Norma, my dear departed wife of fifty years and I owned and lived in four homes. We bought our first home in 1984, a dilapidated house near the southern border of Piedmont, CA, just a block from Oakland’s Grand Avenue. We lived there for five years, fixed it up, sold it, moved to Sonoma in 1990 and bought a six-room B&B on West Spain Street, where we lived. Eight years later, as a place to get away, we purchased the cheapest house in town on 5th Street East, originally a WW2 troop shack on Mare Island; we improved it and enlarged it. We sold the inn in 2003. This year we decided to downsize and recently moved to a condo off 5th Street West, the fourth home we have owned.
What all these homes had in common was a place for me to garden. Accordingly, I’ve spent the better part of my adult life taking care of plants while creating aesthetically pleasing outdoor spaces. Looking back, I’ve been thinking about the gardens I’ve created and wondering what drives me to repeatedly alter our homes with plants and gardens?
My mother was a terrific gardener and growing up I watched her transform our suburban backyard. And for her, aesthetics was all important, both inside our home and out. She filled the house with beautiful objects and art, each placed carefully and thoughtfully. Entering a room, one experienced a sense of harmonious whole; in her words, “it works.” I took that experience to heart and create gardens that “work” for me.
In Piedmont, the garden was small, but I filled it with handmade redwood planter boxes on a gently sloping yard. A network of paths provided a way to meander, creating the illusion of greater space.
At the B&B, I created garden “rooms” associated with each inn space; they all were different, some with flowers, some with ferns, some with small fountains or succulents.
On 5th Street East, I filled a courtyard dominated by a ninety-foot tall Black Walnut tree with gardens of shade tolerant plants, timber bamboo and exotics. (Main photo) At our condo, I’ve been working hard at creating spaces for my collection of staghorn ferns and exotic plants…