Our Living Breathing Space
My husband Phil and I bought our first home in a cozy and light filled 1910 early craftsman in West Alameda in 2010. We spent our time and energy the first year focused on the interior - painting and furnishing. Our backyard was largely neglected for many years. It consisted of a bricked patio with a path bordered by thorny rose bushes, a Meyer lemon tree, and a 35 foot tall birch tree.
The first time we became curious about gardening is when we visited Flora Grubb in the SF Dogpatch area. I had been utterly blown away. I had never conceptualized that plants could make an outdoor space. I also happened to have sat on a warm 95 degree heated Galanter & Jones Helios Bench. As a last moment splurge before leaving my Sales Ops job at Linkedin in 2013, I bought a white Helios for our bricked patio. With this purchase, we envisioned many nights on our glorious hot bench toasting our buns. This was the starting point to creating our space in the backyard.
One faithful day in 2016, Phil took liberty to take down the legacy rose bushes. We had agreed that the lemon tree and birch tree would stay. He planned to make a gravel path and plant easy “business park” plants. As I saw the blank canvas -- my brain went wild with questions.
I saw it as an opportunity to create different spaces in our narrow little backyard. We already had a seating area in our bricked patio -- could we actually have a spot to sit and enjoy a meal? How did we make the most of a small space? Was there a way to introduce a clean modern feel? How could we work with the existing lemon tree and birch tree? Could we avoid growing flowers? Did we need an irrigation system? Was there a way to pick some prehistoric looking plants?
Things came together very slowly - we put down some weed block and we borrowed my brother’s Nissan Pathfinder and took 3 round trips to Richmond’s American Soil hauling heavy bags of gravel from American Soil. We took a trip to LA looking for succulents.
Back to Flora Grubb - we bought 4 sets of Japanese Plum Yews in large grey fibre clay pots to give it a modern edge. We sequenced them along our fence to help us establish order to our yard. We decided to buy a modern CB2 shaped fibre clay round table towards the back of the yard. Ahh - the destination. At the very back, we grew speckled Pitasporum trees to help the eye travel to the back of the yard. On the side of our lemon tree - we decided to get creative with planting succulents, and woodland greens.
We have killed 10 plants in the making. We have managed to kill 3 plants in the same spot -- which we endearingly call the death zone. Fortunately, we have managed to keep 17 plants alive. Coming out ahead! Still learning and not too discouraged, we are planning to work keep adding plants and work on our front yard. I have total respect for landscape architects and gardeners. There is something lovely and magical about planning and designing a living space.
Here are some common sense tips that took us some time to amass in the process:
If you see a plant you really like -- you might want to find out if it is regularly stocked - if it is rare - pull the trigger! We have noticed that some plants come and go and don’t come back.
Make note how often direct/indirect light comes in an area where you plan on planting. Choose plants that will thrive accordingly. We made the mistake of planting a fern in a spot that had a lot of afternoon sun.
Be sure to get an idea of the full size of the plant through search. There have been countless times that I have been attracted to certain plants only to find that the adult form has flowers and/or is a bit unruly.
Make sure water is draining into the plant and not away. We killed 3 pittosporum trees as the water wicked away from the roots. Creating a moat around trees helps to ensure the water was actually going into the roots.
Prune your plants from time to time to create new life. It is best to prune the branch right above a notch (aka node) so new life can take form. Get rid of the dead parts of the tree to make space for new life.