Fall/Winter 2014 · 2014. 9. 3. · Megan Kempston Photographer Ellie Van Houtte Sales Staff Janice Fabella Kathy Lera Dawn Pankonen Janice Torrecampo Ad Services Director Chris Redden

A Los Altos Town Crier Publication

&&m a g a z i n em a g a z i n ehome gardenhome garden

A Los Altos Town Crier Publication

Fall/Winter 2014

Modern comfortCalifornia Mission designemphasizes family living

A better lawnGo mow-free with green alternatives

Page 2 | Home & Garden | August 27, 2014

Home & Garden | August 27, 2014 | Page 3


Los Altos Town Crier138 Main St., Los Altos, CA 94022

948-9000losaltosonline.com

Editor Bruce Barton

Magazine Editor Traci Newell

Designer Mary Watanabe

Writers Amy Fischer

Astrid Gaiser

Tanya Kucak

Carolyn Snyder

Copy Editors Joan Garvin

Colleen Schick

Megan Kempston

Photographer Ellie Van Houtte

Sales Staff Janice Fabella

Kathy Lera

Dawn Pankonen

Janice Torrecampo

Ad Services Director Chris Redden

Ad Services Assistant Leverne Cornelius

Production Staff Mary Watanabe

Marilyn Winans

Publisher Paul Nyberg

Associate Publisher Howard Bischoff

Receptionist Heather Jauch

Cover photo: Aditi and Pooneet Goel designed their Los Al-tos home with their family in mind, including a large great room that merges living room, dining room and kitchen space.

Photo by Ellie Van Houtte/Town Crier

Magazine Staff SSSS

Circulation: 16,500. Mailed directly to households in Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and select areas of Mountain View. Hundreds of subscribers receive the Town Crier in neighboring communities as well as out of state. The Town Crier can be purchased at newsstands in Los Altos, Mountain View and Palo Alto.

Upcoming 2014 Magazines

Living in Los AltosPublishes Sept. 24, 2014

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˙© Los Altos Town Crier Company Inc., 2014. All Rights Reserved.

&&home gardenhome gardenm a g a z i n em a g a z i n e

Luxurious lookThis Los Altos Hills home incorporates an international resort lifestyle.

Page 5

Relax in the roundCreate an inviting

backyard by landscaping round spaces.

Page 12

Native touchBuckwheat is a natural complement to garden natives, adding color and attracting pollinators.

Page 14

Also inside: • Living Large, Page 20 • Lawn Care, Page 26 • Low-Water Options, Page 32 • Sustainable Yards, Page 38


By Amy FischerSpecial to the Tow Crier

After traveling the world and visiting a host of five-star resorts, a Los Altos Hills couple chose “simple elegance” as the design concept for their new cus-

tom home construction. Exposure to the beauty and tranquil settings of various resorts enhanced the couple’s appreciation for superior-quality craftsmanship, attention to detail and luxurious amenities. The influence inspired them to incorporate a variety of comforts and technological advances in their dream retirement home. After living in their family home for years before em-barking on the project, the couple waited until their two children had grown and moved away before developing

the necessary floor-plan adjustments. The floor plan of their new home accommodates the couple’s lifestyle as empty nesters who travel and entertain. Their primary objectives were to simplify living with a single story while reorienting their most frequently used rooms to best capture the sunlight and the property’s stun-ning valley views. Dramatic 15-foot ceilings and wall-to-wall windows with considerable window-treatment forethought in the conceptual phase led to their desired result of the coveted valley views remaining the focal point. The dual-layered sheer and light-blocking window shades are retractable and concealed by low-profile soffits to prevent viewing obstruction. The shades integrate with the home automa-tion system to raise and lower to set the mood, just as the

INTERIOR DESIGN

COURTESY OF SPECTRUM INTERIOR DESIGN

In place of a more traditional fireplace, this modern living room features a linear-flame firebox that emits heat while offering a sculpturelike design element.

Continued on Page 6

Los Altos Hills home showcases

resort-inspired living


couple had experienced at the various resorts. The homeowners were intrigued by the contem-porary interpretation of the traditional fireplace, with the linear-flame firebox al-lowing heat while creating a sculpture through fire. They incorporated an im-pressive 6-foot-long firebox into their generously scaled great room to creatively offer the opportunity for evening ambience while maximizing the view with a window above. Adding to the resort-like appeal, a central core outdoor atrium with a full-height tile and stone water feature serves as a focal point from the foyer. To the left of the atrium, in the primary hall, are three recessed wall niches with sidelit floating glass panels custom etched with silver-leaf detailing.

