🍃💡🍃 Spanish Bungalow Garden Tour || Linda Vater

[Music] [Applause] [Music] well we are at one of the most charming homes i think i've seen in oklahoma city i'm here today with my friend john thurman and my buddy roger that you guys know this is just as cute as can be how old is this so the house was built in 1928 okay and i've been here 22 years so i've been gardening that long out here trying to rescue what was here and then to create new things yeah and you've done it very very successfully now as a point of reference and one thing that i find fascinating is we are literally blocks from the oklahoma city state capitol we are so one block and this is the historic lincoln terrace neighborhood so is this an hp historic preservation area capital medical historic preservation area so we're part of the hospital and capital um complex right it's a little bit different it is a little bit different that's interesting i didn't know that there's there's talk of merging them at some point but at this point we were still separate so well we you were remarking earlier how it's so quiet here it is so peaceful over here yes other than when there's a demonstration or something like that yeah so roger you have helped john though john obviously has put his own touches on it but you and john flew it from garden design have kind of helped with some of the the bones and also some of the remedial work after the ice storm and the arctic blast the 2021 winter oh my gosh that's why we came over here this last week and um and actually you know the we and john inherited john turman inherited the bones you know a lot of the raised beds and things like that that we've worked around and worked with removed parts of it at at different times but and mature plant material as part of the bones but john has such a great eye and is a great gardener and so it's a real it's definitely a real collaboration and it's and it's been a 20-year collaboration yeah that we did not do this just all at once yeah now it's important to point out that there's a little bit of a cheat here because john is an interior designer and so you have a wonderful eye for composition and for things that you like and that you don't like and john was talking a little bit earlier well well you communicate what you were saying about the interior and the exterior of your house part of my philosophy about any house is that when you walk into the house it should look something like the outside there should be a relationship so i feel like that whether you're going in or out there's the inside the house itself and the garden should be kind of a continuous story yeah whatever that is and in my case there are lots of garden ornaments and blue and white china and just things that i've collected and as my house is filled up it has spilled out so so that that leads me to my question of the day you guys which is how important to you is it that the outside of your home is an extension of the inside of your home and that they both speak the same language aesthetically and to a certain extent stylistically and if so how would you how would you describe your style your gardening style well both gardening and interior it's very eclectic i am a collector so i want things that i love and i do my best to put them together don't always work together well but we try so well but that's the fun of it is the experimentation of it what works and what doesn't work and it gives you reason to try again so i think some of that experimentation is is definitely coming to the the forefront right now because of the arctic blast that we had all of us in oklahoma city lost so much stuff so much stuff but one thing you did not lose tell me a little bit about your live oaks in the front so these are um and they'll help me roger on the wichita mountains so they're native native to oklahoma all right and then we planted three of them about 20 years ago and these two did a fabulous job surviving the winter the one over on the driveway that you can't see did not do quite so well but it's coming back so i think they're looking pretty good yeah and i think kind of hit and miss around oklahoma city some people lost their live oaks which are hardy to are they hearty to zone seven but we're on the border yeah we're on the border of their comfort zone yeah so if you see a healthy live oak make sure to give it a special tree hug in oklahoma city because they survived and they and they endured so you've got a fabulous crepe myrtle here that also survived made it is this a natchez no yeah it is an act i think it is the exfoliating bark yes yes and stuart would you mind look at this to me that is just the most wonderful color that cinnamon color that cinnamon color and the bark which gives it definite four-year or four-season interest and the color of the donkey tail spurge with that cinnamon yeah is really really gorgeous which was just a volunteer many years ago and i let it go this oh that's okay that's a wonderful which i know is an invasive plant but for some reason it landed there and it has pretty much stayed there no i think that's a great idea i i did that well roger you know this in my own garden with lots of eastern redbuds that just went to seed and then you just raise them in the way you want them to grow so it's using what you already have but speaking of as we kind of go through the landscape you were talking about how many plants you've inherited and i i really want you to talk a little bit about how well you have manhandled some potentially very troublesome plants so be on the lookout for wisteria and bamboo and what was that yeah yeah and so but you have nevertheless i don't know how you've done it but i often say don't let your plants boss you and well done you thank you because you did not okay so let's talk a little bit about the house if you would give us a little bit of history of the house what was original what wasn't so um well as i said the house was built in 1928 and it's a spanish colonial revival type architecture i think it might have been um built by g.a nichols who is a prominent builder in oklahoma city um and then sometime in the 40s or the 50s i think someone built this retaining wall and kind of a side porch that connects to the original side porch it's a little bizarre at this point architecturally and there were two um fertinia bushes i'm sure shrubs that had grown into trees which framed all of this space and uh it was really kind of a private patio area both of those have been lost in the last two winters so um one two years ago and then the second one this year so that's so tragic because you can see that i'm sure they were planted originally to not only frame this area and give privacy but as vertical elements that would kind of camouflage some of the the guttering and some of the where one the point of connection where one the addition met the old structure and then so of course there were plants planted under those which needed the shade from the canopy so they're struggling and we're gonna relocate some of that i think and uh replace some things here yeah it's always a process but you know there's such a beautiful breeze and i love what and i should know this roger what is this called this type of fencing called i don't know it's uh if it were concrete