Palm trees and tall grasses decorate a small residential meadowette.

Eclectic Meadowette

San Francisco Peninsula, CA

Project Overview

This small site is located on a busy intersection. The client was an accomplished musician and wanted a place to play outdoors while enjoying the garden. She didn't have a garage, so we reorganized the patio and helped design a trellis that could be used as a covered space for gathering and music or a carport when the car was inside the garden.

The Phoenix canariensis palm is a common feature of early Californian Mediterranean gardens, like this one. We added unusual small-scale palms to visually relate the existing historic palm to the lower plane of the garden. Our plantsmanship allows for us to design with rare species and honor the historic nature of this garden with an eclectic meadow of palms and cycads.

We created privacy with various hedges and fast-growing evergreen cypress in a way felt intimate, not restricting and also gave the neighbors something beautiful to enjoy. The meadow is an ever changing canvas of bulbs, annuals, and perennials that fluctuate seasonally. Paths that conceal and reveal as they direct you through the garden 'rooms' make the space feel bigger than it actually is.

Consulting Services  

Services

Garden Design & Specifications

Plant Sourcing

Plant Layout

Ongoing Maintenance Supervision

Collaborators

Kim Raftery, Landscape Designer

Featured Plants

Sesleria 'Greenlee Hybrid' (Greenlee's Moor Grass)*

Pennisetum 'Fairy Tails' (Evergreen Fountain Grass)*

* Part of the Greenlee Meadow Collection

Tap any image for additional plant information.
This meadow is laden with bulbs for a big spring bulb extravaganza. The white is Orlaya grandiflora, the blue are Scabiosas and Geraniums. We look for perennial accents that throw flowers up above their basal foliage to create a haze of color.
A view from the porch. Jacaranda is added to provide a wash of flowering trees from the second floor.
The dramatic foliage of mediterranean (not tropical) palms is at scale with the lower plane of the garden and makes a dramatic backdrop for the orchestrated flower color palette. In the foreground is Festuca mairei with the flowering grass Pennisetum 'Fairy Tails' and Pennisetum 'Red bunny tails.'
A patch of Carex autumnalis is strategically placed to catch shafts of afternoon light. Dramatic guadalupe palms from Mexico that always stay in scale during our lifetimes provide constant bold foliage as a backdrop to Acanthus mollis, the spent flowers of camassias, and the white Tulbaghia 'Emerisa' and white Santa Barbara Daisy.
Carex leavenworthii is layered in front of Acanthus mollis and Iris 'Nada.' The Dicksonia antarctica tree ferns form the backdrop.

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Winter is a good time to plant in California.
We planted floss silk trees to replace the oak that had died. Their pink orchid-like flowers can be viewed from the second-story bedroom.
An antique iron gate Let's you see into the garden of hybrid phoenix feather palms from the driveway.
A curving path of cut bluestone creates dimension in this shaded entry walk of silver foliage plants (Plectranthus and Dianella) that complement the gorgeous paint palette of the Victorian house.
Even when the meadow is quiet, it's interesting. To the right is Ceiba speciosa, the Floss Silk Tree.
Phoenix palms, Pennisetum 'Fairy Tails,' scented Geraniums, Phoenix roebelenii, and Trachycarpus.
Dietes spp (Fortnight Lily) with a shade-tolerant Iris relative.
A Phoenix hybrid with foliage identical to the ancient Phoenix canariensis is amongst a holly hock relative and the white Orlaya grandiflora.
Various Salvia species are color workhorses of the garden.
There's always something in bloom on this parkway of Carex divulsa, Sesleria 'Greenlee Hybrid,' and Dymondia, like quaking grass or the perennial Johnny jump up. Compact versions of classic Victorian plants, such as Spireas, are traffic-tolerant.
Carex remota with Clethra and hellebores help provide privacy and beauty on the hellstrip.
The trellis, covered by Giant Burmese Honeysuckle, can be used as a patio space for outdoor music, or as a carport.
Flecks of assorted blue salvias and one of our favorite succulents for shade, Crassula spathulata, in the far lefthand corner.
Roses and grasses are an amazing combination. In the background are peach-colored species gladiolus.
This simple elegant trellis creates a dramatic entrance to the main meadow. The pathway coming of the entrance to the front door takes you through silver shade garden into the big reveal to the meadow, covered with delicate flowering vines of Clematis, sweet peas.

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