Water-hungry lawns are symbols of Los Angeles' past. In these seriesWe highlight patios with alternative low-water landscaping built for the future.
At the top of a roller coaster in Highland Park, Thomas Zamora and his husband, Raúl Rojas, enjoy two spectacular views: of the Pasadena hills to the east and the meandering expanse of native plants, succulents and greens in a backyard that Once it was nothing but dirt and junk cars.
It's been an evolution of nearly a decade, Zamora and Rojas say, but today, their backyard features a terrace lined with pots of colorful succulents and wide, water-permeable paths of flagstone and river pebbles, bordered by fragrant plantations of native trees. of California and flowers. shrubbery. There's a raised bed filled with vegetables, a potted lemon tree and some red-flowered Australian grevilleas and South African leucadendron left over from the early days of their landscape trip “because the hummingbirds love them so much,” Zamora said. “They fight over the flowers, so we couldn't bear to take them out.”
But almost everything else in the backyard, along with the front and avenue terraced planters, is dedicated to California native plants, a passion inspired by the Theodore Payne Foundation's Native Plant Garden Tour in 2015, when the couple saw the beautiful gardens that others had. created from native perennials, shrubs and wildflowers.
An oasis of cozy serenity in the backyard of Raúl Rojas and Thomas Zamora's home in Highland Park.
“That started us on our journey of 'Frankensteining' our landscape,” Zamora said, laughing. “The tours helped us get ideas about what items we thought would look great in our garden. It was not a formal process, because we did things ourselves. We found the things we wanted and the places to fit them, and we just improvised.”
They did so well that their house is now a regular part of the Theodore Payne Native Plant Garden Tour, which will take place on April 13 and 14 this year. (Tickets are sold out online, but at press time were still available for purchase in person at the foundation's office in Sun Valley, Tuesday through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for $55 (the children under 16 years old enter free).
The couple's garden is filled with bees, hummingbirds and other pollinators, and there are chairs and even a flower-shaded bench for visitors to sit and admire the view. The space exudes serenity and invites walkers, and is clearly a labor of love for both Zamora and Rojas. “Every Sunday is garden day and we enjoy the process,” Rojas said. “It's a place for exercise and meditation… our happy place. And who weeds? Us!”
On your tidy potting bench, there's a butter knife in a pot, ready to tackle any unwanted sprouts. “The best tool for weeding is a butter knife,” Rojas says confidentially. “My grandmother taught me that; You simply stick the knife into the base of the root and pull out the grass by pinching it between two fingers.”
A relative's discarded outdoor bar became the perfect potting bench in the couple's backyard.
Clearly, the technique works, because weeds, the bane of most gardens, including native plant landscapes, are visible. nowhere in this yard. The plantings are messy but meticulous, almost Disney-style, with overflowing pots of succulents on the front porch and terraces overflowing with blue-flowered rosemary, a Mediterranean plant, along with native plants such as the evergreen currant (Ribes viburnifolium)island alum root (Heuchera maxima), fragrant blue sage (Lepechinia fragrans), bush sunflowers (Encelia californica) and the island buckwheat hybrid (Eriogonum x blissianum)
Everything seems perfect, right down to the beautiful tangle of poppies and other native wildflowers on the narrow strip of avenue. But the process presented many challenges, Zamora and Rojas said. “We have learned a lot along the way,” Rojas said.
Both men are California natives whose families enjoyed gardening and being outdoors, but grew up around more traditional plants like roses, fruit trees and succulents. Also, Rojas laughed, his parents kept him busy pulling weeds when he was a child.
When Zamora, art department coordinator for TV shows like “No Good Deed,” bought the 1923 bungalow in 2009, the small backyard was filled with hard dirt and three junk cars, which luckily were removed before he moved out. moved there in 2010. At first, before meeting Rojas, he focused more on the interior of the house and planted only a few flower beds outside. He said his attention then turned to showy, drought-tolerant plants like statice and Pride of Madeira, a fast-growing perennial with giant purple flowers native to the Portuguese island of Madeira.
