Heaven in a hard place: a Southern California designer transforms a "bowling alley" side yard into a showplace

Sunset, June, 1997 by Sharon Cohoon

Think like a plant for a minute. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is this: Infiltrate a skinny, 18-inch strip of dirt and try to establish some roots. And, oh yes, try to look pretty while you're at it. The site will be as dark and dank as a cellar all winter, and your feet will never dry out. Then, come summer, it will feel like a furnace as the sun beats down and the reflected heat of walls on either side of you sucks any remaining moisture from your already desiccated leaves. Would you take this assignment if you were a plant? If it were forced upon you, would you survive?

Unfortunately, such a scenario is typical in cities and subdivisions where houses are packed together. About the only spaces left for a garden on some lots are the narrow strips of dirt between the walls. The canyon effect the walls create is hardly an ideal environment for plants; it shades them in winter and holds in heat during summer. No wonder most homeowners faced with such a garden space quickly throw in the trowel. This is landscaping hell.

Ross Holmquist faced this problem when he moved into his house in Lake Forest, California. Two narrow strips of earth bordering a concrete walkway the length of a bowling alley made up his main gardening space. His house walled the corridor on one side; his neighbor's walled the other side, just a few feet away. Holmquist, a landscape designer, initially thought of the site primarily as a design challenge. How could he make the space seem less elongated? What could he do to create a view from indoors? But the longer he lived there, the more he let the plant survivors dictate the design. "I learned to love anything that lived," he laughs.

European white birch, the first thing Holmquist planted, not only survived but also solved a multitude of problems. The handsome white trunks of these trees and the graceful shadows they cast created the attractive view from indoors that he was seeking. The way the treetops gracefully canopied the walkway was another asset. The birches' deciduous habit also happened to be perfect for this space: When fully leafed out in summer, the trees provide pockets of shade perfect for sheltering seasonal annuals. But by conveniently dropping their leaves in winter, they allow more permanent plants full access to that season's limited light.

Finding understory plants that worked was largely trial and error. "The ones that survived ... tolerate a wide range of conditions," says Holmquist. "They're real toughies." These include star jasmine, pink powder puff, and liriope. If they don't produce as many flowers as they do in other gardens, he forgives them. "You've got to remember that they only have half the growing season under these harsh conditions that they would in an ideal situation."

The site has taught Holmquist a valuable landscaping lesson: overreliance on color is always a temptation in our mild climate. This site has made him a connoisseur of textures.

"Lots of textural interest with just a few exclamations of color here and there is actually pretty restful," he says. "It may not be the garden I set out to create, but I've come to like it very much. I'm pretty happy in this space."

TOUGH PLANTS FOR URBAN CANYONS

TREES

* Cajeput tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia)

* European white birch (Betula pendula)

* Fern pine (Podocarpus gracilior)

* Guava (Psidium guajava)

* Weeping Chinese banyan (Ficus benjamina)

SHRUBS

* Chinese lantern (Abutilon hybridum)

* Garden hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla)

* Heavenly bamboo (Nandina)

* Holly (Ilex species)

* Lavender starflower (Grewia occidentalis)

* New Zealand tea tree (Leptospermum scoparium)

* Pink breath of heaven (Coleonema pulchrum)

* Pink powder puff (Calliandra haematocephala)

* Star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides)

PERENNIALS

* Calla lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica)

* Canna (Canna)

* Daylilies (Hemerocallis hybrids)

* Kaffir lily (Clivia miniata)

* Statice or sea lavender (Limonium)

* Sun begonia (Begonia 'Richmondensis')

GROUND COVERS

* Bellflower (Campanula species)

* Big blue lily turf (Liriope muscari)

* Blue fescue (Festuca ovina 'Glauca')

* Blue star creeper (Laurentia fluviatilis)

* Mondo grass (Ophiopogon)

GRASSES & GRASSLIKE PLANTS

* New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax)

* Papyrus (Cyperus papyrus)

* Purple fountain grass (Pennisetum 'Rubrum')

FERNS

* Holly fern (Cyrtomium falcatum)

* Lace fern (Microlepia strigosa)

* Mother fern (Asplenium bulbiferum)

* Sword fern (Nephrolepsis exaltata)