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History in Fern Canyon
A dozen plants in this garden This four-acre terraced garden is a tribute to cool, verdant Marin, sited between Mt. Tam State Park and the MMWD watershed and offering pristine views of the Bay and beyond. Cascade Creek dips and spills elegantly, carving a watery channel and a welcome sip for low-growing trillium, damp ferns, and cinnamon manzanita. This garden invites visitors to take a walk in the woods – only these woods surround an extensive organic garden filled with fruit trees, 25 species of citrus, beehives, herbs, and pollinator-loving flowers. Elsewhere dwarf conifers exudes calm, Japanese maples gleam bronze, and a muscular 100-ft wisteria encircles a soaring redwood. This garden creaks with age yet bursts with novelty. Twenty-year-old koi swim lazily and a 70-year-old rose blooms every spring, while succulents peek from pots and an exotic anchor plant bristles with spines. The original terraces were designed in the early 50s by Herman Heinz. The current homeowners purchased the property in the late 80s and began collaborating with gardener Arthur Baker a few years later to nurture, respect and enhance the site. Baker's sublime stonework connects and delineates the space., each piece carried in by hand. Take your time. Relish every detail, from the hand-hewn benches to the patterned bridge. These woods are filled with surprises. |
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A plant lover’s experiment
A dozen plants in this garden Welcome to a grand experiment, a landscape of twisting pathways, interconnected terraces, and a joyous co-mingling of plants that enliven every corner. A towering row of cypress creates dramatic windows that frame expansive views of Mt. Tam. Hard to believe these same majestic conifers were a solid dark hedge when the homeowner moved in almost 40 years ago, enclosing the space instead of defining it. Back then it was a four-room cottage on an undeveloped site. Today the sloped knoll has been transformed into a series of flat usable spaces. A lap pool anchors the lower level, unseen from above yet taking full advantage of the sweeping valleys and hills to the west. Over time, this garden has become more sophisticated and yet it retains an air of whimsy, with sculpture by Jonathan Jacobs, and Larry Colvin, and Peter Haines juxtaposed against a delightful assortment of children’s art. It overflows with purple smoke bush, rugged California natives, weeping cherry, exotic honey bush, copper beech, and a privet hedge pruned to mimic the ridgeline. Every player has a role in this enchanting production (even a surprise four-legged resident). The homeowner is a garden designer and plant lover since childhood – a self-proclaimed experimenter -- always on the lookout for unusual species to add to her collection. One thing is for sure: her experiment is an obvious success. |
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Generations of Mill Valley charm
A dozen plants in this garden Like much of modern Mill Valley, this artsy, bohemian garden owes its creation, funnily enough, to the notorious fire which in 1929 swept through the narrow canyons above the city— and destroyed the nearby childhood home of this garden’s first owner, William Hamilton. Subsequently Hamilton and his wife, Shirley (a lifelong member of the Outdoor Art Club), commissioned well-known Marin architect Gus Costigan to build a house of brick, iron and terra cotta, which were among the most fire-resistant materials of the day. The Hamiltons created an English-style garden to complement the Old World-cottage aesthetic of Costigan's architecture. The garden’s current owners, who bought the property in 1981, added a similarly rustic, hand-hewn brick-and-mortar pool house and freestanding garage. The front garden boasts mature live oaks and meandering paths that date to the Hamiltons’ era. After the current owners leveled the backyard in 1984 to create a sweeping lawn with a majestic canyon view, a terraced rose garden, a varmint-proof stone lettuce house and a greenhouse (which has a retractable roof to aid airflow and humidity) were added. |
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Landscape for a sustainable future
After purchasing this property in the 2000s, the environmentally conscious owners decided to erect a pavilion constructed of state-of-the-art fire-resistant materials, including Corten steel, concrete and glass. In the garden, paths are paved with California Gold slate and the majority of the plants are barely flammable succulents, whose high-water content also prevents them from spreading fire. The design of the buildings and the gardens is an homage to the bio-structure aesthetic of architect G. K. Mickey Muennig’s Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur. Mindful of the flammable nature of a mature grove of bamboo at the property’s border, the property’s gardeners rake and remove dead material at the base of the bamboo weekly. Requiring little irrigation even in drought conditions, the garden's perennial grasses, mature live oaks and citrus trees evoke the essence of a natural California landscape. |
