This gracious garden will the first stop for many garden tour participants as they pick up their tickets. Thoughtful and mature plantings are in evidence in every quarter of the property and they provide welcoming shade and framing for the French Colonial house.

When the owner moved to the property, a wealth of mature trees about the property enabled them to improve the looks of the garden without having to begin anew. The most notable trees are the mature arching sycamores, which frame the house and provide dappled shade in the grand courtyard in front of the house.

A wide porch stretches across the entire south-facing front of the house. Around the front entrance, is a collection of succulents with interesting leaf color and shape. To show off the intricate patterns of the agaves, aloes, echeverias, euphorbias and aeoniums, they grow them in simple unadorned terra cotta pots.

Two magnolia trees in large terra cotta pots along with two kumquats also decorate the front area of the house. On the east side of the courtyard the owners treated a 20’ area with a staggered planting of mondo grass, rhaphiolepis, a deep hedge of variegated tobira pittosporum and then a line of bay laurel, all of which work together to create a lively green area that also screens the property from the neighboring houses.

The back garden features a lovely green lawn and large scale planting of colorful bushes and shrubs. A handsome variegated New Zealand Laurel in a container decorates the rear patio surrounded by wide leafed clivias. The far side of the rear terrace contains a growing collection of begonias, some of which bloom almost year round.

The newest part of the garden is on the west side of the house, and includes a number of plants with yellow and white variegated foliage.