Ojai Country House: Garden Design Elements

We have finally finished up this little project called " the yard".  It is a full acre of land and we are done with about 2/3rds of the property and have yet to touch the house (only paint) OMG!

The rear garden project was finished off with the garden room design of spilt redwood posts, a vintage gate and a cable and turnbuckle system to support our yet to be planted grapes.  They are coming from a grower in Atascadero and should arrive next month.  In the center are the apple trees.

The cable is really my idea of an invisible fence and yet it has an industrial ranch house appeal

Here is a garden element from repurposed metal items topped with an antique roof finial.  The irrigation is a micro emitter that runs through the base of the tub and up into the copper planter

This area will be the rose garden for the David Austin roses on order.  There will be a total of 40 plants surrounding this metal planter.  They will be arriving in January.

The raised stone beds were also completed (6 total) and four will be used exclusively for vegetables.  The two at the rear of the garden are for ornamental and cutting flowers.  All of the stone came from the property and we have used it extensively in the garden, plus its FREE : )

The front of the property was completed with the installation of this water feature.  It is a reinforced concrete product and can be painted or stained any color.  I worked on this for about two days trying to match the stone work, what a job that turned out to be.

The white iceberg roses will fill in and compliment the rest of the roses around the ranch fencing.  This is actually a wonderful place to sit, but it just so happens that a woodpecker has deceided to nest in the oak and the pecking and wood chips are a bit annoying!

The gravel driveway was actually the last item to be finished last week because we were still moving around dirt and planting.  But it is finally done and we love it.  It is also really clean and the dog loves to lay on the hot stones in the middle of the day.

Front gates allow us to close off the entire front from the street.  I designed these to be sort of like a traditional picket but with a bit more ranch feel since they are 20 feet wide.

The rear yard has a big patch of grass.  Not the most water wise but this will eventually become part of the house when we remodel and add an outdoor kitchen/pavilion area

The croquet set is ready and waiting!  The decomposed granite paths are really nice and a great gardening surface as well.

All of the bases of the  oaks are lined with smaller stones to keep the roots unexposed.  This happens to also be an "Ojai" look that you will see all over the valley

The arroyo is dry now but is ready to handle any welcome rain this winter

All cool season vegetables are in and sprouting up pretty quickly.  These beds are irrigated with micro emitters and the water use is very small.

The tuteurs are planted with both edible and cutting sweet peas.  Surrounding the bases, I planted about 100 tulips per bed (Mrs Sheepers and Perestroika)

So thats the end of the project, at least for today!

Looking forward to sitting in the chairs this next weekend....it's about time

best to all~*~  kelley