blocks they'd be called breeze blocks but but this is this is brick well if anybody out there knows latticework yeah well even though this was added on you said you thought in the 40s i think so um i love i think it it really meshes beautifully with the architecture of the house i just love it no i agree i like it very much and the paint color was it painted this color originally did you change that the trim color was this kind of a barn red color um the house itself was much whiter and i've softened that a little bit and i think there might have even been some there were some gray green accents on something and i can't remember where they are we've gotten rid of all that because blue is my color so when i did an accent you'll see some in the yard blue becomes the feature well speaking of blue but let me make one comment because a lot of you comment on this in my videos those of us that live in old neighborhoods all it's you like eclectic living and and our neighborhoods are very eclectic so here we've got a very spanish home next to a very traditional home and the architecture of all of the houses up and down the street is all very divergent everything is a little bit different and i love that yes so talk a little bit about your love of blue hair and i i'm gonna we're we're going to uh patent this expression stuart called this a bottle bouquet and i love that blue bottle bouquet how wonderful is that talk about this section john well as i said i love blue so the plumbago is one of my favorite ground covers a little tricky to grow here this happens to be one of the happy spots for it i've tried it in other places and it has not worked um and that bottle thing of course i think it's a southern uh louisiana uh tradition to keep away spirits to have these bottle trees so we sort of adapted that into these um as he calls them bouquets but to pots and bottles so there are about three places in the yard you'll find this and it was just a great way to add color and some interest to the garden yeah a wonderful so definitely blue is one of your signature touches i just love it and i love the way you've got this tapestry of different kinds of ground covers again inherited plants the and i don't know the name of that sedum but that was here and it just kind of grew spruce blue spruce and of course the ivy has just kind of taken over and i see a weed right there and then i added the plumbago and they have just as you said made a tapestry so yeah i absolutely love it and these junipers are what roger um saybrook maybe okay they i think they're gorgeous and i love the way they both ground this east side of your home they soften it you you were talking about you like plants that are small do you like soft plants yes and these manage to both be soft and architectural simultaneously i just i love that and give you some some privacy over here so that's just fabulous okay let's come this way i'm just salivating so this i what i noticed immediately driving up is this pop of gold sturm rudbeckia against your barn red shutters what a great contrast thank you i think it worked out well too again one of those things i planted a little bit and it got happy and took over and i left it for the color and of course for what it does for the pollinators and we've i see a number of bees and a few hummingbirds so and i've not really planned that but it's happened so it's worked out well yeah i i like to say that gardens are living organisms they're not just a stage set so unlike your interior design this really is a place i can see there's a little butterfly up here i just i i love it and they're they're very happy to play host yes they are host to us so in here tell me you you had some winter damage a lot of winter damage happened right here there the laura paddles on either side were very large and again something that doesn't do real well in oklahoma but they had grown well um they don't bloom properly and then there were three uh nandinas right in front of the window which provided this great red color with the house trim and in the winter they're just beautiful uh but they are really damaged and i don't think they're gonna come back to any any situation that i'm gonna like don't you just i mean these are this is one of my favorite things in the garden is when these kinds of things happen yes i absolutely love that so where it's both complementary and also contrasts so it creates really dramatic and these are easy plants yes very easy those have been there about 20 years as well yeah and until this year had done really really well but they but they are alive they are alive they're coming back they'll just never all three be the same again i don't think yeah yeah well and and you can replace them we were all talking about just people either love nandinas or hate them the controversy over whether or not they kill birds all of that are you know birds gorge on the berries but i have found them to be very valuable as a softening element now talk to me about the laura petalum and do you know what variety it is i do not um i do not so how tall when these don't have winter kill and these are all coming back out again but i let them get about up to here and they get big um they would get bigger if if they're let go i mean it is probably every other year i cut them back pretty severely to keep them at that size so and they may look a little bit branchy and twiggy right now but i promise you there's all sorts of new growth on here so these are and again i think laura petalum don't you roger is one of those plants that is kind of a little bit iffy in oklahoma yeah and that's what's so cool to see it in john's garden doing so well yeah and unfortunately one of the things about them they had those gorgeous fuchsia little blooms that does not work in oklahoma they do not get the right uh temperature to make that happen they'll try but yeah yeah they don't show they'll sputter a little bit but the color is so beautiful on the leaves so were these here now those are probably again about 20 years that was probably one of my first things to do so there actually were more of them and i took part of them out so i kept three of them so an older an older variety that's apparently pretty hearty so i love that i love this big slab of stone that you've got here there's one on both sides that are kind of pointed in this direction and it gives you a place to get into the bed to work yes which is important when you do your own gardening very wonderful low maintenance okay so we we were talking about some decisions to be made tell me about these arborvitaes that are here these are westmont chinese are bravada they're a dwarf provided they're supposed to stay below three feet tall about two feet wide um we i brought them over to try in front of the in front of the shutters thinking they would be a good height and the green would be a nice contrast with the shutters be low maintenance not having to clip them but they still have a little bit of structure to contrast with all of the billowy mounds of perennials and stuff right however not a fan of arborvitae i am not who knows who knows they're a little too sculptural for me i want him softer you want himself two years he finally confesses so is this something that dates back to your childhood