By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer
Some photos from a garden designed by Santa Barbara landscape
architect Owen Dell resurfaced recently. We all loved the
garden, thought it looked familiar, and wondered why we'd never photographed it for the magazine. Then it all came back to us. We'd tried once. The garden seen here, we remembered, was actually
one of the winners in our 2004-2005 Western Garden Design Awards. And
we assigned a photographer to shoot it. But, unfortunately, just before he arrived a pest control company sprayed some of the bushes with herbicides instead of the organic pesticide that was ordered, and the garden now had brown shrubs instead of green. The shrubs recovered but not in time for us to photograph the garden for the Design Awards issue. And then the garden slipped off our radar.
But it's not too late to honor it now. Especially since the garden seems even more fresh and "green" and timely then it did when it won the award.
What we especially like about this landscape is all the ways it honors the small wetlands preserve in the center of this tract. The most obvious connection is the meadow made up of a native California sedge (Carex praegracilis) that fills most of the center of the garden. C. praegracilis looks wetter and wilder than turf and requires a lot less water and maintenance. You can mow it occasionally if you feel so compelled or leave it shaggily romantic as seen here. Carex isn't as chemically dependent as turf either, which was an important consideration in this project as Dell didn't want any fertilizer runoff contaminating the wetlands.
We also liked the pockets of wildflowers -- scarlet flax, California poppies, yellow columbine -- tucked in here and there amidst the carex which enhance the romance.
We loved that pair of concrete walls, too. They add architectural interest to the garden. With their deliberately rough texture and different strata of colors, they relate to the mountains in the distance, and, best of all, they hide a secret. On the far side of the larger wall, there's a hidden seating area -- perfect for contemplating nature.
In fact, the more I look at this garden, the more I think we need to go back and take another look. What do you think?
***
For another example of a meadow, see this meadow garden in Santa Fe
And this meadow garden in Palo Alto
To do it yourself, see Plant A No-Mow Lawn
