A Survivor: A Grand Seaside Garden in Tiburon - Gardenista
Photographs by Marla Aufmuth for Gardenista except where noted. An old boathouse in a sheltered cove in Tiburon, California, survived a landslide in 1982... ...a year when severe rainstorms caused a record 18,000 Bay Area mudslides that killed 15 people—including the owner of this 8.5-acre garden—and caused $100 million in damages. The shingled boathouse at the edge of the waterfront property was not in the path of the 1982 mudslide, which came from Paradise Drive above the property. The boathouse has six capstans and views of Angel Island. Mexican salvia, which can stand up to ocean breezes and salt air... ...thrives at the waterfront. The privately owned property was open for tours during a recent convention of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. Bougainvillea grows on the the south wall of the boathouse. San Francisco architect Herb Kosovitz designed a new 10,000-square-foot main house, with a glass conservatory filled with the owner’s collection of tropical plants. Under the direction of Mr. Leffingwell, a full-time arborist spent two years pruning more than 250 oak trees and shrubs on the property. Bluestone stairs and English concrete planters “relate to the more natural character of the landscape,” Mr. Leffingwell says. Sculpture by neighbor Jean Pierre Rives. Boston ivy on a wall beneath more tropical plantings. In autumn, the ivy leaves turn bright red.