Beautiful California Garden #3

Another beautiful garden on the Mary Lou Heard tour, a garden of which my photos were bad, giving no sense of the layout, only beauty shots of foliage.  A far better sense of the garden here--my post is...because pretty foliage!  A gardener with restraint:  no army of potted plants stashed away in a corner.  The gardener had the control over plant purchasing we all long for (and are happy not to possess).  He filled the garden just enough, and no more.  It made for order without rigidity, a relaxed formality without fussiness.  

A Garden Where The Gardener Knew How To Quit When He Was Ahead. 

The front lawn had been recently removed because of the drought.  To the left of the walk, a hedge encloses a group of Itoh peonies, a shrub, a very interesting boulder, and a slightly random arrangement of a Cordyline, Chondropetalums and Ceanothus.  

The very interesting boulder.

The other, larger area to the left of the walkway didn't look all that great.  Certainly a challenge due to tree roots, the green, green and white variegated, burgundy and golden mix of foliage under the large pine is a hint of the back garden's plants.  A colorful arrangement of foliage under the large pine, but the area was mostly empty space covered with dg--a plastic lawn would better reflect the historic home's style.  

The hell strip had Abelia, Adenanthos, Dyckia (big mistake) and a Leucospermum or two.  Great plants, and healthy, but looking a little out of sync with the style of the historic home and the foundation plantings...

...some obviously very well established, healthy, and old Camellias.  Farfugium japonicum var gigantium (?) below them.  This home is one block from the ocean, so the location provides a cool, humid microclimate excellent for these plants. 

Through the narrow side yard... 

I don't know why I didn't get any wide shots of the garden--you look at what you look at on garden tours.  Every plant was beautifully maintained.  This is distracting. I couldn't see the garden because I focused on the plants. 

I love this black-foliaged Sambucus.  There's a huge pair of them in the Huntington Shakespeare garden I dote on, and have often wanted one of my own.  The lawn is plastic, to reduce water use because of the drought. 

The owner said this rose was in the garden when he bought the property.  Like every other plant in the garden it was nicely trimmed and cared for.  I got the impression the gardener did nothing much to prepare for the tour--that this is what the garden always looks like.  Which you can do when you don't have fifty plants too many. 

A patch of white/green/blue.  Like I said, restraint.

Much of the garden had foliage in the color range of chartreuse and burgundy, that agreed with the paint colors of brown and orange. 

A potted chocolate Albizia

A potted Magnolia...

...and those were all the photos I took.  Really good garden tours are overwhelming.  I was by that time overwhelmed.