Comments on: Pretty Garden by the Sea

By: teak shower bench

teak shower bench — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 04:24:23 +0000

What a beautiful scenery. Loves the wonderful views.

By: Rebecca Sweet

Rebecca Sweet — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:18:03 +0000

What a trip down memory lane for me! I lived about 10 blocks from this hotel and loved going on long walks along that particular stretch of coastline. It’s so nice to see these charming hotels finally taking advantage of their incredible climate and planting gardens! Thank you for taking the time to ‘dissect’ this garden in such a beautiful way, breaking down the elements & explaining WHY it works so well!

p.s. did you get a chance to go down the road to visit Los Osos Valley Nursery? It used to be a great place for unusual varieties + awesome views…..

By: Jenn

Jenn — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:37:35 +0000

Looks like you caught the garden at it’s peak week.

Beauty.

By: Suasoria

Suasoria — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:51:01 +0000

Never mind, I found the rates. Reasonable!

By: Suasoria

Suasoria — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:47:59 +0000

Thanks, now I want to get out of town so badly I could cry. What a charming place. Room rates aren’t on their site…I guess if you have to ask, you can’t afford it!

In other news, I hate Yahoo’s blog reader, which is supposed to email me when there is a new post. Bah.

By: mcm

mcm — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:59:16 +0000

Thanks for the enlightening, and explicit, discussion of philosophy of garden structure — what works, doesn’t and why.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:35:00 +0000

Love any garden with those flat topped cypresses….my fav! Anyway, put a link to this post up on my web site. Your photos are very nice, it’s like you can almost smell the salt air.

By: Pam/Digging

Pam/Digging — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:40:34 +0000

You know I like flowers, Germi. I adore those daisies but usually go for echinacea myself. Add an agave to that last picture, and it’s totally me too! I like your point about the softness of this garden and its repeated elements–different from the architectural plants we favor, but totally charming.

By: germinatrix

germinatrix — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:28:00 +0000

Summer! Yes, those cypress are key – since the garden really has no gravitas yet, the trees provide a sense of mystery that balances out the super-cheerful sunshine-y thing going on below. It is beautiful what the wind does to those trees.

yes – nature does do this floral tapestry … but I’m really looking at the hand of the gardener here – this wasn’t a wildflower scatter garden (funnily, though, about 4 years ago, that is EXACTLY what was here – a scattergarden of wildflowers, and it was MUCH more successful in an obvious way. I blogged about it for Domino – I wish I could re-post it. Maybe I will!), somebody made these choices and for me, they shouldn’t have worked – but I found delight in this garden. I want to know why I liked this one – and others like it leave me cold. Maybe you have a point – the trees and the bay CAN’T be separated from this planting – they provide the most incredible backdrop!
I’ve always loved planting fluffy next to structure – my favorite combo in my garden right now is my sharkskin agave and erigeron karvinskianus (santa barbara daisy) – but frills and fluff on THIS scale need something more, I agree – like 7 huge Agave fransozinii! Yeah!

By: Summer

Summer — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:58:47 +0000

First of all – there is some structure, provided by those awesome cypresses in the background. I kind of like how the view to those is unobstructed.

Second of all – nature does it all the time; some of it’s going to look good. Admittedly a natural prairie isn’t quite so floriferous.

Third of all – a little fluff can be a great contrast to more structural elements. In some book or other I saw this awesome photo of an agave surrounded by a froth of pink evening primroses. The effect was pastellish but really cool; they both sort of had the same bluish leaves. You’d need fairly massive structural plants to compete with that many composites, but it could work…