Re: California garden tours

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Just curious, Nan, are you researching this for an article?  There are so many spring garden tours here in the San Francisco Bay Area that it is more a question of where to start.  One longer term annual tour that I have had my own garden designs featured in over the years is the Park Day School Tour of the East Bay.  They generally have a dozen local gardens in the Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Albany and even Point Richmond on occasion as part of their tours.  These gardens tend to have a very good cross spectrum of garden types, and have featured  some very talented local East Bay garden designers, many of them close friends, on the tours.  I find that the East Bay Area is a very garden-centric area with many of what I consider to be cutting edge designers who are often also very plant oriented in a uniquely East Bay Area style, that is recognizable once you have seen it.  Gardens here tend to be less concerned with the traditional, or imparting status, and more art driven in style, in my opinion.  Something that stylistically is less commonly seen on the San Francisco peninsula or Marin County gardens.  Maybe I am totally biased because I live in the East Bay Area, do other people share my impressions on this point?

Another tour that I have really enjoyed over the years is the Venice Garden Tour, for many of the same reasons, but this tour seems more focused on the house architecture than some of the gardens, but it also always has some really unique gardens on the tour.  The open gardens during the Garden Conservancy Open Gardens Days are also generally worth seeking out, both here in northern California and southern..

While I admire a native plants garden, and a focus on such is definitely a growing trend, I can't say that I have been overly impressed with the majority of the local gardens I see with this emphasis.  Let me qualify this by saying that my impressions of gardens I really enjoy visiting have as much to do with the visual qualities of the design, the way they interact with the hardscape to make them enjoyable and functional to be in, and not just about a particular type of planting per se.  I have definitely seen some interesting mostly native plants gardens that meet these personal goals, but way too many in my opinion just aren't beautifully composed as well as functional at the same time.  I will admit that I have a real bias towards gardens that have used plants to achieve dramatic contrasts of color, form and texture, and few native plant gardeners that I have met share these as design goals, or a preference for using plant massing in a more architectural way.

My preferred season to tour gardens is actually in late summer or late fall as it approaches winter, as I feel that a spring tour is just too darn traditional.  Some of my favorite garden tours have been with the local garden group The Hortisexuals, loosely home based here in the Bay Area.  These tours don't typically have a set season or location, but both the local Bay Area tours of members and their clients's gardens and the out of state as well as out of country tours with this group have always been nothing short of fabulous.

I hope I haven't stepped on too many toes expressing my opinions here,(I haven't ever been on the All Natives Garden Tour in San Mateo/Santa Clara Counties), and it will be interesting to hear others say which tours they like.  I should probably also admit that I find myself using more California natives and Mediterranean climate plants in my current work as I worry more about water sustainability issues as they impact local gardens.  I find myself picking up Nevin Smith's book, Native Treasures, every time I start to think about a planting design for a new garden.  I don't know whether it is worth mentioning, but the first several gardens I designed over 30 years ago while still a student in landscape architecture at Cal Poly SLO were all native plant gardens. 

On the other hand, and at this point in my landscaping career, I will never willingly give up incorporating interesting plants from any part of the world,  that help achieve my vision for a Bay Area garden, and these often  include plants from tropical high elevation cloud forests, succulents and bromeliads, along with members of the Proteaceae, Rubiaceae, Melastomacea and Acanthaceae  families, to name just a few plant interests. I feel that creating a garden is as much about setting a mood, working within a regional character and reflecting or reacting to the local culture, while creating a work of art, as well as creating habitats and solving functional problems.  The only way to get referrals towards the next garden design also needs to meet a clients's brief as well as attempt to stay within budget,(seldom ever completely achieved if we are all honest with ourselves).  I think the trick is to incorporate these disparate elements into a whole that looks like it belongs in the setting, expands horizons and exceeds expectations,  with some notes of exoticness to the mix.  These are all garden qualities that appeal to me when going on a garden tour.

I am linking to some flickr photos of some of my garden designs for those who might be interested in seeing them, which I think help illustrate some of the points I am trying to make...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anniesannuals/sets/72157614346658861