Planting a Small Garden Tightly

This garden has three different faces or attitudes and all packed into a small 10 x 20 foot space.   The five round Pittosporum 'Golf Ball' really hold the mess together and help differentiate the three views.

Arts and Crafts Garden

I planted this garden in 2013.  I was going for a cottage garden that would be equitable to the architecture.   I've been back regularly 2 or 3 times a year.  Today I sheared the pittosporums globes, weeded and added a few new recruits.  We'll see who survives.

Eureka Valley Roof Deck

Refreshing a pot on a roof deck I installed a few years ago.

Kitchen Deck Revival

A rainy day is a great time to write a new post.  Over the last three months I have been working on three new projects.  The first is a revival of a container deck planting I installed over 10 years ago. Here I replaced the aging containers and tired plants surrounding this kitchen garden.   The small 24" fiberclay containers were crumbling.  I designed a 30" box made of galvanized steel and locally fabricated by NuStar on Otis.

Retarding a Vigorous Street Tree

Chinese Elm (Ulmus parvifolia) grows to 10–18 m tall and 15–20 m wide in ideal conditions. It's tough being a street tree but U. parvifolia is vigorous and resilient in San Francisco. This one in Noe Valley must have a low water table. It is never irrigated but is lush. I prune this tree ever 6-9 months. Essentially this is a extremely large bonsia. The soil in the tree basins act more like large containers then expanses of live soil.

Ready for a trim. After 5 hours of pruning and two dump runs:

Vicksburg Terraced Dry Garden

Gertrude Jekyll and her garden at Hestercombe was my inspiration for this garden design. I picked mostly Mediterranean plants and laid them out in drifts. Silver plants, seed heads, yellow & purple, I wanted lots of hot colors along with the cool lavenders and blues. 

Eureka Valley Deck Planting

Blending this planting into the San Francisco skyline.

Richmond Kitchen Deck Garden

MUG Design: Ginkgos, Cedars, Podocarpus, Maples and Jasmine all in large containers; A mix of large asian ceramics and square slate fiberglass containers.