Native plants are making their debut this week at Hollyhock House in Barndsall Park just in time for visitors attending the Garden Conservancy’s Frank Lloyd Wright Symposium at The Ebell of Los Angeles this Saturday.
“We started planting natives at Hollyhock House in partnership with the LA Parks Foundation several years ago,” said Jenny Jones, a principal at Terremotto, a landscape design firm with offices in San Francisco and LA. The firm’s name translates to moving earth in Spanish and Italian, an apt description of their work.
In recent years, many improvements to the site have been made and now there’s an opportunity to add more native plants to the site including the west lawn, explained Jones.
“Even though it’s a small sliver of planting, it’s the first thing you see when you look out of the house and we are very excited about restoring the botanical glory to the house,” said Jones.
Jones will be presenting Terremotto’s work at the Garden Conservancy’s Frank Lloyd Wright Symposium on Saturday at the Ebell of Los Angeles. The next day, Sunday, symposium participants will be invited to view the new plantings during a garden tour of Hollyhock House and grounds.
“We are having a mad dash to get it all done this week in time for the tour,” said Jones.
Just as the hollyhock inspired Wright’s architectural design which was executed by Llyod Wright and Rudolf Schindler, Jones created a plant palette that featured a native plant equivalent and in the same spirit as the historical plants. Those early plants might have been fashionable at the time but are no longer now ecologically or climatically appropriate, she explained.
The Hollyhock garden restoration fits right into the firm’s work on other modernist properties including a historic garden in Silver Lake and Sea Ranch.
“These projects present fascinating problems,” said Jones.
Jones promises lots of juicy garden photos to inspire garden enthusiasts as part of her presentation.
Other presenters include Abbey Chamberlain Brach, Director & Curator at Hollyhock House; Laura Martin, Historian & Ecologist; Safina Uberoi, Award-winning Filmmaker; Janet Parks, Curator of Drawings and Archives at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library and Garden Conservancy board member and local landscape architect who has organized the Conservancy’s Open Days garden tours Joseph Marek will moderate the discussion.
Registration is still open for the conference. Click here for more information.