Elaborate entertaining Carefully considering the couple’s lifestyle of prepar-ing, cooking and presenting elaborate cuisine, strategic thought was put into the layout and planning of the great

INTERIOR DESIGN

Continued from Page 5


This Los Altos Hills kitchen boasts two oversized semicircular islands, each with a separate function ideal for entertaining.


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room with integrated kitchen and adjacent informal din-ing room. The kitchen includes two oversized semicircular is-lands, each with designated functions. The first island houses a primary sink with a dishwasher for ease of cleaning while interacting with guests in the great room. The second island sits spaciously parallel to the first and includes a raised bar with seating for guests to congre-gate. A dropped counter design provides a useful 12-foot span for casual buffet serving with an additional side preparation sink. The second island contains an under-counter beverage center and snack drawers for both formal and casual service, designed to clear circulation from the primary workflow of the perimeter and first is-land. The perimeter cooking station boasts state-of-the-art Gaggenau triple 15-inch electric, gas and induction burners with adjacent steam convection oven and dual warming ovens. In addition to high function and performance, the ma-terials make the kitchen one of a kind. The islands are fabricated of both semiprecious Labradorite stone and contrasting granite with waterfall edge detailing and glass mosaic transitions. The same silver metallic glass mosaic is repeated on the perimeter kitchen wall to reflect

INTERIOR DESIGN



The home’s shades integrate with its automation system, rising and lowering to set the mood.

Continued on Page 10


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natural light during the day. In the eve-ning, downlights and under-cabinet lighting illuminate the kitchen. The master suite embraces ultimate luxury with an exquisitely designed custom wall unit that incorporates inspirations from exotic resorts. The walnut bed frame integrates recessed silk-lined accent panels with oversized sconces in lieu of bedside lamps and glows with a decorative damask sheer drape backlit from all four sides. The master bath includes floating vanities and a freestanding vessel tub, partially integrated into a tile wall sur-round with decorative stone counter-top. The wraparound rear exterior stone viewing deck replaced a once narrow wood deck and connects the spaces for circulation. The semicircular cantilevering deck, clear of viewing obstruc-tion, features a linear outdoor fire pit with integrated custom Hibachi grill. The low-profile infinity-edge wa-ter feature brings sound and serenity, pleasing both the

homeowners and guests. Amy Fischer is principal designer at Spectrum Inte-rior Design Inc. For additional photos of the home and more information on Spectrum, visit SpectrumInteri-orDesign.com. ◆

INTERIOR DESIGN



The bedroom, with its walnut bed frame and silk-lined accent panels, evokes a resort-inspired lifestyle.



By Astrid GaiserSpecial to the Town Crier

When thinking about your landscape, shapes matter a lot, especially when the lot itself has a challenging shape.

A challenging lot could be the pie shape in a cul-de-sac, the polygon hidden between the neighboring lots or a long, narrow space. The long space, often the result of how the house is positioned on a lot, tends to feel like a hallway. What do all these lot shapes have in com-mon? It’s hard to relax in the environment. Too many acute angles in the somewhat tri-angular, pie-shaped areas make the occupants feel uneasy. There is no resting point. The polygon offers too many angles and results in similar feelings. And hallways (long and nar-row shapes) are just hallways – they are meant

LANDSCAPING

Create inviting spaces by landscaping in the round

COURTESY OF ASTRID GAISER

The half-circle design placed in a triangular garden space, above, creates an inviting and relaxing backyard atmosphere. The side yard, below, is divided by half-circles to offer a more intimate escape.