or you know i think it does there were a couple in our street that i think we played either behind them or under them or something i don't know anyway i just was never a fan of them although i enjoyed playing with them i guess but i don't want them in my garden so you know it's so it's so funny i think a lot of times whether or not we have affection for a plant or disaffection for a plant has to do with some experience or some something that we had that we had growing up i'm not a fan of fotenias in in general i'm just not a fan of them neither am i yeah and so i think it's it's really interesting i i however do love arbor vita and but some people don't like them because they get bag worms so you know i guess it just every yeah well i mean this gets backwards but so does the juniper so yeah exactly quite the backwards on the juniper so we don't need to have more of that right yeah yeah absolutely well and you know this is your garden and i think you put your people put their own personal stamps on it and so there there's no right or wrong really well just like you wouldn't have things in your house that you don't like i think you should do that in your garden as well yeah yeah your your neighbor may quibble with it right but our gardens are very personal things so let's walk along i love the red brick and how it accentuates the trim color i love the architectural detailing on everything you've got more perennials through here you've got some echinacea for the pollinators and then i just is this not just isn't it great isn't it just wonder let's get out of the way so stuart can kind of show this wonderful vista and framing to the driveway so john tell me about some of your plantings and obviously i see your signature blue here yes you do so when i moved here this space was um i'm trying to think exactly i think it was filled with peonies along here right against the driveway and you literally could not drive up and get out of your car so we had to do something to create a welcoming space you need to be able to get out get into the house so we took most everything out of here and did the kind of two level brick thing and then there have been different kinds of plantings here at some point but for instance that nandina was on the property uh when i moved here and we moved it over here by the door um and i've loved it it actually also completely went back this last winter so that's come back that much oh wow so i think it's doing really well and what i love about this i like to i think there's this expression i like to use of romancing the ordinary and that's where you take something that's relatively ordinary in a landscape and you do something whether you sculpt it or prune it or use it in a certain combination that elevates its stature and i think you do this at garden design the offices at garden design where you have a nandina growing more as a tree and in this case the legginess and the woodiness of it i think is beautiful because it has um almost a tropical it does and it's like a almost like a piece of sculpture against that light-colored wall and one of the good things that happened from this last winter there were actually laura petzlum in front of the chimney and they went came down and i never really liked those so i took those out and i'm really enjoying this kind of open space now to see the architecture features oh gosh because i love that contrast between these green pieces and the chimney so yeah absolutely beautiful so we're going to kind of leave that i think we're going to we may replace some of the potted things that are sitting out there with some permanent things but but how beautiful that looks against the sky so this is just beautiful and i love the fact that now you have not only made this more practical and a wonderful little seating area that's kind of private and hidden from view but you've also kind of broken up just a lot of concrete yes and white space and infused this color that you've got repeated in some of these pots and things i just just love this and we've got holly what variety is that a fossil wow that's an old foster holly yeah we're kind of amazed at that that it has not destroyed the house because it is planted right against the corner of it and has not hasn't done any damage to the house or the concrete or and continues to grow and i feel like that's probably been here almost as long as the house has well it's done a beautiful job so this is another case of taking something rather common yes in fact we planted those against the house along the side here thinking they would i could be able to maintain them realize they could not so with john and roger's encouragement we moved them out to create a screen between the house next door and they still require some maintenance but um but i think they have worked out well well again i love the legs on them yes yes i i just love pruning things and exposing the architecture of the trunks and everything this is a this is just so common variegated privet so there you go but so much more interesting i think than when it's planted in a hedge situation oh absolutely we've got all that all that land you know real estate underneath there to plant where if you had just a solid hedge you'd lose that and it it creates privacy but yet there's a lovely breeze today and so it still allows airflow and we do have connection with the neighbors still which is nice but we're not sitting and looking at each other so we enjoy that yes just just brilliant now what is your oic another fabulous bottle bouquet up here yes stewart thanks that one guys so proud of himself aren't you stupid copyright that term for him yes but but i'd love i love the way this probably goes to your from your design training that there's there's this rhythm yes harmonious rhythm that's brought in by the blue even down to your blue shirt i mean that just continues throughout the space i agree and i i work on that that doesn't just happen you have to think about it and um and and experiment with it i mean i move things around all the time to get the right flow yeah yeah there's um i i practice at three strikes and you're out you know i'll try something three places and if i can't find the right spot for it then out of there but this is just and it's wonderful layering and staging you've got things at varying heights and some of it is a little more a little more tightly clipped some of it's free form you've got that the blue gray of the sedums which goes beautifully i think with the variegated privilege yes it does you've you've got that i like that too okay let's go back this way so describe this border to me well it's kind of my one of my experimental places where i just like to stick stuff and um a lot of daylilies have ended up in it which have done sort of okay you'll see some more of the pumbago tucked in the back and uh at one point i tried to really make that work here and it didn't work um so i don't know why it doesn't like it and then as i do in the house i just things i like i like to stick in the ground and so some hostas got added um there used to be um otto luken uh oh the um yeah laurel is that what it is otaluke and laurels which were impossible to maintain so we took those out and it's just again a softer space and and like i said it