In our continuing series of conversations with our favorite landscape architects, designers and contractors, we were really happy to talk to Paul Hendershot of Paul Hendershot Design, Inc. in Ojai, California.  All of us look forward to seeing Paul and his big, beautiful dog, Chief, walking through Eye of the Day.  Here are some things we found out when we talked to Paul.

Paul: I have great passion for landscaping.  I listen closely to what the clients want for their outside space and I am committed to creating a landscape that fits the style of the house. I have had great success with all my clients because I work to make their dreams come true and be sure the design fits the property

Eye of the Day: What do you consider your signature style?
Paul: I am very fond of courtyards; rooms and spaces that are meant to be lived in as opposed to spaces that are simply decorative and consequently unusable. I have been using permeable elements such as pea gravel for many years.

EOD:  Has there been anything in particular that has inspired your style?
Paul: I was inspired while traveling mainly in Europe where I saw courtyard settings that had a recurring use of the same and similar plants that I use now. This creates that lush look with very low watering and a permeable ground.

EOD: Have you encountered any obstacles with your clients during the drought?
Paul: My main obstacle with clients has been convincing them to give up their lawns.  But I show my clients many of the gardens that we have done throughout the years that have no lawn to help them recognize what it could be like to give up their lawn.  After they feel the lushness and peacefulness of these gardens, they are convinced that they can live without a lawn.

EOD: What do you see for the future in the world of California landscape design?
Paul: The next developments I hope to see is more courtyards, patios, tree plantings, and permeable grounds. In other words: spaces to live in outside.

EOD: What are your short and long term goals for your business?
Paul: We intend to continue to work closely with our clients and focus on their dream gardens.  During this process, we will continue working with the clients with lots of fun in mind. We want to continue to design gardens, courtyards, and patios that use very little water, keeping abreast of the latest permeable options. We are full of gratitude for the great clients that we get to work with.

…and we’re full of gratitude for Paul and Chief.  To contact Paul, see his website: Paul Hendershot Design

Earlier this year we were fortunate to meet Terra Basche of Terra Malia Designs in Santa Barbara.  She was looking for pots for the new Sonos location in Santa Barbara and found them at Eye of the Day.  We caught up with this busy woman and asked her a few questions about her blooming career.

How did you become interested in landscape design and what was your path to your current career?
I completely fell head over heels in love with succulents back in 1996 when I was attending UCSB. I remember the very visit to Santa Paula Nursery where I ohhh and ahhhed over the variety of colors, textures and structural make up of each individual one. I tried to fit as many in each fist as possible, as I headed to Ivan at check out.

I naturally have a design eye, as those on my mom’s side of the family have practiced every kind of art. I designed succulent centerpieces for my own wedding in 2001 and proceeded to design pots, weddings, gifts and mini-landscapes for friends and family until I started getting offers from others who would actually pay me to do what I loved. When my oldest daughter was born, I quit my 9 to 5 to be a mom, but began to lazily pursue my love professionally on a very part-time basis. Terra Malia Designs was my “second born” back in 2008.

My business presently is a healthy mix of artistic interiors/exteriors for residential and business and wedding floral with a healthy dose of untraditional elements including mixing succulents, tillandsias and other living props, so the plants in tablescapes can be reused and planted back into the ground, so unnecessary waste is eliminated. My business model closely mirrors my life models and beliefs about sustainability and what makes sense. Plain and simple…it feels good!

What are your clients asking you about water-wise planting and hardscaping?
Most often, clients seek me out for my succulent design. I have almost always reached for plants that require low water, as they are just as lovely as those other plants that need lots of water. Saving resources when necessary is responsible.

How do you design a plan that addresses water issues but is welcoming and pleasing to the eye?
There are so many varieties of succulents and cacti; it is easy to create a design that has enough variety for the eye. I enjoy combining succulents with grasses to add movement potential and texture. The continual exotic blooms from succulents create a softer feel, while adding interest. Using the neon green Crassula, mixed with Aloe Striata and Blue Fescue for color variation, for instance, provides the viewer with color difference so each plant can be appreciated, and the style boasts both soft and hard lines with movement in the Blue Fescue.

How did you approach the Sonos project in order to solve the physical issues of a “parking lot?”
Sonos wishes to maintain their offices in the city of Santa Barbara…which means convenience for their employees, but at the same time, means not as much potential for green space. Terra Malia Designs has helped to transform parking lots, patios and rooftops into greener spaces where a more natural environment can be enjoyed.

The Sonos headquarters, located at 614 Chapala Street, has a staff parking lot that backs up to the building. Sonos wanted to create a patio area where staff could go to have an outdoor meeting or sit and have lunch. Terra Malia Designs utilized the Cassetta Liscia Atlas Italian terracotta pots from Eye of the Day placed side-by-side to create a barrier between the parking lot and the patio zone. Visually, the barrier is essential to differentiate the spaces and as the planting has filled in, it has created a space that is more pleasing to spend time.

To see more of Terry Basche’s work, please visit Terra Malia Designs 

THE ROGUE GARDEN: Brent’s Test Kitchen

Hey! All you hoity toity landscape designers—this blog’s for you!

When my professional landscape design friends come to my home garden for the first time, they are usually thrown off balance by what they see: there are pots and containers everywhere.  I constantly rescue or buy plants to try out in our pots to show how they work together in the landscape and also to see how a plant performs in a container versus the ground.

While my garden is a “test kitchen”, it serves as inspiration for Eye of the Day as well as for the genetic sequence I received from my Portuguese great grandfather. He was a truck farmer who indentured himself in 1868 to the Campbell Estate in Hawaii to grow sugarcane. I love putting my hands in the dirt.

