Mary's Garden Book

s EASONS IN THE S UN CLIMATE-SMART SAN DIEGO GARDENS

WITH DESIGN TIPS & PLANT PICKS FOR STYLISH LANDSCAPES

BY MARY JAMES PHOTOGRAPHY BY RON JAMES

SUCCULENT SENSATION

DESIGNER/OWNER: JIM BISHOP

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ne surprise about Jim Bishop’s world-class succulent landscape in Mission Hills is its brief past as a perennial garden. Another is the role of pesky gophers in its evolution.

When Jim and his partner Scott Borden bought a then dilapidated 1938 Spanish-style home in the late 1990s, Jim left behind an Encinitas garden bursting with roses, asters, alstromerias, South African bulbs and many annuals grown from seed.

The retired software manager was weary of the work and water that English-style garden demanded and envisioned changes at the new property, an acre on a very steep canyon overrun with eucalyptus, weedy chaparral and invasive nasturtiums.

JIM’S POTTING SOIL RECIPE

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till his first garden projects, undertaken while the house was renovated with the help of architect Marc Turasuck, were new rose and perennial gardens. One in a street-side bed at the front of the house ultimately succumbed to competition from king palm roots.

The second high in the canyon met a different fate.

“One day I looked out and watched as my ‘Cecile Brunner’ rose was

pulled down into the ground,” he says.

“Gophers – eventually they ate everything.”

In time, Jim noticed a few exceptions – mostly aloes, jades and other succulents, uncovered in the back-breaking labor to clear the canyon, carve terraces, set paver pathways and add irrigation.

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also had some succulents in containers in the entry courtyard and saw how good they looked with the architecture,” he recalls. “I started to plant more, learning by trial and error. I never felt restricted, it just seems that way.”

Today the garden is an eclectic mix that includes waterwise South African and Australian plants, but succulents – especially Jim’s extensive aloe and agave collections - are its hallmark. Over the years, it has awed thousands of visitors on public and private garden tours and benefits, a number for the San Diego Horticultural Society which he serves as president.

This month it will be featured on the Mission Hills Garden Walk on May 7.

Details at missionhillsgardenclub.org.

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xploring the dense landscape and savoring Jim’s humorous tales of its creation can take hours, with pauses to relax in a canyon-side casita that replaced a little-used swimming pool. The all-season “party room” warmed by a tiled fireplace and serenaded by fountains is at the foot of a Turasuck-designed tower that links the home above to the canyon below.

Typical of the garden is the enclosed front courtyard, a riot of colorful Mexican tile, pottery and accents. Top to bottom, it brims with planted containers of all sizes, many in the brilliant royal blue repeated throughout the garden.

Arranged in vignettes around a fireplace, wall fountain and life-size rusted-iron mariachis, most display prized succulents – aloe-look-alike gasterias, a half-dozen hybrid crown of thorns, and unusual kalanchoes including copper spoons and ‘Fang’.

One story below, a patio outside the master bedroom showcases much of Jim’s agave collection, arranged in containers beneath a small tile mural that reflects their sunburst shapes. Among the showiest are Agave tequilana variegata with its blue and white blades; ‘Blue Glow’ and ‘Snow Glow’ with their luminous leaf edges and ‘Tricolor’ striped in creamy yellow and two shades of green.

COLLECTOR’S CHOICES Jim Bishop’s Favorite Aloes

Cape Aloe (Aloe ferox) – “Wonderful winter flowers red to orange,” Jim says, rise in multi-branched candelabra above rosettes of blue-grey leaves. South African native

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“A

gaves I love because they look good year round,” Jim says. “And I’ve always been drawn to aloes. I just marvel at them in the winter when they bloom. I’m also a big fan of grevilleas and, well, the list goes on.

I only rule out plants that need lots of water and fertilizer.”

In the canyon, in winter, when many aloes and other mature succulents bloom, the landscape seems lit by scores of torches – flower spikes in fiery shades of red, orange and gold. The immense variety on display here reflects Jim and Scott’s garden-centric world travels as well as fervid plant shopping and gifts from fellow collectors.

Terraces that crisscross the slope are anchored by retaining walls of rocks salvaged on site and scores of stacked blue bottles – now one of the garden’s signatures. “I saw this done at a hippie restaurant in Big Sur,” Jim recalls. “That year we had a New Year’s party and I saved all the Blue Italy water bottles. Over the years, a lot of people have contributed bottles, including my aunt who collected them at her retirement home in La Jolla.”

The canyon’s latest addition is a native plant garden that includes a stand of nine Torrey pines planted after 22 eucalyptus trees were cleared. Also on the drawing board are plans at the canyon base for a “round room” with seating ringed by rock-filled gabions.

But that can change. “The garden is always evolving,” admits Jim who works there almost daily. “We’re just marching down the hill and someday we’ll get to the bottom.”

Coast Aloe (Aloe traskii) - Single-trunked aloe from the dunes of South Africa has long draping olive-green leaves and orange-tinged yellow flowers.

‘Sparkler’ Aloe (Aloe deltoideodonta ‘Sparkler’) – Jim admires this hybrid with “a galaxy of white dots on its leaves.”

Short bronzy-green rosette to one foot tall. Unusual pink flowers.