A garden of her own
Country charm evolves from rural roots

by Katharine Lu / photos by Julia Powers

Lois Perry's garden reflects her rural roots, from the profusion of blooms in front, to the birdbath, the rustic 'little house' with curved window insets from Mexico and Neptune surveying his watery realm.

These days, it's hard to find time to smell the roses -- let alone grow a garden of them.

So when Lois Perry moved to Palo Alto, she decided to grow the garden she always wanted. At her previous home, Perry's garden was set in a location ideal for shade plants, not sun plants like the roses she wished to grow.

"You have to realize what your site is telling you," she says. "I often thought -- will I ever be able to have my own garden? After raising three children, I wanted to live the life I wanted... I wanted a garden that was fun, and not too formal."

After seven months of landscape work, Perry now has a garden of her own. She worked with landscape designer Leo Avina to imagine and cultivate a garden that blends country charm with her own roots.

Avina said he wanted to create a place that reminded Perry of not only her Californian home, but also her original one in Oklahoma.

"Landscapes are based on a person -- how they live and how they remember where they come from," he says. "She's originally from Oklahoma, so we tried to do a rural landscape, which is why there are all the yellow flowers. She said she used to have a stream where she could step across, so we created the waterfall stream with stepping stones."

As a country garden, it's filled with familiar plants such as cherry trees, butterfly bushes, flax, coral bells, blue hibiscus, roses, succulents and daffodils. A bubbling stream finds its way across the back yard to a small pond with pale-pink water lilies; and crabapple trees line the stone pathway. The garden has something to show off every season, whether it's the sea of daffodils in spring, or sleek red dogwood in winter.

Next to the vegetable patch, there is a one-room cottage where Perry likes to keep her gardening books. She said she always wanted a "little house" of her own in the back yard, so when she had to dispose of her old fence, the sturdy wooden boards became the ideal building material for it. It's a rustic, creaking little house that matches the marigolds and pansies just outside its door. Inside, the walls are painted with pastoral scenes, and the floor is a mosaic of a Native American headdress -- which is another subtle tribute to Perry's Native American ancestry.

To create the garden, all the pre-existing vegetation was removed, and the front and back yards had to be leveled. Since the original soil in the yard was too hard, two new feet of soil were added to the front and back yards. Afterwards, a new drainage and irrigation system was installed, and Arizona flagstone was used for the pathways.

One unexpected problem that Avina ran into was trying to remove a liquidambar tree from the front yard. He said that Palo Alto regulations state that only certain trees are allowed to be planted within 18 inches of the sidewalk. As part of a city initiative to add canopy trees back to Palo Alto, the liquidambar could not be removed unless it was replaced by three other city-approved trees. Since none of the trees matched the garden, Avina and Perry ultimately decided to keep the liquidambar.

As a high-maintenance garden, Perry hired Julia Powers to help tend the garden. Every week, Powers and her team spend two to three hours pruning, weeding, adding or removing plants.

She says it's easy to forget about the rest of the world while in Perry's garden. "It's a work of art, but it's not like looking at a painting. There's always something new," she says. "It's like walking into a dream, and you don't want to leave or wake up."

Arizona flagstone was used for the driveway and pathway, which curves past the mailbox flanked by Carex elata 'Aurea.'

Today, some strangers who walk by Perry's house share the same sentiment. Perry said that people sometimes stop to smell the roses in her front yard or knock on the door to compliment her. "I'm pleased to have my garden now," she says, gazing outside at the swaying cherry trees and tumbling wind chimes. "I enjoy looking out more than anything."

Resources:

Landscape designer: Avina's Landscaping, 1618 Borden St., San Mateo, 650-222-7084

Landscape maintenance: Julia Powers Landscape Services, 650-269-4975,

www.juliapowers.com