to rush through, not to hang out. My long-proven fix for these situations is circles. Round shapes relax people and encourage them to stop and enjoy. I know this from my own front yard. When it was a triangle, people were reluctant to come in and walk to the door. So I put in a half-circle. It worked. Now people actually hang out in my front yard. Another great example was a pie-shaped lot that originally had a rectangular patio, which forced oddly shaped planting areas. A design with all cir-cles – from the patio to the lawn and even the out-door kitchen – softened the area and allowed lush, deep planting areas around the perimeter. Another great way to hide odd corners is to mound up the area in front of the corner and put a focal point on top of it. Best of all, the soil that gets excavated during construction of patios, etc., doesn’t need to go into the landfill – it can be reused on site for the mound. This combines the practical with the environmentally conscious and saves money. Now to the hallway situations, which are often found in side yards or narrow backyards after a remodel. One idea is to divide them into smaller areas. Using round shapes helps to hide the narrow rectangle from the eye. To use the example of the side yard shown, we separated it into three distinct areas: a kitchen area, a sitting area with

a fountain and a vegetable area behind a gate. The use of round shapes on the ground and for the fountain made the area inviting and intimate. According to the owners, it is a favorite spot in the garden. Astrid Gaiser of Astrid Gaiser Garden Design LLC is a landscape designer, horticulturist and member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. For more information, call 224-2895, email [email protected] or visit astridgaiser.com. ◆

LANDSCAPING

COURTESY OF ASTRID GAISER

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By Tanya KucakSpecial to the Town Crier

Native buckwheats buzz with activity and come in a range of colors and sizes, so you could have an interesting garden with only buckwheats. After

all, you have approximately 500 varieties and cultivars to choose from. The plants generally have a mounding form, and the sizes of the most common varieties range from foot-wide cushions to imposing 7-foot-tall shrubs. Whitish and grayish leaf colors predominate, though a range of greens also occurs, often with leaf edges outlined in silvery-white and felted undersides. Flower colors run the gamut from white to pinkish-white (often aging to russet tones), deep pinks, reds and yellows. Leaf shapes can be needlelike, like rosemary, but are more often cupped ovals ranging from a fraction of 1-3 inches long.

BUCKWHEATS

Combining buckwheats with other natives

TANYA KUCAK/SPECIAL TO THE TOWN CRIER

Sulfur Buckwheat attracts many pollinators and adds a cheerful splash of bright yellow to the garden all summer. For dramatic contrast, grow it with blue-flowered penstemons or Wayne Roderick Seaside Daisy.Continued on Page 17




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But you’ll need to choose other plants to get sagey aromas, blue flowers, spring blooms and plants that tolerate overspray or regular watering. In the wild, many other natives grow with buckwheats. Following are some natives that like the same conditions as buckwheats and grow well with them. Pete Veilleux, whose East Bay Wilds Native Plant Nursery stocks a dazzling variety of buckwheats, offered these rec-ommendations at a recent talk sponsored by the Gardening with Natives group of the California Native Plant Society. • Woolly Blue Curls likes the same dry conditions as buckwheats and offers a delightful leaf fragrance, blue-purple flowers and a long bloom time. Foothill Penstemons also contribute blue-purple to the palette. • Wayne Roderick Seaside Daisy, a drought-tolerant variety, is an easy-to-grow plant whose lavender flowers complement many varieties of native buckwheats. • Conejo Buckwheat, with yellow flowers and soft, white velvety leaves, pairs well with fluffy mounds of

Mendocino Reed Grass. • In a hot, dry garden, use buckwheats with Golden Fleece and other goldenbushes. • The large-scale St. Catherine’s Lace looks good



The silvery color and feathery texture of David’s Choice Sandhill Sage combine well with many of the buckwheats.

BUCKWHEATS



with the tall, red-flowered Catalina cultivar of California Fuchsia. • The pom-pom flowers of Rosy Buckwheat combine nicely with the silvery leaves of Canyon Prince Wild Rye, and with native grasses in general. Deergrass makes a nice background for a variety of native buckwheats. • You can plant low-growing manzanita or ceanothus varieties with buckwheats next to them or growing up through them. The sturdier stems of the ground covers keep the more brittle buckwheat stems from being bro-ken by passersby. Anchor Bay Ceanothus, for instance, is a neat-looking, deer-tolerant ground cover. Bert Johnson Manzanita is a choice ground cover with dense foliage that stays a foot tall. • Low-growing natives such as Prostrate Coyote Brush or Canyon Gray Coastal Sage can also protect buckwheats in a mixed planting and provide an attractive contrast. • The silvery foliage of David’s Choice Sandhill Sage blends well with many of the smaller buckwheats, and its feathery texture contrasts with the leaf shapes of buck-wheats. • Prostrate Coastal Goldenbush grows with Coast Buckwheat in the wild and flowers at the same time. Tanya Kucak gardens organically. Email her at [email protected]. ◆

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The deep-pink to red pom-poms of Rosy Buckwheat contrast with the green leaves, which reverse to white. Adding textures with airy grasses or feathery David’s Choice Sandhill Sage can enhance its impact in the garden.

