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2015 - The Art of Pruning Garden Tour: the Gardens of Bill Castellon
This was the first garden tour hosted by the APA. We featured the gardens of APA Certified Aesthetic Pruners and garden builder, Bill Castellon. These 6 gardens together are representative of the art and mechanics of traditional Japanese rock placement, garden building and aesthetic pruning. Each, in turn, differed in size, situation and scenery and the ways in which they engage the senses.
THE O'KANE GARDEN - Alameda
Donna and Michael O’Kane began working with Bill Castellon 6 years ago to create this intimate Japanesque garden. The garden’s beautifully styled trees and shrubs are the work of APA Certified Aesthetic Pruner Randall Lee.
The number and size of skillfully placed boulders belies the small scale of this garden. The front includes a red leaf maple as a focal point and a small “grove” of green maples to the side of the driveway. In the back garden, mounded planting beds and rockwork together create depth to allow a small space to feel larger. This garden includes espaliered sasanqua camellias, a styled Japanese black pine, and a lovely red laceleaf maple. The sound of the fountain creates a peaceful feeling.
Other features include a driveway of permeable pavers, veneer paving over both the front and back porches, lighting, a rock veneer placed over the existing stucco raised veggie bed, and a creative bamboo screening around the hot tub.
THE GHIGLIONE GARDEN - Alameda
The gardens of Winifred and Frank Ghiglione, once designed around beds of roses and perennials, now follow a sinuous path among stones, fountains and a fantastic collection of Japanese maples. The redesign was undertaken 7 years ago by consultant Dick Austin and designer Bill Castellon.
The back garden, a ‘hill and pond’ landscape of sorts, artfully provides both an intimate, forested setting for resting and a larger space for entertaining, from which can be viewed the whole of the garden. APA Certified Aesthetic Pruner and current APA president Randall Lee creates the beautiful lines and light of the garden’s maples and other woody plants.
THE BEERY/ABRAMSON GARDEN - Oakland
In 1967, David Beery placed a Monterey pine, still in its container, in the front garden of his newly purchased home. Today it is a spectacular specimen, a species rarely seen artfully pruned. APA Certified Aesthetic Pruner Bruce Thompson has been tending to this specimen, along with the rest of the garden’s trees, shrubs and bonsai, since 2006.
Six years ago, Bill Castellon transformed the side and back gardens into the serene spaces they are today. The side garden planted with maples encompasses their and their neighbor’s property and is enjoyed by both. In the back garden, water trickles over stones past a weeping cherry and red laceleaf maple and flows into a koi pond. A stone bridge traversing the pond leads to Norm and David’s bonsai collection. From the cozy veranda, the garden can be enjoyed in all its intricate detail.
THE BOWYER GARDEN - Orinda
Stuart and Jane Bowyer’s garden was originally designed by Henri Matsutani in 1988. Bill Castellon began renovating the garden in 2000. The garden wraps around the Bowyer’s home with striking views framed through every window. Dennis Makishima was the original pruner of this garden and you can see his hand in the dwarf beech and dwarf deodar cedar. The pruning was taken over by Bill Castellon, who counts the styled pines in this garden among some of his favorites.
A highly stylized Japanese black pine leads you though the garden gate. Once inside, stepping stones cross a gravel pond and lead around the dwarf cedar to reveal the original Matsutani waterfall flowing toward the house. Wander further around to get a sense of how the rockwork and plantings, particularly native manzanita, mirror the hills and natural landscape in the borrowed view beyond.
THE MANGINI GARDEN - Walnut Creek
Stuart and Renae Mangini’s ‘stroll garden’ is among the nicest of its kind created by Bill Castellon. Bill appreciates the atmosphere and feeling of the garden and especially likes the entry path, which incorporates overlaying rectangles of Elk Mountain stone. Stroll past the original fencing, past large boulders and view the forest of maples, which hide and then reveal the splendid garden beyond. Farther down the path you will cross over a dry creek bed that suggests a water source. At the mouth of the creek a weeping blue atlas cedar evokes a waterfall.
Leslie Buck has been pruning for the Manginis since 1999, when the garden was in its original design, installed in the early 60’s by Henri Matsutani. She is responsible for styling the pines and transforming the maples from ball shapes to the natural forms they now hold. The plum tree is pruned to reflect the oaks in the distant hills.
THE KEELER GARDEN - Walnut Creek
A panorama of golden hills is the setting for Ken Keeler’s garden. Meandering out of the hills is a dry stream bed which has the appearance of flowing from the back garden to the front garden right under the house. California blue oaks, Japanese maples and loropetalums line the stream bed out front and silk-tassel, coffeeberry, blue oak, manzanita, redbud and heuchera lead into the hills in the back garden.
The dry stone waterfall was originally installed at the San Francisco Flower and Garden show by Bill Castellon and Dick Austin in 2000. Using Japanese stone setting techniques, Bill’s rock work, grading and plantings have transformed what was once a cactus garden into a California native landscape. Principles of aesthetic pruning are as appropriate in this native landscape as they are in a Japanese garden, and APA Certified Aesthetic Pruner Maryann Lewis expertly applies those principles here.
