Tackling the renovation of a garden is a daunting task. To start one peels back the layers of grass and debris and tries to determine what the original idea was and plan. There is always a method to the madness and we have spent a few years in discovery.
It seems at different points in time over the last 50 years the garden had various purpose and was beautifully designed by someone with a grand vision. We have found ourselves trying to figure out what they were thinking.
One can work out that the Gardens were built in phases. The oldest parts of the gardens were lovingly built with formal bones and a overall design in mind. Most of the gardens were designed initially so they could survive the dry hot summers here with little or no watering (think old tough foundation plants like Italian cypress, walls that shaded the roots and cisterns). Over time the gardens were changed a little here and there, irrigation pipe and faucets added for a vegetable garden that in turn replaced a formal garden. And then, eventually, it was all abandoned and garden fences opened here and there so cows could graze right through the yards and gardens. This saved weeding i suppose when the place was semi empty.
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| Adding new Fruit Trees onto the Terrace Orchard |
In the oldest formal structure, layout and 'bones' there are starts and stops on things. Clearly there was an old pool, a set of orchard terraces, a beautiful parapet garden that had been formal at one point. But there is also an unfinished formal walk, a tea house that was turned into a chicken coop? And a formal garden that became? a vegetable garden? then an orchard? It is a wondrous journey.
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| The Parapet Garden |
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| The long Walk garden (originally formal and planted it has been pasture for decades) The Parapet Garden and Pool garden are on the downhill side of the wall |
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Relaying and restoring the patio by the pool
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| The pool is Old California Colonial at its best. |
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| We always sense the Angels around us |
