Making Your Home Bloom, by Carrie Benuska, San Marino Real Estate

The San Marino Real Estate Report, as seen weekly in the San Marino Tribune

Making Your Home Bloom, by Carrie Benuska, San Marino Real Estate

Having an opportunity to view a home with a beautiful garden is a true delight.  Many homes have well-maintained lawns and flower beds but few have gardens that captivate.  Creating a yard that is extra-special takes planning, maintenance, and ample good-old-fashioned hard work.  Whether the work is done by a landscaper or the homeowner, a garden needs regular care to look its best, especially if the beds include flowering plants.  Weeding, dead-heading, fertilizing, and changing out seasonal plants all take time and energy.

Last Sunday, I had the opportunity to view a few wonderful San Marino gardens through the Spiritual Care Guild’s “Glorious Gardens Tour.”  Not only did the proceeds benefit a worthy cause, but the participants got to enjoy a warm and sunny day in the midst of gardens at their spring best.  The yards ranged from a flower-filled English Garden to a sleek and drought-tolerant succulent garden.  Different as they were, each one was special in its own right.

The pinnacle of the tour was visiting the glorious “Casa Ru”, a beautiful Andalusian estate on a huge property in San Marino.  This yard features a charming vegetable garden, Bougainvillea covered pergolas, huge perennial beds, a beautiful raised koi pond, and several inviting outdoor entertaining spaces.

What makes “Casa Ru” so engaging is the whimsical details that owner, Clarisa Ru, incorporated into the space.  The garden begins the moment you enter the front gate, and visitors are greeted by life-like cow sculptures, who appear to be peacefully enjoying the beautiful surroundings.  Trees along the driveway have rocks at their base arranged in a star shape.  An adorable play house is tucked into the garden, luring young visitors to enter and play.  The details draw visitors to take a further look, because you never know what is awaiting you around the next corner.

As lovely as it is to tour someone else’s amazing garden, not many of us take the cue and create a master piece of our own.  Gardening is like the laundry – it is never done.  Even if we get a burst of energy and plant some annuals in the front beds, we often lose steam after this one outing.  Creating and maintaining a garden can seem daunting and unattainable, so many of us just do nothing.

We can all take inspiration from a great garden and bring it down to a reasonable scale.  The first step is to make sure that every part of the property is at least clean, weed-free, and planted in a simple way.  Rather than getting overwhelmed at the entire yard, you can concentrate on creating an eye-pleasing front yard, which is a visitor’s first impression.  Just planting simple flower beds and maintaining a healthy green lawn can do wonders for the front of a home.  Displays of plant-filled pots on the front porch also add beauty and interest to the front of a home and can be created in an afternoon.

My new listing at 1485 Bradbury Road in San Marino is a great example of a lovely yet attainable front garden.  The main focus is an abundance of white iceberg roses, which run along the front of the house and are breathtaking at their peak.  Surrounding a well-tended green lawn, the owners created rounded beds and filled them with interesting plants.  The finishing touch is a charming curved pathway to the front door, which is flanked by beds of flowering plants.  Ever since the base of the garden was planted, the upkeep has been managed by their weekly gardener.  The front garden makes this classic Traditional home something really special.

A beautiful garden not only brings pleasure to the homeowner but creates a beautiful display for the whole neighborhood.  Your efforts will add value to your home and might even spark a passion to create a garden worthy of being on the “Glorious Gardens Tour.”  Happy planting!