can be very experimental on what goes in it um roger would you talk a little bit about the importance of different textural elements oh that's one of the things that makes this work you've got this soft dark dark green uh fine texture against this lighter green shiny broad texture i mean just the contrast between kind of the scale of that foliage and then this real airy foliage floating above it the strappy foliage of the um of the daylilies and the and those those stems coming up and the flowers kind of floating in here it just it really is like um playing with different textures of fabric or different textures on a collage and very and very little color but every bit as much visual interest so cool and restful you know you don't it's not interrupted with with bright colors the orange on the daylilies gives us a little warmth a little pop of color and then that purple lithium is a great contrast i mean it's a complement to the orange on the color wheel but the purple is pretty vibrant but it's still a pretty cool color to keep it all very restful in here and those of us in this part of the of the country know exactly what i mean when i say it has kind of a santa fe vibe to it which is which is always a good thing it's also always a good thing when you don't have any snail damage or slug damage in your foliage how do you manage that luck absolutely now this at one point had down this side of the driveway had junipers and i had hostas under that so lots of problems but the bag worms and the slugs live over here somehow they've never crossed over so i don't know so again luck yeah you found the right combination now i have never seen this is another case of of an inherited thug this is chinese wisteria and i have never these are these are very fascinating these are amazing i always want to pick them and take them inside i know i know and and again you have really sculpted this in a beautiful way i can't believe it hasn't taken down the fence so you have managed we built the fence to withstand it um so it's got metal posts inside and it's based on both sides so the weight is distributed pretty evenly pretty evenly do they keep it as beautifully manicured on the other side yeah now you said that even though these are the same varieties and you treat them the same that this one blooms pretty prolifically but this one a little bit further down right doesn't and i don't know if it's the um the light difference because there is a difference in how much sun and shade they get um but who knows and i and i really think that they are the same thing but you raise your children the same way and they both grow up and you i would have thought that too yes oh look oh yes there was and i never saw the bird in it i saw an egg in it but i never saw i'm hesitant to i don't want to touch it but i think it's gone now isn't nature just amazing and are these sky pencil hollies or yes and it's that well is it called will somebody it's will fleming but isn't that a sky pencil no i don't think it's consistent is it not okay maybe not okay okay they don't think they probably don't get quite that tall now i just excuse my purse here let me move my purse and water bottle so you guys can completely appreciate this charming vignette here i should have closed the door because the door's blue too yeah no detail has been overlooked including the blue door and this is something i'm trying to learn more about and that's color undertones because what i love about all of these blues is they all have the same undertone they they all even though they're of different degrees of intensity they all harmonize you you're right oh even your adt sticker is blue i was happy about that we used to have something else and it was a different color no detail ever looked oh my gosh if if i had i don't know maybe more room for it to print and gallop i just love plumbing so it's one of my favorite things and then there's some salvia in there which is not blooming at the moment very well but the two together are just beautiful oh is it black and blue the black and blue right well that and i planted some in my front yard i wasn't sure what variety it was and everyone kept telling me it was black and blue which is one of my favorites did we need to talk about the difference between the two plumbagos yes please do please do this is the cape plumbago it's a tropical so it's an annual here in oklahoma you can take it inside it's you know if you're if you're one of those i have a friend who has her mother's that's like eight feet tall and five feet wide that has she takes in the greenhouse every winter but the the plumbago we were talking about in the front is a perennial and so it's a low ground cover and that darker blue so there's two two different plumagos so when you're shopping for the plumbagos you need to know the difference well i this is my preferred variety i absolutely love it it reminds me of california and i think it's especially impactful when it's used in moss and i love the way you have it with this dark boxwood behind it so it really emphasizes the contrast of the light blue with a dark green and you've got a blue throw rug here what is the history of this piece a found object we had a a property and a renter left it and instead of throwing it away i brought it home well done i don't know right anyway that was a good place to spin it so that i love thrifting and repurposing and everything and it looks perfect there doesn't it i think it adds to that and you've just got it leaning it's not even it's not in fact it covers an outdoor receptacle that's back there so again another way to hide something yeah absolutely wonderful the light fixtures are those original interesting that you asked that um the part of the house we're seeing now back here is an addition and when we were doing that i found three light fixtures one by the back door one on the other side of the house and one in the garage that were at an antique salvage in oklahoma city and they're very similar to some original ones that were on the other part of the house so um got purchased them and had them rewired um and i think they're just they make the house look like it was always here and you've been very sensitive to the architectural integrity of the house and not changing it from our goal yeah absolutely wonderful so different elements and i i i'm so fascinated by the cadence of your blue glossy pottery and i'm i guess true confessions i'm typically not a huge fan of glazed pottery but i think it's because it you have to use a lot of it i think for it to really be beautiful and so you may have made a convert out of me because you've got so much of it and it it just is all so lovely together thank you some of the you'll notice when you look at even historical pictures of spanish colonial houses that they did use a lot of the pottery and it generally is glazed often many colors and i think it can get very busy and so i did limit it to mostly the blue there are a few thrown in just for some variety but but i also have a governor on myself that says you can't buy too much of this so you know i i pull back every once in a while yeah restraint is one of the hardest things and i'm i'm really trying to practice that i find i'm trying to take out a lot more now than adding