I greeted this as good news and hoped that her garden will inspire others who wander through it this spring .
Over the years my friend has collected and placed some really wonderful sculptural art pieces in her garden. She and her husband both have great senses of humor and express their love for life in their home and garden.
The garden is pretty large. I’m not exactly sure of the square footage but if I were to guess I would say that they have about 1.5 acres or so.
Here are a few little snippets :
The front entry water feature sculpted by Edwin Hamilton - unfortunately the fountain was shut off and I didn’t want to take it upon my self to turn it on.
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
Walking past the fountain there is a set of stone steps leading to the lower side yard garden.
This is one of two ‘Twirlly’ type sculptures in the garden, both are wind powered.
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
On the opposite side of the house is a storage shed and an adjoining overhead pergola.
This was designed 2 years ago to support a couple dozen solar panels.
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
The same time that I designed the solar panel pergola I also worked on a new built in BBQ area.
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
Another view of it :
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
There are two terrace levels of dining and entertaining.
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
Directly across from the cozy conversation area is a hammock .
The jasmine was just starting to bloom and was incredibly fragrant.
Wouldn’t you just love to take a nap here ?
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
There is a large horse shoe shaped pathway that leads to the other gardens.
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
In the main perennial and shrub garden is the second kinetic sculpture :
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
Off of the path is the hot tub area. It overlooks the San Francisco Bay .
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
There is a shower set into the hedge border :
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
There is also a decent size vegetable garden and a small orchard.
It is located behind a pineapple guava hedge:
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| From Atop of Mt. Tamalpias |
Well that’s about it for now.
I hope to post a few more photos of this garden during the spring garden tour.
Happy Winter Gardening.
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4 comments:
Wow what a great garden. I especially loved the hammock pergola - gonna have to steal that idea for my own country garden - maybe even before the house itself gets built!
Christopher/Toronto
There are treasures at every turn in this landscape Michelle. Your friends must be very proud of this living work of art.
I absolutely love the "solar panel" pergola and was just talking about designing one the other day. It's a great way to work solar panels into the architecture without having to look at them (not very good looking). Functional, practical and a genius way to utilize them!
You are da bomb as always.
Shirley
Hi Christopher and Shirley,
Thanks for dropping in.
I was pretty excited when my friends called me to design an arbor for their solar panels.
The location was a given but making the space work under the panels was a bit challenging.
I thought it was going to be really really dark under the solar panel covered pergola but it's not too bad.
Actually it turned out to be a pretty nice space after all. The area underneath stays dry because we installed a clear plexi-glass ceiling ontop of the pergola .
The area underneath supports a generous sized work bench, a permeable dry lay flagstone patio and some planting beds ( ferns, fuchias, geraniums)
This property can be pretty windy at times ( sits on top of Mt. Tam just over the hill from the beach ) but the area under the solar panel pergola stay pretty wind free and comfortable.
Thanks for sharing these examples of your outstanding work. Their outdoor art collection beautifully complements what you have created. Nice job!
Jon at Mississippi Garden
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