“I’m planning a new garden because a house is going to be dropped down on my existing beds,” a friend wrote, attaching a site plan to the email. “What do you think?”
This was in 2013, soon after my friend and her husband had decided to build a new two-story house on their property in Healdsburg, California (which they had purchased with an existing swimming pool, a small guest house, and a fenced garden plot).
The garden plan by Arterra Landscape Architects showed a neat row of six raised beds, a deer-proof fence, and a sturdy metal gate with an arbor for grapevines. “I have to say, working with a really good landscape architect makes such a difference,” my friend wrote. “They took my sketches that I was so proud of (but now think that they are pathetic childlike drawings) and completely designed a beautiful garden in the same space. It’s amazing how they can see the space in three dimensions.”
Fast forward four years. The new house—designed by Feldman Architecture—is beautiful, a glass jewel box with a wall of windows overlooking the pool and distant hills. As for the garden? Plans changed; instead of moving the old garden, the landscape architects made the old one bigger. It’s crammed with raised beds, nothing neat about them, and my friend these days tends a rambling colorful chaos of flowers and edible plants. Here’s how it looks when the late afternoon sun hits:
Photography by Mimi Giboin for Gardenista.
![A glass box, the house overlooks the swimming pool and was sited to take advantage of sweeping ridge views. Off to the right, you can see the garden\2\17;s gate and arbor.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-swimming-pool-mimi-giboin-733x489.jpg)
Every year my friend, who is a devotee of Annie’s Annuals in Richmond, California, adds new varieties of poppies to her collection. The flowers sow themselves and pop up wherever they like the following year.
![Arterra designed a sturdy hog wire fence (take that, deer) and a double gate, crowned with an arbor for grapevines.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-edible-garden-gate-fence-arbor-mimi-giboin-733x948.jpg)
![It is not really possible to go wrong with poppies, whether you plant fringed, double, or velvety lipstick-pink varieties such as Cupcake or Poppy of Troy, both among the dozens of varieties available seasonally for from \$4.95 to \$5.95 for a 4-inch pot from Annie\2\17;s Annuals.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-poppies-mimi-giboin-733x1100.jpg)
![Viewed from the house, the guest house (at Right) at the edge of the pool creates a sense of intimacy and human scale in a dramatic landscape.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-pool-guest-house-mimi-giboin-733x489.jpg)
![After poppies drop their petals, you can harvest their pods. My friend leaves them out to dry in the sun and then harvests the seeds.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-poppy-pods-seeds-mimi-giboin-733x489.jpg)
![Each poppy pod is like a tiny salt shaker, with holes from which you can shake out dozens of seeds.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-poppy-pod-seeds-mimi-giboin-733x1100.jpg)
![Inside the hog wire fence are purple sweet peas, raised beds, and laundry on a clothesline: a perfect complement to the modern house, thanks to the simple, strong lines of the fence and gate. Those hardscape elements create a visual transition to connect a sleek facade to a rustic raised-bed garden.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-edible-garden-clothesline-raised-beds-sweetpeas-mimi-giboin-733x489.jpg)
![Inside the fence, shrub and climbing roses contribute to the chaos.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-edible-garden-hogwire-fence-mimi-giboin-733x1100.jpg)
![In a bed of edible plants, an unglazed terra cotta irrigation pot is porous, keeping roots moist during the week if the homeowners are away. A similar Watering Pot is \$\29.95 from Home Depot.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-terra-cotta-water-urn-mimi-giboin-733x489.jpg)
![My friend \2\20;crammed in\2\2\1; more plants by adding some triangular raised beds as well as rectangular planting beds.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-raised-beds-path-mimi-giboin-733x1100.jpg)
![Made of simple wooden boards, the raised beds weather to a silvery gray and do not distract from the colorful plants.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-raised-bed-detail-mimi-giboin-733x489.jpg)
![A journal which documents where everything is planted and what performs well is a tool to plan next year\2\17;s garden design.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-journal-mimi-giboin-733x489.jpg)
![Delphinium, meet Queen Anne\2\17;s lace. Fast friends.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-delphinium-queen-annes-lace-mimi-giboin-1-733x1100.jpg)
![A triple bin composter sits unobtrusively in the corner of the garden.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/healdsburg-garden-compost-mimi-giboin-733x489.jpg)
N.B.: This post is an update; it was first published July 2017.
For more of our favorite Northern California landscapes, see:
- Landscape Architect Visit: Vineyard Views in Healdsburg’s Dry Creek Valley.
- Swimming Pool of the Week: A Dive into a Napa Valley Landscape.
- Serenity in Sonoma: A Landscape Architect Visit with Terremoto.
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