when a client's sister-in-law bought the house next door, they knocked down the fence between them to expand the garden. Now it stretches across both front yards. It's a two-yard garden.
A new garden gives purpose to a huge, flat, barren backyard. Watch as we transform the space into a flourishing food garden.
We specialize in small-space biointensive gardening here at Gardenerd, so we get a lot of calls to install patio gardens from eager folks with limited space and sunlight. Our latest patio garden project gave the homeowner an herb garden, a space for veggies, and a few new fruit and berry crops in a small space. The homeowner has 2 children who were interested in eating home-grown veggies. They also like to play basketball and jump on a trampoline, so most…
It's fall, and garden installations are top on our list. Last week we created a starter garden for a health-conscious couple and their young boys. They all want to know where their food comes from, and this first garden is a great way to learn. Since theirs is a household of boys, our garden needed to be protected from soccer balls, water guns, and general rambunctiousness. We chose the neat and clean lines of portable cedar planters, that elevate the…
While Los Angeles may be a concrete jungle, we still have wild animals lurking about the garden. Our most recent garden installation was designed to protect new seedlings from wandering critters on the canyon slope. It's a starter garden, this 3x5 foot raised bed. Not much design involved, except that we had to make it fit on top of an existing brick patio barely bigger than that. We decided to move the bench back a foot, closer to the rock…
Gardening is about life cycles, we deal with life and death every day. When someone prized is taken too soon, however, it is a tragedy. I write today to honor a friend and colleague, the carpenter who took my visions and built them into realities, who was taken from us two weeks ago: Josh Hover. Josh came to Gardenerd by way of Daniel Mayorga, my landscape professional who installs my garden designs. Josh and Daniel knew each other since Kindergarten,…
We recently completed a landscaping project for a homeowner from South Africa. He wanted a lush and colorful landscape that is drought tolerant and low maintenance. At the same time, he talked of turf grass and wispy foliage that reminded him of home. We brought his desires and needs together in this new landscape. Since we usually focus on edible gardens, we started with fruit trees in the front yard, then surrounded them with succulents and a combination of California…
Picture this: a large back yard with plenty of space for a garden. Then factor in this: mature trees all over the place, leaving little space for full-sun exposure. Not to mention roots--lots of tree roots, a network of thatchy root-hairs making it impossible to cultivate a vegetable patch. That's what we were dealing with in this Valley Village garden. The solution: a mini raised bed garden for maximum yield. The client had tried growing vegetables in this space before,…
Spring is just around the corner, but in the Valley it's already here. Southern California continues to have unseasonably high temperatures and one new gardener wanted to take advantage of it with a new mini orchard and garden for her Sherman Oaks home. The homeowner wanted to grow what she eats: mostly fruit and veggies. So we set her up with a mini orchard of 6 fruit trees and two raised beds, plus a few planters for herbs and berries.…
Every once in awhile someone hires Gardenerd to landscape their property, not to install a vegetable garden. This particular client already had a thriving vegetable garden, but wanted new landscaping to create an oasis in the city. Here were her issues: Her front yard consisted of lawn and a hodge podge of treasured plants discovered over the years. Many of the plants required more sun than was available, so they stretched out toward the light, making them leggy and sprawling.…