BUCKWHEATS



By Carolyn SnyderSpecial to the Town Crier

For many hardworking young cou-ples living in San Francisco, there comes a time when it’s nice to re-

turn to your roots. Aditi and Pooneet Goel left their condominium in the City and moved to a rental house in Los Altos when Aditi was pregnant with their second child. Aditi was born and raised in Cupertino and Pooneet’s parents live in Atherton. He graduated from Menlo School and Stanford University. “We wanted to check out the mar-ket,” Aditi said. “We looked for a year. We were not looking to build a house. Why on earth would you take that on?”

LIVING LARGE

Los Altos family prioritizes comfort over size

PHOTOS BY ELLIE VAN HOUTTE/TOWN CRIER

Looking to build a contemporary home for their growing family, Aditi and Pooneet Goel razed a dilapidated cottage on their Los Altos property and replaced it with a California Mission-style home with a tile roof and large, arched windows, above, that allow natural light to stream into living spaces, below.


Well, take it on they did when they couldn’t find a house to suit their lifestyle. They didn’t want one with only two bedrooms upstairs (“Do you just put the children up there and forget them?”), and they wanted a “family” room in the true sense of the word. In August 2012, the couple purchased a dilapidated, unlivable cottage in Los Altos, razed it and built “a supe-rior house with a lot of love and thought,” said realtor Nick French of the Sereno Group. “The neighbors love the end result.” It was a pretty big deal when the Goels broke ground June 1, 2013. “The house was gone in a day,” said Pooneet, who has built solar farms. “If we could have saved it, we would have.”

Teamwork The couple assembled a team: architect Chris Spauld-ing of Berkeley, Mehus Construction of Los Gatos and landscape architect Paul Daniels of Cupertino. And team-work – plus daily on-site visits and vigilance by Pooneet – resulted in their being able to move in over the Fourth of July weekend. The two-story California Mission-style home, with its stucco facade and tile roof, belies its interior – and size. It blends into the neighborhood, yet it is 3,583 square feet,

LIVING LARGE

ELLIE VAN HOUTTE/TOWN CRIER

A central feature of Aditi and Pooneet Goel’s contemporary Los Altos home is its great room, which merges kitchen, dining and living room spaces. The common beamed ceiling and three chandeliers provide continuity.


The master bathroom attracts the sunlight.



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including the basement, five bedrooms, a media room, a gym, an office and a wine cellar. “But the house feels small,” said Aditi, director for education policy at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. “It’s easy to forget about the basement.” Pooneet, vice president of business development at startup PowWow Inc., calls the interior design “transition-al” – moving from classical Santa Barbara-style architec-ture outdoors to comfortable California indoors. “The house is a contemporary California layout ren-dered with Mediterranean form and materials,” Spaulding said. “The desire of many people these days is for a large great room that flows out to the yard and a covered out-door room.” Spaulding designed the house to meet the Goels’ needs, which he considered “pretty universal – the main family bedrooms upstairs, a ground-level guest suite and a basement for entertainment, utilities and storage.”

The great room The Goel family already is spending 90 percent of their time in the great room. “Our bedrooms are on the smaller side, because this is where we like to be and have daily interaction,” Pooneet said.

LIVING LARGE


LaCantina doors fold to the side, extending the Goels’ indoor space to an outdoor patio and back-yard that includes an urn-shaped water feature.


Aditi loves to cook and bake; consequently, the state-of-the-art kitchen has a six-burner Wolf gas range with a double oven. The Shitake Caesarstone countertops are in sharp contrast to the white wood cabinets, some of which have glass fronts. The large furniturelike island features a reverse color scheme – white top (Frosty Carrina Caesar-stone), brown base. A ceiling arch delineates the kitchen from the great room, which has a dramatic beamed cathedral ceiling with three circular wrought-iron chandeliers. They’re among the many distinctive lighting fixtures the Goels proudly acknowledge came from Pottery Barn. “We were our own interior designers,” Pooneet said. “We visited a couple of lighting stores, but the prices were outrageous.” At the far end of the great room, LaCantina folding doors open to the patio, creating one large indoor/outdoor area. The porcelain patio tiles perfectly match the engi-neered white-oak flooring in the great room – the same flooring used throughout. Nearly floor-to-ceiling arched windows, providing abundant natural light, distinguish an intimate living room and formal dining room on either side of the entry hall. A skylight above the stairwell serves the same purpose.

