Point of View

From which vantage points do you sit around and enjoy a garden?  How does it look from the curb?  From the front door?  Maybe there is some official landscape architecture term, but I haven't found it yet.  So I call it "Point of View."  When planning and planting, I spend a little time contemplating point of view, since I will have to live with it.  I sit inside the house and stare out the appropriate window.  I stand at the entrance of the yard.  I sit on each of my yard chairs. I'm liking the points of view in my two-year-old garden.  But I have yanked a few things out and rearranged to get there.  And some challenges remain. I am not going to show you photos of the barbecue, or the air conditioner and utility doors that have yet to be successfully screened by plants.  Here are points of view for the front yard.

Come On In:  

The view of my yard from the street is dominated by a happy Deer Grass.
(click on the photos to expand)

A little further in and you see the semicircular sandstone paving that is very functional as well as pleasing to look on,
and a peek-a-boo view of the not-so-native section of the back yard.

The North Kitchen Window:  

This is the view I probably spend the most time facing.
It's a bit of a hodgepodge, but something's always in bloom.  Birds do use that birdbath: what fun! Perennials behind the birdbath have come and gone; a new White Sage, Silverlace, Laguna Bur Marigold, and Baja Fairy Duster will hopefully endure.  Yes, I pretty much ignored that wise landscaping advice of planting groupings of things and not single specimens on that mound.  We are waiting for Tomaz's trees to grow.  His part of the shared front yard is across the walk.

From inside, with the window mullion.  

We never used to leave the shutters open on this north window.  It was too ugly: the street, and languishing association plantings.  But now we leave them open all the time.  It helps that Toyon and Coyote Bush are blocking the street view. Yes, that's a palm in the right corner.  It's in a pot.  It needs a new home, but it's happy there and doesn't fit anywhere else! Sentiment gets in the way of design sometimes.

The East Kitchen Window:  

Nice "borrowed landscape"– meaning the parts that are not my yard.  I like the Mastnaks' redwood fence and gate.   That swamp in the middle is still maintained by the association, which watered it 6 days a week last summer.  The spikes in front are Hummingbird Sage (Salvia spathacea) in flower.  Score: hummingbirds with my morning coffee!

The Dining Room: 

Not bad.  The Silverlace and Deergrass are duking it out in front, though.

I love the stone paving, but the association's orange utility fence peeking through the trees needs to go.  The plot under the tree is pretty bare; I hope it makes progress this spring.  The association hedge of Raphiolepsis is a life saver.  The chair looks inviting, and I love the Island Morning Glory (Calystegia macrostegia) on the fence.

The Front Door

Tropical exotics lounge in the shade by the door. I put the color where it counts. I love dragon wing begonias! CA Woodland Strawberries and other creepers at the corner invite the visitor to look closely at the garden. The Deer Grass and Silverlace are still colliding on the right; something's got to give.

I remember when I had about fifty little gallon pots plopped all over the yard.  I squinted out the windows trying to figure out how they might look in a couple of years from various points of view.  It was worth the effort.

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