back in but i have not gotten to that place yet so yeah well i'm mine is quite a mess right now but i'm working on it love this jade and these succulents in here and you've got some stones is this beauty bearing it is beauty berry i have a gorgeous amethyst right gorgeous lavender berry on it yeah some of these berries here are starting to turn that cool lavender color and what variety is this again called early amethyst and even the the blossoms are a great little lavender color and is this the traditional time of year that it puts out berries and blooms is it okay and and sometimes they will hold them into the winter when when after the leaves have fallen a lot of times the birds do get those though they do like them uh but some years i've had it the berries down for quite some time yeah the uh the beauty berry most people are familiar with this the american beauty berry they're all calacarpa but it has the really bright big berries bright red and they usually uh hold their berries a little longer after the leaves fall off but the early amethyst the birds get them pretty early well and look at how beautifully you've got it trained on this that's a ron ferrell sculpture a local sculpture i know it was in our house for a long time and then finally i was like okay that belongs in the yard no it absolutely does and have you could your placement be any better well thank you roger he's the one who placed it can i do that you did do that which are asymmetrical and i think it works well well wonderful just wonderful still life's everywhere you look which goes to show what you can do in a small garden with certain appointments and by practicing certain design principles it doesn't look too busy it still looks very very comfortable well it really does and someone loves their rocks yeah that became an estate sale obsession this looks familiar have you ever been rose rock hunting i've never been to roger and i have not roger and i have yes you'll have to go my hunting happens at estate sales so and this is a beautiful blue senecio i love that oh look he you you two are a fan of mulching with gravel yes well it's a great way to keep the squirrels out of my pots that's what i like close out moisture in and we like the way it looks i like all three of it but it started because of the squirrels yep it really did well this is just a charming house on the south side and the there were all these stones and they let me just go for 20 bucks they let me have a whole bunch oh wow yeah yeah you know where to go you know where to shop you know the right people but i'm this this is just beautiful this one might be my favorite though really really incredible and that one of the things i love using them outside that pot you were just at that had died in the center and it was like okay what do you do with it you don't want to throw it away and it's a perfect place to lay a stone and let the plant grow around it so what a great little design a little gardening hat yes it is a little gardening hack and it saves you money when you're doing a big pot of something too you can fill in with pieces like that and this is also a real interesting little trick here that that you've got this wonderful brick wall which not only matches the color of your roof and the guttering and the trim and the brick in the front but as you've made some steps up to this whatever this is that's our utility closet closet then you've turned something that was really nothing into something and you've got a staging area yes it would be fun to put an awning over that it would i haven't thought of that you know we tried to paint those doors blue and it was too much it wasn't so we had to undo that but i had never thought about the awning that would give it just a little touch of that could be really yeah that could be really fun but i love the way you've got this stage i love the pattern of the brickwork and everything it's really incredible so i have never seen an angelonia this big what is this i do not know i it was just what i picked up this year when i was buying plants and i had no idea we'd get that tall well it's it's very happy here yes it is it is very happy here and what is this is this a taylor that's taylor is it a taylor juniper so for those of you who wonder what these plants are that look like italian cypress which are not hardy in oklahoma you can kind of simulate that look you can with taylor junipers and this is that kind of blue gray you like so much i love the way and i i never would have thought of doing this but planting them in this way to frame the view and provide a wonderful point of entry into the back garden along so you've got these wonderful flagstones i love flagstone set in gravel as do you flanked by helen von stein and boy your your wire vine your mule and becky is happy and that actually um of course it lost its leaves in this cold winter but it all came back and just a flourish so it seemed to be very well normally does it normally keep it sleep it does keep the leaves through the winter a lot of it will not all of it but some of it but it completely lost them this time well i use it in pots and i lost all of mine i think probably understandably roger you use it in the ground and i haven't didn't have any problem losing it it's just most of the places where i have it in my garden i always lose yeah this is sort of protected right here i think in it i love the lushness of it yes and oh again you've carried the brick the color all the way through here i mean where's my mojito oh i'm so sorry we should have done that margarita i'll tell i'm not picky i'll take anything how lovely is this it is a very nice shady space on a hot day it really is lovely so did you design this yourself did you have collaborations um when we made the addition to the house of course this had been grass at one point with a raised bed across the back and uh we had to come up with a new plan so no more grass which i love oh my god loving it all just planted and um roger and john and actually there was another person involved at that point um at your firm who helped with this and i can't not remember his name anyway it wasn't marquette no it was not he did a lot of drawings for you oh keith keith yes he's still there because he's still there haven't seen him in a long time we just keep him so busy with drawings he doesn't get out of the office so they came up with some ideas and then i kind of tweaked it and and we came to a collaboration on what we wanted to look like and it's been a great space well it's it's just it's perfect again it's got that that uh spanish santa fe ish kind of vibe and this over here this is fascinating what is this well it's to hide the um some of the utilities to the house and uh okay i'll have to pull it for you because it's tight if if there's a take home for anybody watching this video how brilliant an idea is this and not really expensive to execute it was not at all uh i i'm going to give you two pointers on it though one it developed because when we built under the house this should have been inside and code will not allow you to put things around it inside the house so i was like okay well let's put it outside and everybody agreed that was fine so then we came up with this idea to cover it not all cities