Rare peek into remarkable gardens of the Bay Area
Book looks at private enclaves, sumptuous to small, from Wine Country to Peninsula
Spectacular photographs and insightful text provide a dazzling look at the great variety and charm of 39 local gardens in the new book “Private Gardens of the Bay Area.” From spacious to tiny, on hillsides or city rooftops, whether walled in for privacy or with vistas of ocean, bay or coastal hills, it’s all here and grouped into four regions: The Peninsula; San Francisco; East Bay; and Marin, Sonoma, Napa.
Authors Susan Lowry and Nancy Berner explain what the garden owner wanted to achieve, such as a home for a collection of plants (palms, salvias, native plants); a landscape impervious to drought; bringing interest and usefulness to a tiny space; or a way to honor the architecture and garden design of an inherited site. Professional garden designers and/or landscape architects, some historic, many active now, are always given credit. Not all garden owners are named, although many are. For example, gardens include those of Betsy Clebsch in La Honda (a salvia expert); Marcia Donahue in Berkeley (creator of garden art); and Flora Grubb (of San Francisco nursery Flora Grubb Gardens). Grubb, who lives in Berkeley, fills her garden with a selection of the bold, unusual, mostly drought-tolerant plants featured in her nursery, often trying new plants at home before selling them at her nursery.
This is not a trend-chasing book, although a number of the gardens are new and exhibit up-to-the-minute ideas. Succulents, natives and other low-water plants are often featured, as are porous hardscape surfaces to trap whatever rainfall comes our way. One eye-popping, water-saving design is the Nash Garden in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood. This spectacular planted driveway was a collaboration between designer Dan Carlson of Wigglestem Gardens and client Madeleine Nash.
The garden of Richard and Tatwina Lee in Calistoga depends heavily on native plants, including a ceanothus variety that spread into the garden from adjacent wildlands and thrived where numerous carefully chosen ceanothus varieties had died. This garden, designed by landscape architects Eric and Silvina Blasen, includes concrete walls to frame views while providing much-needed wind protection. It, like a number of other gardens in the book, includes an orchard and a kitchen garden.
The book features gardens in various Bay Area microclimates. Some designs solve site problems, such as steep hillsides or strong winds. Some gardens are larger than most urban residents will have. However, the design choices, and especially the photos that show smaller details of the gardens, will be useful to every Bay Area gardener.
An introductory essay on the history of gardens in our region includes a photo gallery of representative public and private gardens. There are shout-outs to influential local garden creators of the past, such as Thomas Church and John McLaren, as well as to the Hortisexuals (an informal group of East Bay plant aficionados) and to the Ruth Bancroft Garden, a landmark dry garden in Walnut Creek featured in the 2017 book “The Bold Dry Garden.” (Bancroft died Nov. 26, 2017, at the age of 109; more on this in my February column.)
Berner is a book editor and editorial consultant; Lowry was a television journalist who had earned a degree in landscape architecture. They met years ago as volunteers at New York’s Conservatory Garden in Central Park. One day they decided to visit another Manhattan public garden, the Heather Garden at Fort Tryon Park. This became the first of their excursions to public gardens, which led to their 2002 book “Garden Guide: New York City.” This is their fourth collaboration, and their first on the West Coast.
For this project, Berner and Lowry