Jamie's Garden

Though this is mainly a place where I write about mountain living, renovating and decorating, I have a huge soft spot for the desert as well (I'll get to that a little later). So ever since Jamie from A Desert Fete asked for some ideas for her Southern California walled garden I've been eager to do some brainstorming. Here's what I have come up with.

Flora Grubb does amazing, low impact landscaping using native california plants that require little water and maintenance. Her succulent installations immediately came to mind. For a garden with a large wall, why not adorn it?

Up close, it's really just a bunch of small plastic six-pack garden containers, probably nailed to a backing and then refilled with the succulents (sorry Flora!). This would require little attention and water, and the coolest thing is that it's like art that is constantly changing as it grows and blooms!

Flora also does an amazing bromeliad wall (below). It looks like the key here is alignment, and as an architect I'm sure Jamie would be great at it. To create this, they drilled long nails into concrete, sticking out about six inches, and then just clipped the air plants with metal clips to the nails.

For an urban outdoor space there is no reason not to treat it like another room in your house, with furniture, side tables, objets d'art and pillows and rugs. If you are worried about weather, just move the plush stuff in at night. Remodelista did a great "steal this look" of the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs a while back that prompted me to immediately order a hammock for our Oakland backyard. Now I think every yard needs a hammock. And a rug on a patio does all kinds of good things too...