will allow this to code though i suggested it to a client in one of our suburbs and they were not allowed to do it so it is a great tip but make sure you're allowed you're allowed yeah easier to get permission than getting in fact they had to take theirs down after we put it up yeah well a lot of you know a lot of things on my house aren't up to code but it's because it's a 1935 house so a lot of this stuff is because these houses are so old that it'd be difficult to bring them up to code or it's kind of these kind of transgressions are grandfathered in so but this is so good looking and i just love it yeah it was a great idea and i'm not sure who came up with that i don't know what john did probably probably with horizontal yeah we did a similar thing the air conditioners are on the roof of the house now and we covered them with the same idea so you'll see one on either side you can look so see that it hid them you didn't see them which is great right what a great idea it worked so and then okay stewart if you would focus a little bricks touches yes and there's some wire vine planted in here too that has to kind of soften it and people always ask me because i've got it too is it difficult to maintain i don't find it difficult i just kind of blow it into place periodically like you're like me you've got some you've got some gum recession where we need to put in a little bit more gravel but that's just but that's how it works couple bags at lowe's and it's just and minimal things seed themselves and come up but they're easy to pull so okay isn't this incredible and i i would imagine that was planted when the house was built so the pecan tree and it didn't get too much did it get storm damage yeah there was a big lamb that came off and fell kind of where we're standing now if i this is one of my favorite colors in nature isn't that a wonderful color that and green apples pecan whole greens i wish they retained this color because i always want to collect them and have them in a bowl inside but sadly they don't really retain this color very well but if you were wanting to paint something outside and i just think that is just a luscious it is a wonderful color luscious color and plants that are not really extraordinary but used in an extraordinary way you've got variegated liriope or the are these uh those annabelles and there are annabelles in different locations um lots of fern everything is very happy now stuart wants to know why there's no mosquitoes back here because this you would think would be a haven for mosquitoes do i admit that i use something do you spray well i i spray it's it's organic and botanical but you do have to i use what yes i do spray and i use what we can buy at lowe's or home depot that for 9.99 a bottle and you put a cooking on the hose and it lasts a month or so okay so i because when the the downside of having lushness like this absolutely is and especially in a contained area because this is lovely back here it's not oppressive at all but it doesn't have the same breeze and airflow that some of your other areas do are these blood good japaneses and the cherry laurels were all full and lush and of course they got destroyed in the storm as well and they're coming back so hopefully in a year or so they will fill back in but you're i love the exposed wood though so well it was nice to see things again after it had gotten so enclosed and some of the plants on the ground are much happier this summer the blooms on the hydrangeas have been much larger than they had been in the past and um so there's a trade-off yes you know yeah absolutely so i've been instructed that i should maintain the laurels a little better next time by my garden friends i didn't say it well and it's it's also you we can then see the importance of negative space to highlight the form and the beauty of it and we are lucky to have it's a horrible road back there but at least there's some depth there's a parking lot behind our house for the state capitol so that's how it's disguised but it gives us makes the yard feel much longer who would know and it's so quiet back here um stuart i don't know if you have done a 360 so that you can see that you've got another blue door what people are going to want to know what color is this blue paint oh i'd have to look it up i don't know something sirwin williams and i've been using it so long i don't remember the name yeah but it's just wonderful and the the stuart's blocking my view but what is this big copper and i think it's just an art piece isn't it uh it was something that john's studio it almost looks like it would have been another piece of oil field equipment it could have been but it's but it's built like a basket you know but it would be you couldn't use it that way it does not have a bottom in it which is interesting too so it may have been a piece of equipment i don't know john's so good at finding things as well and bringing them around well and when we were at and we'll put stuart let's put a link above to when we did a tour of the studio at garden design that you talked about using planters that don't have a bottom in them so that the tree or whatever can get established we're going to do that with my maple that's in the front which is now to expose we're going to cut the bottom out of that and bring it down in the side yard over here so that we can still have the pot effect yes but then i won't have to water it once it gets established so a brilliant hack brilliant hack so then it's i mean there is no there's no point there's no end point there's no really endpoint or beginning point it's just all one contiguous little passage from one place to another that is just brilliant continuing through this area with another you said an american effect very invasive right and it just so what do you do to you just randomly pull it when you really yeah this way and it's at this point it's a little it's kind of hard to do because it's had roots established in the spring it's very easy to pull as it's starting are we stuart are we blocking okay now it's the hortensia we were talking about and the thing is i think i know when i was a new gardener and so thrilled when i could get anything to grow i was so not confident about my gardening skills that is i think when you're most vulnerable to planting invasives because because people say oh anybody can grow this you're absolutely right and so then you plant it thinking oh look even i can grow this and then before you know it it's strangling you in your bed at night or in my case it was here when i moved here and i thought oh this grows it's doing great you know and i let it get out of control and now i've had to pull back and um make it fit and then when we're really stupid what do we do oh let's transplant something right and i did some of that too and you've got this wonderful little brick passage and this is one of my favorite plants which is a false ginger and i think it's called a serum a serum but it is beautiful it's a great evergreen shade loving plant and you've got something it's not different originally this was planted with hooker and that and there was something else and this finally just took over which was i'm happy about to beautiful effect yes yes but it's not i wouldn't consider this invasive