LIVING LARGE




Pooneet installed LED lights in the skylight so that “it’s almost the same at night as it is in day-light.”

Green features Mehus project manager Fer-nando Dacosta cited a host of eco-friendly features: • Solar panels on the roof • Radiant heating in the basement with zone control • Stormwater drainage sys-tem • Low-flow fixtures and energy-efficient appliances • Automated sprinkler sys-tems • All LED built-in lighting • VOC-compliant paint and stains From his smartphone, Pooneet can control the zone heating and cooling in the house in addition to the lighting system. The phone – and its functions – is perhaps his favorite gadget.

Aditi’s favorite gadget is her old-fashioned kitchen tim-er. “It keeps time,” she said. “That’s all it does.” ◆

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LIVING LARGE



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At a recent talk sponsored by GreenTown Los Altos, horticul-turist Deva Luna offered do-it-

yourself tips for transforming what she called a “blank space, formerly lawn” into a sustainable landscape, as well as removing a lawn and planting. Luna, principal designer at Earth-Care Landscaping, outlined six steps for designing a sustainable landscape. 1. Lay out paths. On a lawn, you can walk anywhere, but if you are add-ing a variety of plants that you can’t walk on, you need to think about natu-ral circulation patterns and allow for maintenance paths. Do you need a path from the driveway to your front door,

LAWN CARE

Do-it-yourself tips for replacing a lawn


If you ask tree trimmers for mulch, you will get a truckload at a time. Here, it’s being offloaded onto a driveway. Note that the truckload has lots of green from leafy hackberry and elm trees. The mixture of leaves and branches will break down faster than wood chips alone, so this mulch would be especially good for a planted area.


or a path to wheel your recycling bin to the street? Use permeable options, such as pavers laid in sand, an infor-mal mulched path or even permeable concrete. 2. Divide and conquer. The paths define smaller spac-es with more interesting shapes, which you can think of as garden rooms. 3. Place larger items such as trees and shrubs for screening or shade. Do you want to block the view of a neighbor’s garage or create a shadier corner? 4. Place accents to create garden views. You can use sculptures or birdbaths as focal points, arrange plants around boulders or add benches. Look at the landscape through windows in your house and from the sidewalk. 5. Add colorful perennials. Plant them along walk-ways, near the entry and next to the sidewalk. 6. Fill in with low-spreading ground covers. Try Prostrate Ceanothus or sage.

The benefits of mulching To remove the actual lawn, sheet mulching is the most efficient way to go. EarthCare has completed approxi-mately 70 yards using this method, Luna said. There’s no need to “scalp” the lawn or dig up anything except for the edges next to sidewalks, paved paths or other hardscape. Next to those edges, dig down approximately 4 inches and taper back to approximately 15-18 inches.

LAWN CARE


A wheelbarrow, a garden or manure fork and a great deal of persistence are needed to move a pile of mulch.



Use the removed soil to make berms or mounds. Place the berms where you want to grow plants that need good drainage. The berms will ensure that rainwater and irrigation water drain away from the crown of the plant. Next, smother the grass with two overlapping layers of builder’s paper (or cardboard or newspaper). You can get rolls of builder’s paper from landscape supply companies such as Lyngso Gar-den Materials in Redwood City. Then get a truckload of free wood-chips from any tree-trimming service. I spread up to 4 inches deep under the drip lines of established trees and shrubs, and 6 inches or more in unplanted areas. At the edges of hardscape, make sure that the mulch is level with the hardscape so that it does not fall onto sidewalks or paths. Pull the mulch at least a foot away from existing trees and a few inches away from shrubs. You can begin planting the same day the mulch is spread, according to Luna. To plant, make a pocket in the mulch a little bigger

than the root ball of your plant. Scuff the root balls a little to open them up, and fill the rest of the hole with compost. Luna’s secret ingredient for plant success is my-corrhizae. Tanya Kucak gardens organically. Email her at [email protected]. ◆

LAWN CARE



This pile of mulch is strictly woodchips, so it’s ideal for paths where you want it to break down as slowly as possible. If you spread the mulch 4 inches deep, a truckload of 3 cubic yards will cover approximately 240 square feet.