My garden at home has helped us at Eye of the Day in many ways. We have learned that French Anduze pottery must be sealed or the glazing starts to fall off almost immediately. So, we tell everyone that if you purchase French Anduze, you must have it sealed to protect the glazing.

Something that every design professional should know about is how to properly plant pots and especially large pots. Pots that have diameters larger than 30” usually have plant material that starts big or will grow large due to the space for more root ball. But after a period of years and sometime climate conditions, a large plant needs to be removed from its container and trimmed and replaced. By replicating these situations in my own garden, I have formulated successful service practices for performing operations which allow clients to benefit by getting the most from their purchase of our products.

Also in my garden, there are odd experimental items like “vertical wall” planters and terra cotta shelf units for the patio. 25 years of business has resulted in a new product. Whether damaged in the container coming from Italy or through rough handling here at Eye of the Day, we take the broken pieces of pottery and produce Tumbled Terra Cotta.

Yes, my garden at home looks like a madman’s landscape but, I love it and I love spending time in this intimate setting surrounded by the products, plants and ideas that fuel my life.

Let me know if you’d like to visit.

Brent, the Rogue Gardener

Book Review: The Inspired Landscape: Twenty-one leading landscape architects explore the creative process by Susan Cohen

I planned on liking this book before I opened it, but it had me at the dedication:

“For landscape architects – whose works, grounded in the practical, are elevated by their imaginations.”

Since we opened our business in 1994, we have met many, many landscape architects and some have been using Eye of the Day as their source for Italian terracotta, French Anduze pottery, Greek pottery and American concrete since our first year. This is a well researched book that I wish I could give every one of those loyal customers.  The Inspired Landscape by Susan Cohen features professionals from around the world and with drawings, plans, photographs and resources attempts to portray the creative process experienced personally by these individuals through specific projects.

The landscape architect forms a plan by taking cues from topography, light, client style and natural conditions.  Included in this book are designs of public places, botanical gardens, modern landscapes, country homes and on top of structures.  Cohen spots and magnifies the initial flicker of creativity and follows it through to the resulting design.  This book is a series of investigations into the inspiration and process of these twenty one specific designers, and a great resource for anyone looking for insight into and inspiration from landscape design.

And this is Interesting about Susan Cohen, too: besides being a landscape architect herself, she is a teacher and lecturer on landscape design and history and is the coordinator of the Landscape Design Program at the New York Botanical Garden where she founded the Landscape Design Portfolio Series.

What’s Behind Eye of the Day’s Logo?

DAISY. DAY’S EYE. EYE OF THE DAY.

When Brent and I began daydreaming about a name for our business, our daughter Daisy was seven and our lives revolved around her (THAT hasn’t changed).  We wanted to incorporate “Daisy” into the name and decided to go for the old English meaning: Day’s Eye, for the resemblance of the flower to a stylized sun.  And as Daisy was the eye of our lives, Eye of the Day was born.

An overnight with our best friends, Robin, Cassidy and Heidi, found us talking about a logo for Eye of the Day. The evening grew late as we sipped our wine and played with ideas and soon graphic designer Robin had come up with a circular logo featuring the top half as a sun and the lower half as a daisy, split horizontally in the middle with the words “Eye of the Day” bisecting the halves. Without question, this was perfect for us.

Our logo has undergone a few changes in the past seventeen years; a few different graphic designers have tweaked it here and there.  The newest evolution is used on our Look Book, embossed on the cover and on the back and graces our new business cards as well.  In fact, we are using it everywhere!   We started our new business with a basic, interesting design and over time it has morphed into a more complex mixture of words and graphics, but its simple and meaningful heart remains true: the eye of the day still remains our Day’s Eye.

Right-sizing your Garden and Saving Water
By Deana Rae McMillion, Garden Enthusiast and Master Gardener

Right-sizing our gardens in order to reduce water usage is imperative. Just taking out your lawn isn’t necessarily the answer. Many people who do remove their lawns aren’t doing the necessary research and are planting water thirsty plants or invasive plants that use more water or rob their soil of nutrients.

If it seems overwhelming to remove your entire lawn, one thing you can do to save water is let it go brown. In this severe drought the most important thing to save are our valuable trees. But why not look at this as an opportunity to right-size your garden and plantings? California is a summer dry climate and that is not going to change even when the drought is over.

11 Ways to Conserve Water in Your Santa Barbara County Home Landscapes

1. Select water-efficient plants that grow well in your climate and microclimate.
2. Be hyper-aware of plant selection and be sure not to choose invasive plant species
3. Hydrozones: Place plants with similar water needs together and irrigate them accordingly (high, medium, low, and very low zones).
4. Let roots of established plants dry out between irrigations, water deeply and infrequently slightly below the root zone.
5. If you do not use or enjoy your lawn consider replacing it with drought-tolerant plants. If you decide to keep your lawn – water it based on University of California’s “Drought Irrigation Tips”
6. Mix soil amendments (compost, etc.) evenly and deeply into sandy and clay soils (40% or more by volume) before planting.
7. Spread a 2-3” layer of mulch on top of the soil around garden plants and trees.
8. Water early in the morning.
9. Control weeds.
10. Avoid over-fertilizing.
11. Sweep walkways and driveways; do not hose them down with water.

Have a home landscape or gardening question? Contact the Santa Barbara County Master Gardener Helpline at 805-893-3485 or email anrmgsb@.

Please allow 3-4 business days for a response as the Master Gardener helpline is staffed by volunteers. Please be as detailed as you can in your query when leaving a message. Photographs are also helpful in our responding to your gardening concern.
Resources:
Santa Barbara Master Gardener Program
California Garden Web: Drought Gardening Tips
Plant Right: Home Gardeners