Grand Canyon

Far from being a simple discipline problem, this Hollywood Hills garden threatened to swallow a 1909 Arts and Crafts house before help arrived six years ago. But rather than hack it into submission, landscape designer Sarah Munster worked slowly, clearing dead trees and rampant vines to uncover stone walls, mature eucalyptus, white wisteria and paddle-shaped opuntia. She also found the strong character of the place, an 11-acre canyon wreathed in chaparral and owned by one family for close to a century. The new owner, who arrived in 1992, painstakingly restored the house, revived and expanded its network of hiking trails and hired Munster to create simple green gardens in which leaf shapes and plant forms are more important than floral color.

The existing plants and stone walls helped focus Munster’s approach: Gnarled, 1920s-era hibiscus and camellias obscured views and paths and had to go. But the veritable forest of opuntias--planted behind the house as a firebreak--established a theme. “Those opuntias, together with the owner’s love for succulents, led me to use similar plants elsewhere,” she says. Close to home, for example, in new stone-edged terraces, she clustered a jewel-like mix of agaves, aloes and sedums. Nearby, the vintage eucalyptus trees made shade plantings a necessity and called for tough greens that could take soil steeped in eucalyptus oil. In this cool part of the sun-baked grounds, Munster went with the quiet tones of blue oat grass, westringia and plectranthus. She also saved the white wisteria, lofting it onto a pergola designed by Icelandic craftsman Atli Arason.

As she moved toward the blistering canyon, she took her cool palette with her, planting calibanus and variegated agaves and sedums against the backdrop of the opuntias. Farther up, she added yellow palo verde trees, hesperaloes and golden barrel cacti, which she used like sculptural finials to anchor a rustic stump stairway. Always, she says, she experimented with the appetites of local deer, which avoided most spiny or strong-smelling plants but ravaged tender-leafed succulents along with obvious delicacies such as roses. Bold enough to install a kitchen garden--in collaboration with architectural designer Kate Kerr Meigneux--Munster quickly gave up on vegetables in favor of sweet peas (deer dislike their hairy stems) and fragrant herbs. She also designed a simple cistern-type fountain on the theory that thirsty deer eat certain plants as much for moisture as for food.

Her plan to return the canyon to its roots included clearing invaders such as cape honeysuckle and planting native oaks and wildflowers. In early spring, lupines bloom on the hillside, giving way later to matilija poppies. “To me,” Munster explains, “creating a garden isn’t just about making things pretty; there’s a sense of privilege and responsibility that goes with it--both to the land and to those who follow us.”

Obviously, someone agrees. The garden, as well as the house it embraces, won a 1995 preservation award from the Los Angeles Conservancy.

Landscape designer Sarah Munster planted mounds of santolina and spiky gray-green agaves to flank a path that cuts through a canyon of existing opuntia cactus. The chairs were designed by craftsman Atli Arason of Iceland. Opposite, from far left: Beds of agaves, aloes and sedums surround the restored Arts and Crafts house; the stairway Arason made of deadwood leads from the drive to the canyon above.