no it is not it's a brown color yeah it's not like the hortensia back there and yeah it's slow growing so it it you can't i mean you don't need to control it but it took a while to establish it it has along with the fern it has kind of a jurassic park quality and the hostas which is just a beautiful vibe and i like the contrast with the invasive plant on the other side i think that they they complement one another no they absolutely and in fact to the untrained eye you would think that they were this they were the same thing look at the patina on this stone that mossy patina which again makes this whole area have kind of a jungle-like feel oh and i see there's little jewels hidden everywhere talk about that sculptured head behind that was something i bought actually at world market a long time ago and in santa fe of all places and again it was something that i thought was going to go in the house and ended up out in the yard and then roger again being brilliant roger took part of a telephone call and made a base for it so that we could get it up out of the ground and it's been in two or three different places in the yard too but it's one thing i like about it is that it picks up the color of the house and the wall you know it just repeats that in here and that's one of those things that's not uh planned or forced but once you see that and take advantage of it you realize you realize it and it feels very natural yeah so you know people sometimes say oh you've got a good eye for design no most the time it was just trellis it was just accident but you but well but you have a trained eye and you observe it you instinctively the moss that's grown on her chapeau or whatever her hair or whatever that is is wonderful now did you apply you know some people apply yogurt or buttermilk years and years ago it did work and it started it it worked that's just what's left i mean it you know it i don't know that it's i'm not sure that's still i don't think it's alive anymore i think that's just the color that's left but i did do that trick so some of you were asking me how do you get moss to grow and you you can it was yogurt and something else i can't remember you can use buttermilk you can use beer you can use whatever but blend it with a little bit of algae and a little bit of just mossy green stuff you've got another thin table here you've got so much squeezed into a small space but it's again it's your trademark blue and white looks like an archaeology kind of does this is that slag glass most of which came from northwest arkansas you know these glass factories i guess they i don't know what causes it but anyway they chunk it up and it's sold on the side of the road so as slack it's called glass love it little vignettes everywhere so that's one of the covers there's an air conditioner unit behind that one that's on that roof brilliant and then on the other side it's more of a it's a two-sided piece that does it so i mean how cute is this little stoop and these the stones and everything do you obviously you collect do you collect them when you're out and about i do a lot of times um i think these particular ones that came came when the flagstone came so again roger wanted to add interest to all this so he used different colors back here which i love because it relates the brick to the flagstone a little bed and breakfast entrance i can just see a a wreath of peppers on here at christmas time so i think this is called adt blue okay i will look it up for you and send it to you at some point and blues are tricky to use outside too paint colors especially um it was a trial and error too to come up with the right blue to have enough green in it and to not be um i don't know you can just they can become too purple very easily right and to gray so i think we it took a while to get to it but we did yeah but i always want to match the just like i would not use this color blue as a paint it would be too intense and it would not work in oklahoma it works sometimes in the desert i think where the light's different but well it's beautiful with the blue kind of the colorado blue sky color and here we have another bottle bouquet so you could have served me wine over there and you would have had another bottle absolutely i'm really really into geraniums this year and mine were beautiful and then about two weeks ago they decided to stop blooming well it's the heat and also the budworms moved in are there worms in it uh i don't see any but be on the look okay yeah you've got some moving in i see some feces starting okay but the bud worms but they had done really well this year and i love that pop of color and you've got all of these fun garden ornaments and seating and everything but it doesn't feel at all congested which is must be because you're a designer there's a risk involved in that being congested yeah oh my gosh isn't this awesome this is just incredible now john yes tell the truth does it look like this all the time um not entirely but generally so point out everything from the lighting to the fun little treasures you've got around well i again um this was an odd space that i think was built when this wall was built so probably in the 40s there were these very weird little um single cement blocks sticking out on the wall and they were at and they there's a wine under each of those shelves so roger figured out that he could build what i call mantles and they we slid them over those blocks to create these big shelves um and to get the bulk out of it which is really great so then then i got to just take off on my collection so part of my seashells collections out here my architectural ornament collections out here um their things like the the sunflower went out of fence posts very talented artists made did you make this so that's a hub cap and the tops of fence pickets and and you know and like the the piece of iron on the left was actually on the front of the house originally on the window and i found that in the garage but i found pictures showing that it had been on the house at one point but instead of putting it back on the house we put it out here so anyway it's a great space it truly is an outdoor room and you can be out here even when it's hot because it's on the east side of the house it's protected there's usually wind blowing from the north or the south so it you know there's a breeze there's not right now but generally there is and it's wonderful out here when it's raining so do you collect these medallions yeah sometimes and some of them are actually old and some of them are new things that i have found now this is so interesting because really until you talked about these faux mantles it didn't even occur to me to look that that really isn't a fireplace there no it's not no it's really cool but it's a way to simulate a fireplace i do not have a mantel on my fireplace inside the house so this is my mantel out here so which i get to play with these metal they are those are wonderful so it really is just a an accumulation of things i liked and your trademark blue blue and your all-weather wicker what's the source on these chairs well our missing source pier one you sell the best outdoor furniture and cushions and things it's so well priced and so these are from about three or four years ago