Part 1 of the East Bay Tour

On a very sunny July 24, 2010 the Garden Conservancy held its East Bay Open Garden day.

On display were 5 wonderful gardens that inspired garden goers to new heights.

The garden of Sherry Merciari in Oakland is a perennial favorite of seasoned horticulturists who are in the know about this big bold exotic and at times, erotic garden.
Sherry has been creating horticultural works of art in the Bay area for over 25 years and is highly respected by her peers and loved by her clients.
Together with her son Fred, their design and build company Merciari Designs , has hand crafted some of the most emotionally personal gardens in the East Bay area.

Using recycled broken concrete, a retaining wall supports a bevy of beauties along the front driveway entrance.

From 2010 East Bay Garden Tour

The inner courtyard

From 2010 East Bay Garden Tour

Strong sunlight ignites a patch of Oxalis vulcanicola

From 2010 East Bay Garden Tour

The old lawn by the pool has been removed and in its place is an inviting lounge area complete with Fred Fintstone lounge boulders and a new Carex pansa groundcover

From 2010 East Bay Garden Tour

At the far end of the pool a Jacaranda tree is in bloom along with a grove of ceramic pole sculptures by Marcia Donahue.

From 2010 East Bay Garden Tour

From 2010 East Bay Garden Tour

A Bromeliad ( Alcanthera I believe ) in a pot with a bronze Oxalis. More of Marcia Donahue’s sculptures in the ( over exposed ) background

From 2010 East Bay Garden Tour

Fun attention to details throughout the garden

From 2010 East Bay Garden Tour

The second garden that thrilled us was right around the corner. It was designed and handcrafted by Alonza Hill.
His company Stone N Gardens has a nice website with beautiful photographs that does his garden justice
Please visit it for some sumptuous inspiration : http://www.stonengardens.com/Home.html

From 2010 East Bay Garden Tour

Meandering along the arroyo seco

From 2010 East Bay Garden Tour

My apologies for the overly exposed photography. It was an incredibly sunny day at high noon when I toured this slice of paradise.
I must return at a proper time of day to photograph.

From 2010 East Bay Garden Tour

The S.F. Bromeliad Society does it again.... Great tour !

The San Francisco Bromeliad Society held their annual garden tour this past weekend for the 2010 season.

We were treated to 4 very different and diverse gardens in Marin County.

Our first stop was to Don Worth’s Palm Garden in Mill Valley.
One of the nicest features about this beautifully planted old garden is the professional quality name plates with the date that the palm / cycad/ or specimen plant was planted.
Many of the palm trees were over 60 years old.

Palms and Puya line the modestly steep driveway.

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

A silver Puya

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

The interior courtyard succulent garden

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

Beautiful epiphytes on fantastic mounts.

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

The path leading back down to the street

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

At our second location high up on the side of Mt. Tamalpias was a beautifully maintained formal styled garden with a liberal sprinkling of sculptures placed throughout.

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

The third garden was a neat little urban grit oasis. I wasn’t able to catch any photo in the extremely bright light to do the small garden justice.

I was extremely excited to see the last garden on the tour. It was designed by its owner Tom Henthrone, a garden designer here in Marin.
Beautiful plants paired together in harmonious plant combinations delighted the eye at every twist and turn along the meandering paths.
Everything flowed seamlessly into one another on this steep undulating hillside.


This first photo , from Toms website, was taken by professional photographer Jay Graham. It really does the garden justice, unlike my my full hot sun blaring photos.

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

Lots of great sculptures brought back from Bali and placed beautifully in the garden.

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

Loved the variegated Echium.

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

And the lower path ( photo Jay Graham)

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

And as always, we had a culinary pot luck feast at the last garden that was beyond deliciious!

From S.F. bromeliad society tour 2010

Marin Hillside Deck Development

Another 2 weeks and the ipe deck boards will be put on the joists and the arbor will be completed.
The stone work is all done.
Planting starts next week and soon the pool will be plastered with a terrazzo like finish called pebble sheen.

View from below the deck.

From Smith Project

Rietveld meets the Andirondack - take a seat.

An icon of 20th century design, The Rietveld chair , 1917, painted with its Piet Mondrian color scheme of blue and red was never mass produced though that was the intention of Dutch architect Garrit Rietveld when he designed it.
I think he would be pleased with how his design has been reinterpreted in the 21st century.

LInk : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrit_Rietveld

LInk : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adirondack_chair

This collaborative project is nowhere near complete, but the furniture has arrived that inspired this post :

From Rietveld rediscovered.

From Rietveld rediscovered.

From Rietveld rediscovered.

Intimate Spaces in the Landscape + The WOW factor

Several weeks ago the Gardeners RoundTable group wrote on the subject of small space gardens.

I was particularly impressed with the informative article that Susan Morrison wrote.
She succinctly described some important design strategies that can bring a sense of fullness to a small space. LINK http://garden-chick.typepad.com/garden_chicks_design_tips/2010/06/garden-designers-roundtable-small-space-design.html

A topic not covered , that I think that can bring exciting relevance to a small space is ‘The Wow Factor”.
If the space is small and you want to bring a sense of awe to the space installing a “Wow” centerpiece is a dynamic way to infuse emotion and excitement into a small space.

The photo below shows an installation we did in late 2008.
It is a very small roof top balcony located off the plaza level in a high rise building in down town San Francisco.
Wind, lighting directions, weight load, noise levels and their impact on the surrounding home owners was a big factor to mediate and negotiate with the HOA and engineering dept.

Our Wow factor was a simple stucco box niche with a place for a Buddha.
Our client is a practising Buddhist from Korea. In seeking out just the right Buddha for the niche we discovered through discussion that her recently deceased mother had a beautiful Buddha in her garden back in Korea. We thought that having this Buddha would be the most heartfelt expression of love in the garden and so my client had the Buddha shipped out to S.F.

As you can see our Wow Factor is not brightly colored or over the top flashy.
It is simple yet present.
It’s what I would call a Zen Wow.

From Water fountains in the landscape

From Water fountains in the landscape

From Water fountains in the landscape

Lightweight Aluminium powder coated planters from Ore Sculpture Studios planted with Alphonse Kar bamboo.

Recessed rope lighting in the teak wood top cap illuminates the box at night

A simple stone Balinese basin with a low noise level water bubbler.

New paint on the existing stucco walls and new tile on the patio floor.

No swimming for the 4th of July

We had optimistically projected that this installation would be completed for the 4th of July weekend.
But with several changes , additions and deletions the construction process was slowed down.
We hope to be done in 3 weeks for the hottest days of summer.

Pool shell

From Smith Project

Interior of pool - with a long bench seat and wading shelf

From Smith Project

Framing of deck, arbor and recessed spa platform -

From Smith Project

Fantastic views out across the San Francisco Bay

From Smith Project

Detail of the stone flat work and hand shaped Bluestone coping before grouting

From Smith Project

A few more weeks....... and then we can take a dip in the pool and lounge on the deck overlooking the bay.