381 Garden Saturday

We finished the install of that garden yesterday, but the pictures are kind of anti-climatic due to the lighting. So here's a before and after.

That's before. Except it's not really, because we did a clean up months earlier. And they installed new fences.

And that's after. The black mulch in the foreground is temporary, that part of the yard is going to get torn up in a house remodel in the next couple years.


Overall, it looks nice and I'm happy with how our work came out. It's not the garden I would have designed for the space, nor the garden we recommended, but the client is hopefully happy. Personally, I would have preferred to recycle materials, skip the grass, and try to recreate some of what might be there naturally.

As we move forward in this life, one of the things I'm looking at is how to align the gardening knowledge I've gained with my personal views about sustainability. We're not there yet. We're not even close. But the yard looks nice.

This was an interesting install, because the clients were really interested in what was going on. He's an engineer, and really just had to know exactly how everything was going together, and then had to make a plan for it, complete with measurements that were impossible to reproduce in reality. (Tree roots really don't care where you think you're going.)


This led to several stumbling blocks and slowdowns while we waited for decisions to be made which normally we'd just make ourselves. The biggest might have been the step up to that patio. As you notice, there isn't one. 


Well, there is a stone on it's way eventually, that will get placed somewhere, somehow. Meanwhile, my suggestion to build steps into the timbers got passed on, and looking at the finished garden, it really misses them.

Anyway, finished that and I wish it many years of happy growing. Despite the micromanagement, it's nice to accomplish something. And really, I got around to enjoying explaining everything. It's good practice, communicating.

File under: way to pivot

What are we going to do, when we're not doing everything outside any more?

This spot took a vacant lot in the Hollywood hills and made a wellness retreat.

I'm pretty sure a year ago, a parking lot with a couple shade structures wouldn't have qualified as buzzworthy.

I like it, though.

There was more, but the app is glitching, so I'm going to get out while I can.

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