52 Portland Nursery
March 7, 2022
54 Anderson’s La Costa Nursery
April 1, 2022
Be Inspired! Be Gutsy!
I f you live in California, spring sprang a few months ago. I started sweating first of January doing a landscape install. At least I was being productive while sweating—not just standing still and sweating like in summer. But overactive glands be damned, my mission in life is to beautify one garden after another until I drop. To anyone on a mission to beautify even a single garden, my advice is this: Be inspired and be gutsy!
With inspiration and guts I can take a clean slate like this…
…and transform it into…
Which, just ONE YEAR later, looks like this…
Beauty! This client is a gardener who asked for flowers galore and wanted to be able to putz around in the garden as a way to de-stress.
So tell me…would this help you de-stress?
It’s easy to get this level of growth in just one year. It’s all about soil, irrigation and mulch.
If you know these basics and understand a bit about plants and growing conditions, I encourage you to beautify or transform your own yard. Look around to get inspired and then get gutsy and just do it!
After meeting with a new client, and before starting the actual design process, I just let ideas and visions for the space swirl around in my head. I do this for a few days before I start putting anything on paper.
One time I tried skipping the swirly part and went straight to paper. Nope. Designer’s block! Never again.
Actually I get my best ideas in the shower. But the minute I get out, it’s like CRS (can’t remember shit). So back in the shower I go!
Sometimes I inspire my inner designer by strolling through nice neighborhoods and checking out people’s front yards. Sometimes I “ooh” and “aah.” Other times it’s “Oh what were you thinking!?“
I’d like to check out people’s backyards too, except they would wonder “What is that woman doing on my property?” and have me arrested for sweaty trespassing.
Here’s my daughter’s front and back yards. She’s so lucky to have me for a mom.
Haha! When grandson, Hunter, is in view of the camera, don’t expect to see much of the landscape!
One day I was taking a walk with Hunter through a neighborhood and critiquing front yards for him (so he learns young). I was wearing a sun hat with a large brim and couldn’t see much above eye level.
We came to a yard with raised tiers along the sidewalk, about 2-feet deep and 6-feet long. I stopped and said to Hunter, “Now look at this Hunter. What IDIOT would put a 30-foot Persimmon tree in a 2 by 6-foot space, and up against a sidewalk!?”
He didn’t respond other than his usual (and literal) “blah blah blah.” But someone else did.
“Hi!” I heard and pushed my hat up to see who said it. A couple was sitting right there on the porch. OMG! I let out a very kind “Good afternoon!” as Hunter and I hurried off.
Frankly, I think that couple should have stopped me and asked what I would have done differently in their yard. I mean, free advice! I give it away ALL the time. I call you an idiot, you should thank me to tell you why. LOL! I can be VERY inspiring.
In fact, here is a favorite design/install of mine for you to get inspired by. Instead of boring lawn with prissy little flower beds along a fence line, think big. Think real plants!
These could be YOUR before, and one-year-after pics…
One easy way to add beauty is to create an entry into a garden area. Here’s one of mine—before and after grandkids.
You can see that my grandkids arrival has lowered my standards. Really, how many construction toys does one child need to mine for gold?! And my garden cart, hijacked and utilized for childish purposes!
Do you want to make changes to your yard? Be gutsy and go for BIG change.
I had some lady clients ask me for a makeover of this part of their property…
They wanted a new designated veggie and flower garden that would be safe from the damn deer devouring it.
We went for big change and ripped out trees and shrubs. We moved established plants and installed new ones. We relocated the galvanized containers and added an arbor as an entrance into the garden.
I love being hired to take a 20-year-old property and giving it new life. In the world of landscaping, this will always be my niche.
It has even happened that, a couple years after another landscaper does an install, I get hired to come in and rip it out and do my thing that makes it actually beautiful, stays beautiful and is easier to maintain.
The veggie garden ladies liked my work so much, a year later they hired me to fluff up their succulent garden. Here’s the before…
Again, my approach was to reposition plants and install new ones. I shifted boulders and garden art. I added 3/8-inch Sonoma Gold as mulch and 3/8-inch Black Lava rock to create a defined pathway that’s safe for the ladies to walk without rolling off the cliff.
So much better, don’t you think?
You gotta’ be gutsy and move stuff around or rip stuff out that’s not working—even if you’re not sure how you want to replace it yet. Once it’s out of there, you’ll have a clearer view of the possibilities. Ideas and visions will start swirling in your head.
Get imaginative. Think outside your comfortable boxes. Get inspired by driving through classy neighborhoods, visiting nurseries and public gardens, searching online, and…TAKING A CLASS!
Because, guess what? I teach a few public classes for FREE as an El Dorado County Master Gardener.
My “Back to Basics” class is coming up on March 26 from 9am to noon at the El Dorado Hills Library. We start with soil, end with mulch and cover everything in between.
I’ll also be teaching a class on irrigation with a fellow Master Gardener on April 9 at the Sherwood Demonstration Garden in Placerville—also 9am to noon. It’s an excellent class with hands-on demonstrations.
No sign-ups needed. Love to see you there!