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Lawns don’t make sense in parking strips and front yards where the only person walk-

ing on them is the person mowing them, horticulturist Deva Luna told a standing-room-only crowd at a re-cent talk sponsored by GreenTown Los Altos. A small lawn would be appropriate for a children’s play area in the backyard, though, she said. Luna, principal designer at Earth-Care Landscaping, discussed low-water alternatives to lawns. Contrary to popular notions, a sustainable, no-mow landscape can have any style. Luna showed pho-tos of sustainable front yards in a

LOW-WATER OPTIONS

Going no-mow


Yarrow is the predominant plant in this sustainable lawn, which was seeded with both yarrow and Red Fescue the previous winter. The adjacent path and patio, carpeted with gravel, create a pleasant walking surface that enables rainwater absorption on-site.Continued on Page 34



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variety of styles, including Japanese, modern, Mediterra-nean and natural. She displayed examples of a range of garden types that offer more interest and liveliness than a lawn, such as children’s gardens, fairy gardens and but-terfly gardens. Luna explained that succession is a key feature of sus-

tainable landscapes, where different plants predominate as trees and shrubs grow and shade/sun patterns change. For instance, an herbal lawn with thyme in the sunny part and yerba buena and sweet woodruff in the shady part evolved as trees grew and more shade was created. The



Planting herbs such as thyme between stepping stones creates a permeable path. Thyme requires periodic watering in the dry season to stay lush, though.

LOW-WATER OPTIONS




shade-loving plants gradually took over more space. “The only gardens not in succession,” she said, are gardens that are “maintained to be always juvenile, like a lawn.” Approximately 90 percent of the people who call EarthCare want low-water and low-maintenance land-scapes, she said, “which are not the same thing.” Meadows, for example, can require a great deal of maintenance, esapecially if they are not carefully planned. “The primary issue is weeds,” Luna said, adding that if you have a meadow, you need a “relaxed attitude around perfection and change.” Preparation involves weeding, watering, cutting weeds with a swivel hoe and repeating the entire process at least one more time. The advantages of a no-mow lawn include seeing sea-sonal changes, watching flowers sway in the breeze and creating more habitat for pollinators. Interplant with wild-flowers for added interest. For instance, you can get Eco-Lawn seed, which is a mixture of fine fescues, and add clover and yarrow. Delta Bluegrass Co. sells sod that uses California native grasses. You can find the sod at local retailers. Following is a list of native ground covers. • Yarrow is tough and drought tolerant and makes a

great habitat plant. It’s resilient enough for foot traffic, but not for a play surface. • Red Fescue prefers some shade, but it can turn brown without summer water and builds up a lot of thatch. It re-seeds and fills in readily. • Berkeley Sedge is a clumping, grasslike plant that handles drought and does well in clay or sand, in part sun or shade. • Dune Sedge likes sun and tolerates some shade. Left in its natural state, it is more drought-tolerant and stays green longer. Following are drought-tolerant ground covers. • Manzanita is the quintessential California native plant. Luna’s favorite cultivar is Carmel Sur. • Beach Strawberry performs great in partial shade and has bright green leaves. • Bee’s Bliss Salvia can grow to 8 feet wide in two years and requires no water by the third year. Tanya Kucak gardens organically. Email her at [email protected]. ◆


LOW-WATER OPTIONS

The advantages of a no-mow lawn include seeing seasonal changes, watching

flowers sway in the breeze and creating more habitat for pollinators.


Home for the HolidaysMagazine

COMINGNOVEMBER 19, 2014

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What difference would it make if you replaced a traditional front lawn with a sustainable front yard?

