Sage Outdoor Designs » landscape design

I am very proud and excited to have one of the gardens I designed featured in the Spring 2010 issue of Better Homes and Gardens: Garden Ideas and Outdoor Living magazine.

The focus of the article is using color and texture in the built elements of the garden (as in, the bits that aren’t plants) to give you year round interest. It also has a great how-to section where the homeowner steps you through making your own glass mosaic.

Just a few thank-you’s: I want to thank master photographer Ed Gohlich for his amazing skill behind a camera. I’m pretty sure he could make me believe I wanted to live in every single garden he photographs! I’d also like to thank Andrea Caughey for keeping an eye on me and Andrea Hayday for her very conscientious process. Also thank you to Derby and Catherine Pattengill for being such fun, kind, and creative people.

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Monrovia nursery has an amazing website full of useful plant information and great images. I also recently stumbled on this style quiz tool, which I thought was a lot of fun. I have seen many of these images before because clients have shown them to me, so maybe you’ve already stumbled upon the quiz. But if not, give it a try and see if it can interpret your style!
For some of the questions, I felt like I wanted to pick two choices, so I tried the quiz twice. It decided I like a “Contemporary Style” (see image above) and an “Eco-Friendly” style (see images below). I think they are right on both counts. Of course, as a designer, I find almost every garden style fascinating…. so perhaps I’m not the perfect quiz subject.

Feel like the style quiz didn’t help you enough? Sage Outdoor Designs can help you find your garden style. Visit our website for more information.

Because of their elegant form and wonderful color, variegated Agaves make a perfect addition to a modern landscape design with one notable drawback: most of them have long and strong spines making them a dangerous choice for near walkways or around children. The solution you often see is Agave attenuata, the gentle blue spineless agave. But what if you want the gorgeous variegation and something a little more unusual? Aren’t we all getting a little tired of seeing modern landscapes covered in blue spineless agaves (or is that just me)?

The two plants shown here are both a great solution. The first is the bright lemon yellow variegated Agave ‘Kara’s Stripes’. It has the same form as Agave attenuata but in a startling bright color. “Kara’s Stripes’ was discovered by Gary Gragg of Golden Gate Palms & Exotics Nursery, who removed it as a sport emerging from a plant growing in his garden and named it for his wife. It is being marketed in the U.S. through PlantHaven but you can find it now at many of the good local retail nurseries around the county.

The second option is to look for a gentle look-alike. The image on the left is Furcrea ‘Mediopicta’. It has the same rosette form and bold variegation, but with soft flexible leaves- making it both safe and beautiful. It is a striking specimen plant and works wonderfully for very modern landscapes, or for a tropical look that is water wise.

Want your own modern landscape design? Please take a minute to see how Sage Outdoor Designs can help you!

This is a gorgeous little gate that I walk by often in South Park. I love the Craftsman detailing and the hand-made look. Also, I like the stain they chose, and the small light fixtures, the tiny stained glass panels, and the rock-work on the columns. In fact, I like so many things about this gate that I just had to share it!

A California native plant garden is a tough thing to peg down: what do people really mean when they say native plants anyhow? Certainly, definitions fly from once-upon-a-time-it-grew-in-California-somewhere-but-has-been-bred-by-the-nursery-industry-for-twenty-years, to the purists who insist that it must grow in San Diego county without additional water or care once established.

If you fit into the purist category, most of the typical gardening tricks (such as soil amending, fertilizing, or watering during the summer) will not apply. California natives are adapted to our alkaline soils and would typically only be exposed to rain in the winter (and not much at that).

Because of this, if you want to go for a full native garden, I recommend working with a contractor who specializes in native gardens. My local favorite is Wes Hudson with North Park Native Plants. He is easy to work with and his prices are very reasonable. His goal: gardens that require no additional water after the first two years. Here are a few things he lists on his website as the benefits of gardening with native plants:

1) Local plants become a native plant community
2) Gardens with local native plants conserve water
3) No fertilizer is necessary
4) Native gardens are low maintenance/save money
5) Native gardens attract local wildlife
6) Local native plants look good together
7) Native gardens reflect the seasons
8) Many native plants are very long-lived
9) Native gardens foster a connection to nature
10) Local native plants promote a sense of identity