Stop 6 On My Belmont Garden Tour – Texture

I love a mixture of textures in a landscape.  This tiny garden is jam-packed with variety in both shape and texture.  In fact, I would have never guessed that this much variety in a tiny garden would work so well, but it is stunning!  I also love the splash of color around the mailbox.

Stop 5 on my Belmont Garden Tour

This garden is bright spot that I discovered on my walk one day.  I love cool purple hues and the contrast of grassy textures with flowering shrubs.  This is a professionally designed garden, unlike many of my previous stops that were created by the home-owner.  This is a tiny little plot in front of the house, but packed with detail.  I love the little cactus on corners of the plot. It is almost like they are defending the rest of the landscaping from pet traffic.

Stop 4 on My Belmont Garden Tour

There are two big challenges to gardening in Belmont, one is finding a spot among the rocks to actually plant something and the second is finding something to plant that the deer won’t eat. But our beautiful temperate weather encourages gardeners to chisel out spots between the rocks.

This is a new garden that just went in with a complete remodel of the house. Instead of fighting with the rocks, it is a celebration of the steep rock that cradles the house.

Stop 3 on My Belmont Garden Tour

This is a garden that I have admired for a long time. A tiny, level front garden that is packed with personality!

The scale is absolutely perfect here. The garden could belong to an estate house in England, but on a much smaller scale. The fountains, the boxwood, and even the citrus tree are all small enough to perfectly complement the garden instead of competing as a focal point.

I didn’t do a very good job capturing the is beautiful attention to detail here as it was late in the day. But hopefully I can update these pictures the next time I pass by there.

The Second Stop on My Belmont Garden Tour

This garden just sprouted up recently. I really admire Belmont gardeners who take a tiny bit of rock and turn it into a lovely little garden. This one was carved out of the hillside next to the house. The deer eat everything in this area, so it is clear that the plants were well-selected to survive the herds.

Look how beautifully this garden ties in with the a-frame house that it belongs to. It is lovely and rustic, just like the house.

There is even a little seating area at the top of the garden.

This was a challenging place to put a garden, but it adds such beauty and warmth to the front of the house, I hope the homeowners thought it was well worth the effort.

Beautiful Gardens in Belmont – My First Stop

I have been away from my gardening blog for too long. But it is spring here in Northern California and there are so many beautiful gardens in bloom that I decided to grab the camera and walk around my neighborhood in Belmont and take pictures of some of the more inspiring gardens. I plan to do this for the next few weeks, so come take a walk with me and enjoy the best of Belmont!

One thing you should know about Belmont is that we live on a rocky ridge overlooking the San Francisco bay. We don’t have much space for gardening, so I am so appreciative of those who carve out a little space for beauty. We also have a whole lot of deer who are not very picky about what they eat, which adds even more challenge to public garden spaces.

Which brings me to my first garden on my walk. I run by here almost every week and it is hard to not be stopped by this lovely garden. A tiny little front-yard space is packed with so much detail, it will be difficult for me to do it justice with my camera.

Let’s start with the view as you approach from the street. This lot is so steep that there is a bridge to the house, just out of sight on the left in this picture. I love the tiny Japanese maples in the front that will add color and height over time.

The second view is coming the other way on the street. You can see the small bridge that replicates the real bridge to the house.

Believe it or not, there are multiple water features in this tiny little garden. It is one of the many things about this garden that draws me in. You can see two basins in these pictures, but there is also a small fountain of running water that I neglected to capture.


My final picture here shows you the amazing attention to detail in this garden. Each stone is carefully placed and the plantings carefully selected for their size and shape.

Thanks for joining me on my tour of inspirational tiny gardens!

Curb Appeal Takes on New Meaning with Google

Since I was headed to a meeting at someone’s house locally, I decided to Google their house and just get a visual so that I would recognize it when I saw it. I thought the picture was rather unflattering and wondered it is was just Google, so I Googled my house. Oh my! The only thing this picture shows is a cracked driveway and very unattractive garage.

It suddenly made me think differently about “curb appeal”. My front garden looks lovely this time of year, but you don’t see any of it from this picture. What can I do (other than tear out that ugly driveway) to give my house more “Google appeal”? Does everyone’s house look bad on Google?

Fall Bulb Ordering

It is time to order fall bulbs!  I’m definitely going to plant more lilies this year.  I would also like to plant tuberose, but I’m having a hard time finding anyone who has the bulbs in stock.  Here is my list of plant/bulb catalogs that I normally order from:

Ordering Plants and Bulbs

I really like having all of these in one binder so that when I’m looking for a particular plant, it is easy to go from catalog to catalog. Please let me know if I’m missing some other great plant/bulb providers.

I should probably plant more freesia, that fragrance was a wonderful way to start spring.

Any other suggestions for fragrant bulbs that would to well in a mild climate?

Fast-Growing Brugmansia

I’m amazed at how quickly my little Angel’s Trumpet has matured.  I planted it just four months ago.  I put the pictures side-by-side so that you can see the progress:

June – Brugmansia first Planted

September – Full bloom

The Fragrance of Lilies

My garden used to be filled with lilies at this time of the year. But over the years, with water in short supply, I have let them die off. But this year I planted a Casa Blanca bulb in a pot by my doorway and the fragrance is so heavenly that I have fallen in love with lilies all over again.

I decided to research them a little more and discovered that the best time to plant them is in the fall. So I’m visiting gardening sites and getting ready to place an order when it cools down a little here. I will have to redo my watering to make sure that the patches that I plant them in will have plenty of summer time water.

Here are the resources that I found on growing lilies:

Growing Lilies