A decade ago, the city of Santa Monica decided to find out. The garden study took two adjacent bungalows in an urban residential neighborhood and built a new landscape for each. One bungalow got a traditional front yard with a lawn that was regularly mowed, fertilized and watered. The other bungalow got a sustainable front yard with Cal-ifornia native plants, permeable paving and drip irriga-tion. Starting in March 2004, all the inputs were tracked, including water consumption and maintenance costs. The outputs, in the form of green waste that had to be hauled away, were also tracked. The latest report summarized data from 2004 to 2013. Over the first nine years of the study, the sustainable

yard used 18 percent as much water, required 31 percent as much maintenance labor and generated 44 percent as much green waste compared with the traditional yard. If you are considering a lawn replacement, those sav-ings in water use, garden maintenance and waste-hauling fees quickly add up and can make a sustainable landscape pay for itself sooner than you might guess. The annual up-keep cost of the traditional yard was estimated at $3,000 – the sustainable yard totaled $800. Santa Monica boasts a Mediterranean climate that gets hot Santa Ana winds in the fall and cool ocean breezes at other times. The bungalows are used as office space by Santa Monica College, so the demonstration gardens, each approximately 1,900 square feet, have similar foot traffic and pollution from passing cars. The city bans the

SUSTAINABLE YARDS

Traditional vs. sustainable front yards


A gravel path and the stepping stones are good examples of permeable hardscape. The elements allow rainwater to percolate into the soil on-site rather than being washed away into the street.


use of herbicides and insecticides, and neither garden used them. The traditional front yard was designed to be similar to a typical front yard in the area, with sprinkler irriga-tion and an automatic sprinkler timer. Subsurface drip ir-rigation was installed for areas alongside sidewalks and streets to reduce runoff of irrigation water. Approximately 95 percent of the landscaped area was lawn, requiring weekly mowing and edging. The rest of the landscaped area used plants that originated in northern Europe and the eastern U.S. For color, annuals were added two to three times a year. All of these plants required more wa-ter, fertilizer and pest management than the natives in the sustainable garden. The existing sidewalk to the front door remained. The sustainable front yard cost a little more at first be-cause the sidewalk was replaced with a permeable walkway that met Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines for ac-cessibility. The plants were all California natives, chosen to provide year-round color and habitat for birds and other desirable wildlife. Monthly maintenance was primarily to check the drip irrigation – the plants needed only an-nual pruning. The low-volume drip irrigation system used a weather-based controller rather than a timer to provide water only when needed. Rainwater was directed to the landscape with new rain gutters, and the dry creek bed and infiltration pit kept as much rainwater as possible on-site. Tanya Kucak gardens organically. Email her at [email protected]. ◆

SUSTAINABLE YARDS

PHOTOS BY TANYA KUCAK/SPECIAL TO THE TOWN CRIER

This local meadow of native bunch grasses, above, was on this year’s Going Native Garden Tour. The rocks add interest and, in the spring, California Poppies bloom in the meadow. Edged informally with lower-growing manzanitas, the meadow welcomes an array of pollinators and other wildlife. A conventional lawn, below, was on a local garden tour this year. Although it covers only a part of the front yard, it functions primarily as a visual expanse of green. It requires regular mowing, water and edging.

LIST OF ADVERTISERS

Artistic Garage Doors, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 18

Blue Sky Outdoor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Bruce Bauer Lumber & Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

CA-1 Home Cleaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

California Paint Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Carmel Stone Imports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Carpeteria Flooring Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Classics at Townsend Estates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Cobalt Power Systems, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Danish Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

De Mattei Construction, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Design Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Diversified Capital Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

FastFrame of Los Altos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

First Lock & Security Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Garage Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Grass Farm Garden & Accents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Home Organizing by Georgia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

IKB Design & Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Inhabiture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Integrative Medical Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Lynn North / Alain Pinel Realtors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Meyer Appliance / Kitchens by Meyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Mike Philpot Painting & Handyman Service . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Owen Signature Homes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Pacific Peninsula Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Pam Blackman / Intero Real Estate Services . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Pazmany Bros. Landscaping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

PolyGrass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Pompeii Ristorante . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Premier Door Services, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Ristorante Bella Vita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Rutt of Los Altos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Samscaping, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

San Jose Museum of Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Select Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Sterling Custom Upholstery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Terra Patio & Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

The Pied Piper Exterminators, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34


Documents

Fall/Winter 2014 · 2014. 9. 3. · Megan Kempston Photographer Ellie Van Houtte Sales Staff Janice Fabella Kathy Lera Dawn Pankonen Janice Torrecampo Ad Services Director Chris Redden