Roses and Rosettes
A Carlsbad Couple’s Plant Passions Blend Harmoniously Around Their Contemporary Home
By Mary James
Craig Greene loves succulents; besides their exotic colors and shapes, “they’re hard to kill,” the business owner says with a laugh. His wife Cathy fancies flowers, especially roses. “A garden is missing something without them,” she explains.
Satisfying both while creating a garden to complement the bold architecture of the couple’s contemporary Carlsbad home fell to Ramona landscape designer Christiane Holmquist. The Greenes had tamed the “overgrown hodgepodge” around their ocean-view residence since their move from Poway 13 years ago, but Craig’s succulent collection largely languished in pots on the pool deck and front-yard tropicals and a backyard lawn kept water bills high.
Today, the couple’s plant passions happily coexist in a new entry landscape that descends from a street-level stacked stone wall to the front door. Added flagstone paths wind past waterwise plantings lush with flowers or flower lookalikes, ranging from striped rosettes of ‘Sunburst’ aeoniums to the regal ruffled towers of Vriesea imperialis, one of several unusual bromeliads thriving there.
Contrasts create visual excitement as wide blades of watsonia, agapanthus and bearded iris mix with skinny cape rush wands, agave rosettes, willowy leucadendrons and gleaming clumps of alstroemeria. “I love the play of textures,” the designer says.
Palms and bronze loquats shade a custom Cor-Ten steel fountain that burbles outside a kitchen window where Cathy, a retired librarian, enjoys watching birds flit and splash. Nearby silvery ghost ferns, variegated bromeliads, liriope and bellflowers illuminate the home’s gray and gold exterior.
Screening bamboo and a bed of camellias, another of Cathy’s favorites, shelter a side yard that leads to a back patio spanning the length of the house. There the couple enjoys sunset vistas as they entertain in the outdoor kitchen or swim in the lap pool.
Below, turf still surrounds a pergola and adjacent sandbox, where the Greenes’ two grandchildren often romp, but the lawn was reduced, Christiane says, to make room for paths and a new companion for Cathy’s rose bed: Craig’s succulent garden.
Lava rock-topped mounds provide sharp drainage for an under-the-sea-scape with ‘Sharkskin’ and octopus agaves, starfish-like aloes and coral-like kalanchoes and ‘Sticks on Fire’ euphorbia. Sundrops, Mexican marigold and bulbine add splashes of yellow, while a nearby butterfly bush and plumeria scent the salt air.
Opposite is the revamped rose garden where classics like ‘Brigadoon’, ‘Iceberg’ and ‘Hot Cocoa’ now blend with lavenders, sages, flaxes, iris and other Mediterranean-climate plants. The pool wall behind them is cloaked in variegated and white bower vines, while lemon trees and summer’s tomatoes flank steps to the patio above.
When the Greenes aren’t traveling, both putter in the garden. As they groom the front yard, they’re often interrupted by passersby curious or complimentary about the landscape. As Cathy explains with a smile, “Our neighbors can’t believe all that goes on, all the time, in this garden.”
Resource List
Landscape Designer: Christiane Holmquist Landscape Design, Dixon MT, (760) 586-6065
Landscape Contractor: Mark Sterk, Columbine Landscape Inc., Escondido, CA; (760) 747-3600
Boulders: KRC Rock, San Marcos, Poway and Lakeside; (800) 572-7625
Landscape Lighting: Auroralight, Carlsbad; (760) 931-2910
Plants: Rancho Soledad Nurseries, Rancho Santa Fe, (858) 756-3717; Green Meadow Growers, Bonsall, (760) 751-0793; Waterwise Botanicals, Escondido, (760) 728-2641; Village Nurseries, Del Mar, (858) 481-1140; Cedros Gardens, Solana Beach, (858) 792-8640; Solana Succulents, Solana Beach, CA