1
2
1. A South African “Jester” leucadendron grows along the wall of a neighbor's garage, next to an art display of paint cans. The leucadendron is a vestige of Zamora's early landscaping attempts, and is preserved because it is very popular with hummingbirds. 2. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times)
“I didn't know these plants were invasive along the Central Coast,” he said. “I was just planting things because they looked pretty and I knew they would grow because I had seen them in other places.”
He added leucadendron and grevillea for their spectacular drought-tolerant flowers. But he also planted a white sage (Salvia apiana) because he admired the silvery-green foliage of one of Southern California's most famous native plants during a local hike.
After Rojas moved there in 2012, the couple got more serious about gardening and visited plant stores and nurseries to get ideas. In 2015, while visiting Potted in Atwater Village, they saw a flyer for Theodore Payne's tour and decided to give it a try. It was easy to buy tour tickets in those days, Rojas said – “They didn't sell out like they do today” – and the gardens they saw finally gave their landscaping a sharp focus: native plants.
“It was one of the best decisions we ever made,” Zamora said.
But once they started adding native plants in earnest, the challenges began. They amended their heavy clay soil with compost and other additives, something that would normally be done to plant ornamental plants and traditional foods. But after many of the new plants died, they learned that their garden had mostly heavy, slow-draining clay soil, and that native plants prefer well-draining native soils to enriched garden plots.
“I learned it in one of Theodore Payne's 'Right Plant, Right Place' classes that teaches you which plants work best in your situation,” Zamora said. “And I also used Calscape to see if the plants I'm interested in would tolerate clay soils. “That's how we came up with a plan to add plants that we would love to have but don't have a place where they would work.”
A San Clemente Island marshmallow loaded with pink flowers was planted in a one-gallon container and is now growing lushly along the east fence of Raúl Rojas and Thomas Zamora's backyard.
They grow plants that don't like clay in pots, like the super sweet-smelling woolly blue curls (Trichostema lanatum) near your side door; Once established, excess water easily kills it. White sage has thrived, along with a very happy marshmallow from San Clemente Island (Malacothamnus clementino) that has grown from a one-gallon container to a huge flower-covered bush along your east fence.
They never really had a formal design, Zamora said. They tried things and if it didn't work, they tried something else. They initially added two raised vegetable beds, but eventually removed one to create more space for paths and native plants.
Adding pebble paths helped solve problems with runoff and standing water in the backyard. “We don't have a bioswale [to capture rainwater until it drains into the soil] — I wish I had known about that when I was doing the hikes,” Zamora said. “But I leveled the area so the water doesn't pool now, and the rocks seem to help retain the water so it doesn't run off; It just seeps into the ground through the pavers.”
Succulents in colorful pots line the deck, front porch and potting bench at the home of Raúl Rojas and Thomas Zamora.
Another helpful resource has been regular visits to the California Botanical Garden in Claremont, the state's largest botanical garden dedicated entirely to native plants. “It's a peaceful place and very inspiring to see plants in their habitat,” Zamora said. “We went there a lot during the pandemic because it was a great place to walk.”
They are also regular customers at Hardy Californians, a temporary native plant nursery in the Sierra Madre. Rojas, an entertainment publicist, even volunteered there during the Hollywood actors' strike in 2023, and became even more enamored of the versatility and beauty of the native plants.
“Our neighbors have been very positive,” Rojas said. “We have little signs for all the plants because people walking through the neighborhood are always asking us what we've planted and what we recommend for a specific situation.”
A large ficus on the avenue in front of the front door died, probably due to damage caused when the street was dug up to repair water pipes. It's a city-owned tree, Zamora said, so a city crew will have to remove it, “but we're definitely going to talk to them about replacing it with something native.”
Over the years, they have become much more optimistic about the circle of life in their garden. “We have learned that gardening is a process and that some plants grow better than others,” Rojas said. “We used to get really angry: 'Oh my God, this died!' – but at this point, it's more like, 'Oh, this didn't like that location.' “Now we see it simply as a new planting opportunity.”
California poppiesEschscholzia californica), purple Chinese houses (Collinsia heterophylla), baby blue eyes
(Nemophila menziesii) and other wildflowers grow thickly on the narrow avenue outside their house.
