Gardening smart in California: fall is the best time to plant your low-water landscape - Landscaping for your Region

Sunset, Sept, 2003 by Kathleen N. Brenzel, Sharon Cohoon

Of all the gardens that grow in the Golden State, few can match Mediterranean-inspired landscapes for their toughness, sensual appeal, and suitability to our wet winters and dry summers. Whether their designs spring from the Italian-, Spanish-, or Mission-style architecture of a house or the imaginations of their owners, smart gardens like the two we feature here make sense for our climate. Their plantings don't need much water once established, and maintenance is minimal. If you're planning a new landscape or renovating a forgotten corner of an existing one, these gardens can help inspire your own designs and plant choices. Nurseries are filled with shrubs, perennials, and trees to plant now, and fall's the best time to do it; days are shortening, temperatures are cooling, and autumn rains will soon come to get roots growing.

An herbal haven on the South Coast

Rana Malas wanted a garden that felt like the ones she grew up with near the Mediterranean Sea. That meant aromatic foliage plants like scented geraniums, lavender, rosemary, and thyme. "I was always the granddaughter chosen to help out in the garden," she recalls. "And these are scents I learned to love. To me, they're what a garden should smell like." Malas insisted on a few edibles, such as a fruiting olive tree. "In the Middle East, an olive tree is a lucky plant," she says. "It brings you riches." A grapevine was also a necessity. "Living so close to the beach, I knew we might not get much fruit. But I love having the leaves handy to use in cooking."

Malas's ideal garden had to include lots of clay pots in classic shapes. "I can't resist them," she admits. Many contain her favorite herbal plants, but others--especially the large ones--are left empty, to be appreciated for their own beauty.

Fortunately for Malas, her Mediterranean garden vision and Laguna Beach's weather were a perfect match. The plants she wanted all thrive in Southern California's climate. Her herbal garden may not be as colorful as some of the English cottage gardens in the neighborhood, Malas says, but it makes up for that by providing aromatherapy. Take a deep breath on a warm afternoon and all your tensions disappear, she says. "It's very peaceful here, isn't it?"

Design notes

Play up details. Pay attention to compact groupings of plants or objects. Such details can enrich a garden--especially a small one.

Use pots as focal points. Fill containers with herbs, such as oregano, trailing rosemary, salvias, or thyme. Display them in prominent places.

Soften hardscape. Plant creeping thyme between pavers, and edge paths with soft-foliaged plants such as hardy geraniums and yarrow.

Include a few workhorses. To add color to a mostly herbal garden, rely on a few shrubs that bloom nearly year-round, such as lavatera and groundcover roses.

DESIGN: Theresa Clark Studio, Capistrano Beach, CA (949/248-5404)

Mediterranean meadow in the Bay Area

When Linda and Ted Schlein moved into their Spanish-style house in Menlo Park, they inherited a totally different landscape than the one they'd known. "We'd just come from a colonial house surrounded by green lawn, shrubbery, and a white picket fence," Linda explains.

By contrast, their new garden had a Mediterranean flavor to complement the house. The building, designed by Richard Elmore and the previous owners, Duane and Michele Maidens, echoes the curves and colors of a sun-washed village.

To enhance this vision, landscape architect Rosemary Wells gave the front yard a Mediterranean meadow look. For bright color year-round, she chose unthirsty bloomers such as scarlet bougainvillea, drifts of yellow Jerusalem sage, and lavender. For shade around the periphery, she planted a locust, a pepper tree, and 'Swan Hill' olive trees. For fragrance, she set an angel's trumpet in the entry courtyard beside a trickling fountain. "Its perfume is intoxicating, especially on balmy evenings when it wafts though the open dining room doors," Michele Maidens recalls.

Linda Schlein quickly got into the garden's sun-country mood. As the landscape grows, she tucks in more perennials that fit its theme--with help from Maureen Decombe of Green Willow Gardens (www.greenwillowgardens.com).

"This garden shows no fear of bright colors or strong architectural shapes," says Decombe.

Design notes

Mix the plantings. Many California natives have the same exposure, water, and soil needs as plants from similar Mediterranean climates. In the Schleins' yard, fremontodendron and ceanothus (California natives) pair with plants like lavender (a Mediterranean native) and red-hot poker (Kniphofia) from South Africa. Group different plants according to their needs.

Forget lawn. Plant unthirsty groundcovers such as blue fescue, 'Carmel Creeper' ceanothus, dwarf cotoneaster, and gazanias. Mulch spaces between them with fine-textured (1/4-inch) fir-bark mulch, and use gravel or pavers for paths and patios.

Pair bold colors. Bright flowers stand up to California's sunlight. Yellows and blues predominate in the Schleins' garden, but other plants splash color around the perimeter--purple asters, orange bird of paradise, ruby-red leptospermum, and red kangaroo paws and penstemons. Bronze-foliaged plants such as hop bush, phormiums, and purple smoke tree are cooling accents.