Kathy’s Garden Transformation in Sacramento

Last week Kathy Sandel shared her former garden in Calabasas, California, and today we’re back visiting her current garden in Sacramento:

“Here are pics of my Sacramento rear garden. Not as amenable because much of it cannot be enjoyed or even viewed from inside the house. It is a typical rear garden which has no view. However it is pretty in its own way. I have struggled with this garden. I moved here at the end of summer 2020 right in the middle of the pandemic. I had been retired from landscape design about 5 years. As long as I had my Calabasas garden I didn’t miss it. I am also an artist, so I just concentrated on painting. But, moving here I missed my garden thru that first long cold winter and became very impatient to begin. And I had a hard time reigning myself in, I wanted color and fragrance right away!

So I won some and I lost some fights with myself. I have to laugh. I was everyone’s nightmare of a client. I wanted too many varieties, had too many objectives, could hardly say no to a beautiful plant even when it was decidedly questionable. And have had to redo my mistakes. My contractor who has worked with me for many years was wringing his hands! He saw I was in a fever of purchasing. Now, I am having to go back and simplify. And because I use almost all perennials and no annuals, my winter garden looks very different than my summer garden. What looks very empty in the winter without snow is very full to overflowing in the spring and summer. So it is a very common mistake to judge a garden in the winter. I am no longer near my old wholesale and retail gardens who knew me and where I could stroll through of an afternoon if I felt the need. The garden I have to use here is across town, so I began looking