Original Soil

Pence Gallery Garden Tour, Part One:
Last Sunday marked the 19th Annual Pence Gallery Garden Tour. Nine gardens in the South Davis neighborhoods of Oakshade and Willowbank were featured. The tour is always self-guided, and many attendees were seen walking or biking from garden to garden. While visiting each garden, guests were able to observe local artists painting. The works created during the tour will be displayed and available for purchase at the Pence Gallery from May 18th thru June 18th. A Silent Auction and a family craft project geared towards younger children created extra fun during Sunday’s event.

One of the nine gardens was not at a residence, but an undeveloped lot owned by Mr. and Mrs. W. Taylor on Oakside Drive. The owners of the lot gave Pat Alfors permission to cultivate the land. She has been tending flowers, vegetables and fruit for years here. Pat enjoys this open style of gardening, and working the land filled her need to “dig in the dirt and grow things”. In earlier years Pat’s late husband, John Alfors, gardened with her. He grew and donated loads of vegetables to Community Meals. Pat will be moving this July and the fate of the garden is in question. Perhaps I may be so bold as to suggest the Davis Farm to School Connection get in touch with the land owners and see if there could be a collaboration between the two?

Vegetable and Flower Gardends off Oakside Drive

Rows of leeks grow in this open style gardening lot

Chinese Snowball Viburnum

Tigerwood adds constrast to the plaster exterior of this contemporary design

Also in Willowbank, one of the original homeowners from the 1960s completely reconstructed their home into a spectacular contemporary residence designed by the award-winning architecture firm, Sage Architecture, Inc. The home’s new plaster exterior is in cool contrast to the warm tigerwood, a Brazilian Koa wood. Construction completed in the fall of 2008.  Skip Mezger, landscape architect,  was commissioned to design the gardens and Himington Landscaping installed the gardens. Planning for a sustainable, low maintenance garden requiring limited water usuage was a priority for the homeowners. Japanese maple and Chinese pistache trees anchor the landscape and grass-like groundcover softens the hard lines of the home’s silhouette. Black stem bamboo and California rush plants are positioned along a gray Mexican stone pathyway. The gardens are in their first phase of completion. The second phase inlcudes planters, colorful flowers and more artwork. The arch of the fountain spouts over the rectangle pool add interest to the landscape, as do the chaise lounge chairs. All elements work together to create a tranquil environment for relaxing and entertaining.

Arching fountain spouts add interest to this pool design

Chaises for lounging are the perfect antidote to modern life

A custom copper hood sits over washed glass for this contemporary outdoor room's fireplace

Look for future Welcome Home Blogs featuring this year’s gardens from the Pence Gallery Garden Tour. If you would like to feature your garden or outdoor room design, please contact me. I’d love to share your gardening passion and love for the outdoors with our Davis Life readers!

Read more about Diana’s interior design work and current projects at http://www.thedesignpartner.com and follow me on Twitter

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