Inspiring Tah.Mah.Lah

One of the most inspiring sites we visited during this year’s annual APLD conference in the Bay Area was a home in the Portola Valley area, called Tah.Mah.Lah. I’d looked up what I could about it ahead of time and was intrigued by what I’d read – designed to be “the greenest custom home” in the United States, it is a net-zero, LEED Platinum certified project whose owners built a home and landscape designed to last 100+ years. We had more than an hour on site (a great improvement over some prior garden visits limited to 25 minutes or less, because of small sized projects and a packed itinerary), and I tried my best to capture some of the most interesting aspects of the house and landscape. (Among other things, I was delighted to see an installation by Patrick Dougherty, which the owners’ little girls have dubbed the “fairy castle.”)

Because there are so many photos, I’ve decided to present them in gallery format, to avoid endless scrolling for readers. The captions provide additional information about the project, but for more details, please visit the Tah.Mah.Lah website, which went live for the first time the day of our visit. Thanks and kudos to landscape architect Thomas Klope, for his inspired implementation of the owners’ vision, as well as to the owners and the builder – all of whom were on site when we visited, providing background, history, and answers to our many questions.

A packed-gravel bocce court greets visitors as they walk up the driveway.

50-gallon cisterns throughout the site are used to store rainwater for irrigation and other uses.

Gravity walls were built of abandoned “quarry waste” limestone boulders found in Minnesota. They are used all over the site.

The interior of the house gives seamlessly to the outdoors. The owners have opened Tah.Mah.Lah for numerous educational tours and fundraisers to promote green energy and construction.

The pool has an adjacent natural pond/bog. To the right, the “fairy castle” built by Patrick Dougherty.

A view up to the house and outbuildings from the pool area.

I loved the simplicity and softness of the native grasses contrasting with the plain wooden walls of the buildings.

Between the garage (with three electric cars) and one of the residential buildings, the owners’ dog greets visitors, and view of the hills behind Tah Mah Lah can be seen.

The owners commissioned new blends of native sod that would need less water. The final products are now available commercially as well, and require 80% less irrigation than a fescue grass lawn would.

A view from the dining room to the outdoors.

Behind the main house, hand-hewn fencing encloses an area for chicken coops and raised vegetable beds (not shown).

Only one area seemed to contain “ornamental” perennial (native) plantings. The project was planned from 2006 – 2008 and completed only in July 2011; over fifty non-native trees were removed from the site prior to the replanting process.

Boulders provide a setting for a small firepit and assist in the grade change from the pool area up to the house.

Native grasses soften the edge of the driveway and the stark simplicity of the buildings constructed from recycled and reclaimed materials.

A Visit to the Gardens of Alcatraz

In mid-September, I headed to the Bay Area to attend the annual APLD conference, which took us to an impressive number of gardens and made me wish I could grow some of the plants I saw. Before the conference began, however, I spent a couple of days visiting my son, who has just moved to San Francisco to work. One morning, I got up early and took the ferry over to Alcatraz Island. Unlike most tourists, however, I never set foot in any of the prison buildings. I was there to see the Gardens of Alcatraz.

As some of you may already know, Alcatraz served as a maximum security federal prison from 1933 to 1963, when it was closed for budgetary reasons. (Prior to 1933, it was a military prison, dating from the late 1800’s.)

Seen from the San Francisco Bay in the early morning, Alcatraz’s appearance is more than a little foreboding.

Although its nickname is “The Rock,” from early in its history, the officers’ families and later the inmates sought to soften its forbidding slopes and surfaces by planting flowers. When the Bureau of Prisons tore down two homes that had previously been occupied by these families, their foundations were converted to flower gardens tended by families and inmates.

An area of the old Officers Row gardens, open to the public only through the tours offered by the Garden Conservancy two mornings a week.

Another section of the gardens in the old Officers’ Row area.

In 1986, the prison became a National Historic Landmark, but it wasn’t until 2003 that The Garden Conservancy began partnering with the National Parks Service  and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy to clear away over 20 years’ worth of neglect of the garden areas. Today, Garden Conservancy volunteers, working through the NPS, lead fascinating and informative free tours ranging over much of the island on Friday and Sunday mornings. My two guides, both first-rate in terms of their knowledge of Alcatraz’s history as well as that of the gardens, met a group of us on the 9:10 a.m. ferry on Sunday morning and soon we were off.

Monica Beary (left) and Corny Foster (right) await us. Steps to climb? There were lots.

I was surprised to see plants like old roses,  fuschias and geraniums (as well as succulents) in profusion. Our volunteers explained that these were “survivor” plants that had been discovered in many locations when the GC’s restoration work began. The plants introduced by the inmates and families were exotics; the climate (Sunset Zone 17) is mild and Mediterranean in nature.

Perennial geraniums in the Officers’ Row area, near the greenhouse.

Echium candicans (Pride of Madeira), a North African native, grows in the Gardens of Alcatraz. It’s a favorite of hummingbirds.

Almost everywhere, the view out to the Bay reminds visitors how isolated and grim “The Rock” would be without these gardens to soften it.

Succulents and roses frame a view of the Bay.

An Agave americana in flower on the edge of the island.

At the end of our tour, we took in views of the west end sloped areas of the island – the only gardens that most prisoners could see.

Today these areas are planted heavily in succulents interspersed with other plants, such as Gaura, which can tolerate the rocky soil and limited rainfall of the site.

If you’re fortunate enough to visit the Bay Area over a weekend, the Garden Conservancy offers tours of the Gardens of Alcatraz on Friday and Sunday mornings at 9:30. You’ll need to book the 9:10 ferry, nothing later, if you want to get there in time. And for more information on the gardens, check out Bay Nature’s online article and the Conservancy’s own website. Highly recommended!