i realized they're still online but you know it's different from what it used to be yeah now i my outdoor wicker came from world market did it yeah and that's a good source too yeah but i i haven't really was the best i think on that stuff and i don't remember seeing this style it was at least three or four years ago wasn't it here i'm creating i'm creating this how great you're making this delicious i'm making a little still life for you this is the color of the wicker gray with this old one and originally i had natural wicker out here and of course it finally just deteriorated yes the paint wouldn't stay on it and you know it just had to go yeah and there's some well done yes they're i think they're nicely done wicker and not and there's another sunflower yes roger if i ever get my place in colorado i'm commissioning some of those from you and so we have this primary covered seating area which continues with the brick floor and look at how you've raised here's another wonderful little tip you know plants yeah these are pot feet right when i the first time i saw pot feet was oh my gosh probably 30 years ago in italy and i brought some back from italy in my suitcase and that was before you could find them anywhere in the united states and now of course now you can but they were rather novel at the time and this protects the wood bottom right keeps it off the ground and you reuse recycle repurpose that's the broken pottery garden the broken pottery garden and you have mulched different areas with your broken pottery isn't that incredible and i will admit when you do break a piece it doesn't feel nearly as bad because you know it has a new home exactly and a couple of those were pretty good pieces that i accidentally broke yeah i think my geraniums have an issue but no it's just the heat i think oh yeah it's just the heat minded maybe we'll get a fall showing oh i'm sure you will i'm sure you will and then so to continue with it it really feels i'm repeating myself but it really feels like a bed and breakfast in santa fe it really does or in you know santa monica or someplace like of spanish or or hispanic prominence and then now th these furnishings did you paint these yourself to get this blue you just found them i found them the in fact to get the chairs that are in the back and these small round tables those were home depot and you could buy a set of three a table and two chairs and of course i bought five sets and then the chair you're sitting in is an amazon find um from this year and then the blue seemed to be pretty compatible so the table was from home depot and this is several years ago home depot okay and those are new the chairs um we found that the little french garden chair is not very comfortable for very long so yeah we had to have something a little more comfortable these are very comfortable and i think have a little i don't know more of a hip vibe i think they do well and i think they sort of fit the style of this wall and everything they look have that 40s or 50s vibe you know and i can't believe these words are coming out of my mouth but i love this bamboo here and talk to me about this well that was one of the things that was also here i feel like it was planted many years ago and um of course it is a very invasive plant and it is a constant battle to to keep it and i mean i will literally come out in the morning and do it sometimes then i'll come back that night and there's more out here in the gravel growing up but um it does pretty much want to stay this height i think it's finally learned that that's how high it's supposed to grow which is kind of interesting yeah i don't really cut on it too much and of course that all was lost in the winter too i had to cut it back to the ground which i don't normally have to do because it stays the parts of it sometimes over the winters but anyway i would never plant it i would never suggest it but i think it worked here and i love how it works with the open wall that lattice look i guess you could do clumping bamboo or something like that but that wouldn't be so invasive but the fact that you've managed to really contain it and then you've got more of your blue pottery blue gazing balls old spanish crosses and this wonderful symphony of blue i can't thank you enough oh you're so welcome what a treat what a pleasure to have you in the garden today this has been and roger two where'd he go so if you could if you want to sum up i love the concept of signature touches so if it's not already obvious to all of us what would you say are some of your most prominent signature touches well of course um as i said earlier i i feel like what's inside your house should be reflected outside so that there is a continuity between the two so something whatever that is you should make that relationship mine happens to be blue and lots of things so i have lots of garden ornaments and you know and i i like comfort so i've made lots of different spaces to to sit and enjoy the work that i've done so sometimes it feels like you know we do all the work and we don't really sit and look at it but you can do that here so and and people just seem to enjoy coming over so well i know that i expect an invitation okay and each room is garden room is more charming than the last and i'm sure where there's going to be a groundswell of people wanting to see the inside of your house now thank you we'll have to do that thank you so much roger as always buddy it's always great to see you thank you thank you stuart well if you have held in this long on this fabulous tour of this charming bungalow then here's your fashion epilogue if you're not interested just skip on to the next video so today i've got on my wonderful straw panama hat that i got off of amazon i'll put a link below my dress i think i got it like banana republic or something a million years ago it's really really comfy it's a good travel dress my shoes are my white van tennis shoes that i've talked about before i'll try to put a link below my earrings actually came from my kiddos my son and new daughter-in-law i think they're pandora i'm not 100 sure but they got me these for christmas a couple of years ago my bracelets my charm bracelet is one of my real treasures i've had it ever since i was a little girl and i still continue to add to it it's a fun thing to collect when you're traveling to bring back as a little keepsake my mother of pearl bracelet i got at a store in salida and the bangla belonged to my mother-in-law so there is your fashion epilogue oh and my chapeau i think i mentioned it but yeah i think that i got it off of amazon stewart told me that i looked very hip today that he liked my outfit and i told him stuart i am him so at least i fake it anyhow there's your fashion epilogue for today

Channel: Linda Vater

Views: 143,370

Keywords: potagerblog, Linda Vader, garden life, garden designer, garden landscape design, garden design, garden media, gardening, Linda Vater, southern gardening, thrifting, Garden Answer, boxwood, topiary, garden tour, evergreens, favorite plants, garden center, Oklahoma gardening, garden, lifestyle tips, garden lifestyle, Blue and white, Mediterranean garden

Id: I03UJkv4UxQ

Length: 65min 3sec (3903 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021