Busy Sunday

Perpsective

It’s late Sunday afternoon and the Rancho’s backyard is the picture of orderliness and serenity, betraying none of the weeks of worry and stress the impending garden tour has provoked. With rain and other complications seeming to fall every weekend, I hadn’t had a chance to spend some real quality time in the garden … that is until today. The weather was picture perfect so, after breakfast, I was rarin’ to get out there and get some things done. Here’re some of the projects I was finally able to address …

Thanks, Raul!

While cruising craigslist one night a couple of weeks ago, I came across a wooden bench that had a rudimentary look I loved. I didn’t need a bench, but contacted the seller anyway, asking if he could make two chairs and a table for me, based on the bench, but with some modifications. He agreed, and that’s how I met Raul Gallego, Jr., the world’s most easygoing carpenter. Raul, and his father, Raul Sr., work out of their shop in LA. producing furniture and finishing it in amazing faux-aged painted surfaces. Raul Jr. not only took my ideas to heart but he made alternate versions which he emailed to me for approval … I asked him to finish my pieces in a concrete gray color and he nailed it. We picked the pieces up Saturday morning and when we got them home I was happy to see they fit the space perfectly: adding a sense of perspective to the lower tier, with its large concrete pavers. I can’t recommend both Rauls enough; contact them at their website by clicking here.

Graphic

I love graphic design, concrete shapes and industrial materials. So, I combined all three in this focal point between the tiered area and the planting bed beyond. Two concrete rings flank an abrasive grinding ring, with circle-in-square concrete bricks inside each; I stabilized the trio by resting them inside heavy rusted steel gear-things. Repeating graphically atop the large industrial dolly I got at a neighborhood garage sale, I think they look really cool: the peek-a-boo effect is nice and the circles help visually soften the massive rusty wagon.

Junk pile

More industrial and random junk elements create a point of interest at the end of a previously-empty corner of the garden. No plants here, I wanted this area to be a departure, a stand-alone sculptural grouping.

Pale vignette

Against the back wall, two stuccoed wooden chairs are crumbling attractively and creating a nice surface on which to display a collection of similarly-colored pale objects, including: a hardened concrete puddle, a dozing concrete Madonna, a metal lantern, a fertility fetish, and an old grass seed spreader planted with a terrific echeveria. Does it all go together? Of course — unifying colors and similar materials make it work.

Big burst

I receive email announcements of local estate sales and thankfully they include photos. Usually the photos show me the reasons I shouldn’t go: lots of oldie, moldy, granny fare in ill-repair and off-taste … but the sale held last Friday had several things that caught my eye. Enter Paul, retiree-enabler, who was able to be there when it opened at 8 a.m. and I was on my way to work in LA. His shopping list included a turquoise two-piece sectional and this homemade metal sunburst; happily he was able to score both! The sofas are slated for future reupholstering, but the sunburst was able to go right up on the wall where it looks terrific … made by the late doctor/homeowner, I love its scale and rusted-painted surface.

Also accomplished today: spot-pruning and trimming, deep cleanup around plant bases, hiding undesirables and planting the recently-acquired ‘rock’ planters (they’re not actual stone, as we first thought, but a simulation, probably terra-cotta composite). The temple area was added to as well. With today’s burst of garden activity I’m finally feeling like I won’t embarrass myself during the garden tour and visitors will see a garden unlike most!