years that I would be asked to plan any wedding. Clearly, this would be my one-and-only.
During the wedding preparation, I enlisted my husband again to help string 3 rows of outdoor lighting to set a romantic mood and so that guests could see what they were eating for dinner.
And how did the light-stringing go? Let’s just say we should have first drawn a diagram to and from the outlet around the corner of the house and out to the arbor over the tile.
But no, we chose to wing it. How difficult could stringing lights be?
Here we were, an “old married couple” (38 years) working together—not at home where there’s enough surrounding acreage that words can just “let fly”…if you get my meaning.
No, this was in the backyard of a house with the clients watching and in a subdivision of other houses and people near enough that I had to remind Mike to be quiet and be nice.
OMG it was hilarious seeing him try to hold back all the words he wanted to say, but with a mood and a face that said everything!!
By the 4th attempt to string the lights to my liking (so that the connection plugs were not smack dab in the middle of a run), Mike, who hates tedious chores, informed me “never again.”
With lights in place, I must say—other than my own wedding—it was the most beautifully casual and intimate wedding I have been to.
Readers, I hope a peek into this backyard makeover shows what’s possible with creative imagination. And also the potential beauty and magic of pots in any landscape.
There’s still time before cold weather sets in. Go out and get you a colorful pot, or three, and see what they can make of some spot of yours that needs more beauty.
You’ll see…
