Sage Outdoor Designs » landscape design

Late spring in San Diego is the season for garden tours. If you have never participated in any of the numerous local events, this might be a great time to start. Satisfy your voyeurism, get inspired! They are a great way to connect with the local gardening community, and, of course, to spy on what your neighbors are doing.

One tour in particular reached out to me, the Loma Portal Home and Garden Tour on May 14. It benefits Loma Portal Elementary School’s Music Program and will include eight to ten homes and gardens in the Loma Portal neighborhood. Tickets are online at www.lomaportalelementary.com

Here is list of a few more garden tours in and around San Diego this spring, care of Sunset Magazine:

April 23, Point Loma, Annual Point Loma Garden Walk
April 23, Balboa Park, San Diego.  Annual Rare Fruit Plant Sale sponsored by the San Diego Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers.  More info on their website.
April 30, Encinitas, Encinitas Garden Festival & Tour
May 7, San Diego, Annual Garden Walk of the Mission Hills Garden Club.
June 18, Old House Fair in South Park (thank you Ben for the reminder)

It is definitely spring in Liberty Station this week! If you haven’t spent any time there, it is worth a visit. The converted Naval Training Center is now a lovely little shopping district, medium density housing, and plenty of park land and walking trails.  This is one of the trails burgeoning with iceplant blossoms. After your walk, make sure to stop in to Tender Greens for an amazing meal and a glass of wine on their patio. It’ll make for a very relaxing Sunday afternoon, or at least, it did for me.

Today’s garden is one that I’m just not too certain how I feel about. It is the Inovo/Ecosmart Garden featured in the Auckland Flower show by landscape designer Caroline Wesseling.

There are a lot of things I like about it, mainly the clean meditative aesthetic. I love the fire features (These are by Ecosmart and if you haven’t been to their website you are missing out!) It is by far the most creative garden show entry I have come across recently. I think the use of metal grating as the walkways is very interesting, and permeable. And, I like the contrast between the riotous plant material and the minimalist shapes of the hardscape.

And then of course it makes me wonder- would I want a bathroom outdoors? As someone who does quite a lot of camping, I have to say I might have enough of that in my life already. But that bathtub does look awfully comfortable…

I have noticed a funny trend amongst my clients: people have basic shapes that they are very attracted to, even when it comes to plants. The top winner? Definitely the circle.

Plants with an almost mathematical geometry look amazing in masses or rows, and have a very contemporary aesthetic. I think these barrel cacti (Echincactus grusonii) are a perfect example. They are also stunning as an individual statement alone or in a pot.

Here are a few more circles worth looking at:

One of my recent obsessions is what to do to update the Ranch Style house. There are so many communities in San Diego (like Claremont, College area, La Mesa…. to name a few) that were built as mass developments of single story ranch style houses in the late 60’s. The very most common shape, the “L”, has to be the hardest hardest house to remodel and have it look attractive when you are done. Plop a second story on it? It just looks like a boxy fortress. Make it into a “u” shape and add a guest bedroom? Now your front door is at the end of a long cavernous tunnel. So as I drive around these parts of town, I’m going to try to snap images of remodels to Ranch houses that actually worked, and see if we can find some unifying principals to think about when you are contemplating a remodel of your own.

Today’s tip: Don’t forget the garage door! We are so used to ignoring garages because they jut out at us unattractively, so we just block them out mentally. Or at least we try to. So you’ll see plenty of house that have undergone a full remodel and still have their cheap looking white painted aluminum garage door. I’ll try to find better pictures to show how a new garage door can make a huge difference, but here was the house that set me thinking on the issue, so this is the one you get for today.

The house itself is a little less modest than it appears because it drops off of a slope, so the back could be 2-3 stories, but the front is quite modest. They added cedar shingle, refinished or replaced the garage door, and added the new roofline over the front entry. Overall, I think it probably helped the look of the front of the house quite a lot.

A few other things that I have noticed that can make a big difference:

1) Anything you can do to add dimension to the architecture will help. Try adding canvas awnings to the windows, like this one from my favorite canvas company, Moran Canvas:

2) Other ways to add dimension to the architecture: Add a heavy overhead arbor to the front entry. It can feel like a new roofline.

3) Add a gabled roof over the entry and create a small entry patio there with some planter pots or even rocking chairs. Or, take this idea further and make it into a front entry courtyard.

4) Push the style to the next level and play up the Mid-Centry Modern side. It is very very in right now. We can blame Mad Men for that.

5) Redo the stucco and make it a Santa Barbara smooth finish. This will look substantially more modern, really. You’ll be amazed.

6) Add trim to the windows. They cheaped-out back then on the windows a lot.

7) Try a paint scheme that has three colors: one for the body of the house, one for the trim and facia, and another one for the windows and doors. Look around your neighborhood and find a house with a three color scheme and see how it adds a depth that you can’t get with two colors.

Okay, enough of that rant for today. I promise to find more good pictures of a ranch house remodel done right and post them for your viewing pleasure.