Mariposa Gardening and Design Blog
Garden Spotlight: Rockridge Family Garden
Winding from front to back, and up and down both sides, Maggie & Jon’s garden blooms nearly all year round. This spring the wisteria exploded like never before with dripping, luscious flowers. The scent under the pergola is light and not overpowering, but the perfume wafts around the entire garden. The overall effect is breathtaking—pendulous flowers that sway in the wind like living lanterns! “Magical” is how Maggie described it.
We started caring for Maggie & Jon’s garden about 4 years ago. Jon loves native plants and a very naturalistic feeling garden. Maggie likes cottage gardens, wild with overplanted fences and many colors year round. The original planting gave the garden good structure, but it needed something more to create the effect that they were looking for. Now, our carefully selected plant groupings give the garden a spirited feeling—providing habitat for birds, butterflies, pollinators, and humans large and small.
Haley, the couple’s 3 year old daughter, absolutely loves to be in the garden. She especially enjoys the new raised stone planter we built. It has been carefully integrated into the overall garden design to effectively work as a vegetable garden, while adding even more beauty and texture to the garden’s informal appeal. Jon and Maggie have planted tomatoes and basil, and in the late fall will put in lettuces and spinach. In this way, they can harvest food year round. The espalliered apple and asian pear trees on the back fence provide some architectural interest to the seating area, and provide food close to the eating area. In addition, strawberries and blueberries, planted under the fruiting fence yeild fruit from spring through fall. Beautiful containers hold the family’s citrus trees. Inter-planted with flowers and herbs, a mandarin, a meyer lemon, and a bearss lime all bear continuous harvests of fresh citrus.