Pasadena -- Vert Garden, The Paul and Charlene

The gardens have been redesigned over more than forty years of ownership to suit the changing lifestyle of the family: a large lawn for sports and a traditional English style border garden have been replaced by formal parterres and fountains connected by gravel and accented by crushed lava stone, unique features, and containers planted with combinations of drought tolerant succulents. The property, which is less than one-half acre, has a craftsman style shingle house built circa 1906 with a formal neo-Georgian portico added twenty years later. The current owners added fencing and a Eugenia hedge around the property as well as a swimming pool, spa pool and raised wooden dining deck in the back garden. Garden renovations start at the curbside where jasmine has been clipped into squared borders around the bases of palm trees. Boxwood parterres on one side of the front garden surround larger boxwood orbs inside Eugenia hedges now 40 feet tall. There are three fountains, four symmetrically placed Chinese ceramic garden stools, and black ceramic containers overflowing with free-form succulents. There is a mirror hung in a niche in the tall hedge and cast iron gates designed by a daughter of the family.

A narrow pea gravel path lined with dwarf mondo grass leads to the back garden, shaded by camellia trees, Japanese maples, cast iron and leopard plants. Trees and shrubs in the back garden include silk oak, ficus benjamina, Chinese elms, pittosporum, strawberry tree, bottlebrush, azaleas, hawthorn, and parlor palms. The back wall of the garden behind the spa is covered with ivy and is the backdrop to two massive black pots planted with agave, an antique French cast iron fire back, and two tall bronze obelisks. The aggregate pebble deck around the pool has cast iron furniture, also designed by the owner's daughter, and silver reflecting balls float in the water. Whimsical and unconventional planters and features, free-form combinations of succulents in the containers, and unusual pairings of plants provide contrast to the formal design of clipped hedges, geometric stone beds and axial pathways.

Persons associated with the garden include Mr. and Mrs. John Murray Marshall (former owners, 1906-1932); Mr. and Mrs. Berkeley F. Jones (former owners, 1932-1964); Mr. and Mrs. Robert T. McInery (former owners, 1964-1975); Myron Hunt and Elmer Gray (architects, 1906); Roland E. Coate (architect, 1926); James J. Yoch, Jr. (landscape designer, 1998).