our own special gardens…..

About three months ago, our gardener who has been with us for years, came up with another idea.    I do not like to call him my gardener, but but by his given name Jorge….Jorge and we have had multiple conversations over a fantastic amount of subjects.  At first his wife, Guadalupe, worked with him to plant flowers, which is a love of hers.  Jorge or George, has talked us into many unusual ideas.  Along with our own love of flowers and our land, Jorge has been a close contact with us for years.  Between our ideas, and Jorge’s, we have a very interesting landscaped environment, with Roses, which we adore, Azaleas which seem to become alive at the end of the year, and Camellias.  We are always buying additional annuals to go in the beautiful pots my artist husband hand paints.

I have inherited special swans made of glass from my late beautiful mother.  They were especially saved for me for Camellias only, to float in the swans.  Every bowl, implement, and vase, have a special place, for a special time in the year. Every vase has a special story to tell.

one day, as I was carefully picking the budding roses, and placing them into a bucket which I then transferred to different vases, and sometimes photographed, and shared them on Facebook., Jorge, said he had something vital to tell us.  It is no secret that in California we are having a drought.  We became aware that people in our area used the 2nd most water  in the Los Angeles area for watering.  We are very ecological.  Obviously, this community in whole is not, with the spreading landscaping and Beverly Hills came in Number one for the worst usage.

Jorge introduced to a new landscape idea.  The idea was to pull up all the grass that took too much water.  We thought, and contemplated.  Should we?  We live on a scenic corner, and were perplexed about such a major overhaul.

Jorge sent us to some of the places he had already done this major relandscaping to save water, and to implement and introduce native plants into our lives.  We live near Descanso Gardens, so we looked carefully at what they had done over the last few years.  We began a search on line, in person in nurseries that specialize in native plants, and went to rock quarries, and looked at various implementation of this type of idea throughout Los Angeles, and in our area.

We decided Yes:  We were going to do it. Jorge had ideas, we had ideas.  Jim my husband who can make just about everything, or fix, is also an artist, and designs, and I too love all that he does, even his ability to be the special contractor that he is. I too due to the exposure and my own talent, brought out by my husbands teaching of bringing my talent of art of photography, painting and all that I can think up, gave me the confidence to help…This was a big project..Jorge told us exactly what plants and design he had in mind, and Jim and I energized by his ideas,  and all of us together, mostly Jorge, made our New Beautiful Gardens, become a reality.

We are being very environment friendly   We did most of the back yard and 3/4 of the front yard… There are beautifully formed mounds and flowers and small trees and rocks which we choose carefully from a quarry. From my garden

The flowers above are just part of our surrounding area that is not drought resistant, but our fun place to plant and play……

 

our special long stem Lincoln Roses……
rose

every bush, and flower we choose as Jorge brought us a multitude to choose from..We have beautiful paths made out of decomposed granite, which have been carefully trimmed down with a heavy instrument.  We have re-lit the paths with LED lighting, and re-did the watering system so that every plant has its own water, which cuts down on the water, which is the big problem in California.  The watering system is much like the Israeli system of watering.

In the city of Los Angeles, they are doing this all over, but differently.  It almost is all cactus type plants.  This is so different.

Now with our love of beautiful  roses and flowers of a multitude of origin, and our azaleas, and Camellias plus this new way of gardening,plus the handpainted pots that my husband has handpainted over the years, which are filled with flowers, is our own very special place. OUR OWN SPECIAL GARDENS…….DI

IMG_1783