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Harvest Garden
At a suburban home tucked into a tight-knit community in the hills of Santa Monica, California, Landscape Architect Pamela Palmer has redefined the concept of a front lawn. Aided by the relaxing aura of an outdoor fountain sculpted by Charles Swanson, the experience of her design is more reminiscent of a stroll through Napa Valley than to the common stop along neighborhood walking routes. By replacing a water-soaking, fertilizer-sopping, downward-sloping, generic front lawn with a green-minded, water-conscious, produce-bearing garden, the area in front of the house has been transformed into a highly efficient organic farm– er, garden. Without arguing over semantics, the Harvest Garden is a productive front yard, and the gauntlet has officially been thrown down to challenge the 1950’s standard of a suburban lawn.
Crowned by a modern cast stone water feature named Solas, a Charles Swanson original, the Harvest Garden now consists of layered outdoor living spaces, including custom-built garden boxes, a front-entry terrace, and a multitude of crop-yielding plants.
A linear orchard of fruit trees line one edge of this corner property, and beds of alternating carex grass and ripening melons grow beneath the trees. Streaking down the other side is dark purple salvia, which lures hummingbirds with its fragrant nectar. A slope-eliminating retaining wall, filled in with gravel, creates a raised tier teeming with even more interesting and beautiful water-conserving plants such as Australian pincushion plants, dymondia, and thyme. These plants, which are literally put on a pedestal, serve as a visually appealing and welcoming backdrop to the many neighborhood passersby who often stop and exchange pleasantries with the frequently gardening resident, Christine Spagnoli.
 Upon climbing the steps, flanked at the top by a row of squash, artichokes, and eggplants, guests set foot on the raised terrace. Here they encounter the main feature of the entryway, Swanson’s glistening yellow 36-inch Solas fountain. Not only does this calmly overflowing contemporary fountain provide an illuminating brilliance to the outdoor space, but its audibly soothing babble also brings a meditative tone to the garden.
Surrounding the water feature is a gravel roundabout that connects the stairway to a shady entryway terrace and an area with five specially made garden boxes. Frequently, while rounding the Solas fountain, visitors are surprised by Christine as she pops her head out from behind one of her lush planters to invite them to join her as she gardens. All five individual garden boxes of growing fruits and vegetables with built-in benches and storage containers are perfect for visiting among tomatoes, lettuces, peppers, herbs, and other seasonally rotated crops. Hidden within each garden box is a drip-irrigation system that delivers water straight to the roots of the plants without losing much moisture to the California sun.
What most guests may not realize is that each frond, flower, and fruit is an orchestrated bit of natural insulation. As a means to absorb heat and filter light coming into the house, espaliered fig, apple, lemon and cherry trees have been strategically planted, along with caged grape vines, to climb up against the house in a lush and effective screen of vegetation.
The most captivating aspect of the Harvest Garden (besides the farm-like yield, or that everything is organically grown, or even that it is located in a suburban front yard) is the level of efficiency this beautiful garden has achieved. By switching from a boring lawn to a thriving organic mini-farm that charms all five senses, Christine has managed to actually reduced the amount of water, fertilizer, pesticides, and energy consumed. How is it possible? By adhering to a combination of highly-efficient techniques of green standards. Some examples of green techniques that Landscape Architect Pamela Palmer used are: drip irrigation, low-water plants, companion plants that encourage beneficial insects, organic pest repellant, permeable gravel, use of shade, a runoff eliminating retaining wall, crop rotation, and sustainable produce gardening.
It is safe to say that Christine’s house has probably adjusted the walking routes of some neighbors lately. It’s not on every suburban street that you can help bring in a front yard harvest.
Photos courtesy of Steven Gunther
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