Rustic Garden Shed
Once upon a time, a young couple gazed out upon their property and saw…nothing, absolutely nothing. Indeed, when Dan and Kathie Wickham bought their newly built Craftsman-style home in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, it sat on an empty lot of stony clay loam. Yet today that 7,000-square-foot trapezoid is a wonderland, one where first-time visitors pause to ask: “Um, is that a log cabin?” often followed by “Who lives in there?” At which Dan and Kathie just smile and reply that it’s a storage shed, despite the splendid little structure’s appeal as a potential home for woodland gnomes.
Shown: The rustic garden shed is tucked between a willow and a ficus, with a bird-feeder post cloaked in creeping fig vine out front. The porch rocker was salvaged from a neighbor’s trash and turned into a planter.
Boulder Edging
While their yard unfolds in plot after fanciful garden plot, magic has never been afoot. Rather, it’s the result of 30 years’ planning, plotting, digging, and building, as well as its owners’ serious horticulture chops. Dan, an agricultural consultant, troubleshoots all manner of growers’ problems, from puny blooms to invasive pests; Kathie has been gardening since childhood. “My parents gave me a choice: Weed or dust the furniture,” she says. “Guess which one I picked?” She became a nursery professional and floral designer, working in garden centers and doing wedding flowers on the side. To this pair of green thumbs, “A blank slate meant not having to undo someone else’s garden,” Kathie says.
Having moved from a starter home on a speck of land, the Wickhams were eager to make this large space come alive. Then married nine years, with a 4-year-old daughter, Janess, they envisioned a garden that would grow with their family and feature multiple planting areas radiating from the house. The plan was to reflect the local landscape while giving it their own quirky spin. As Kathie puts it, “We’re both Southern California natives and except for those palm trees you see everywhere, we like many of the plants found here. We just didn’t want a cookie-cutter garden.”
Shown: The boulders that border the flower beds—echoed on the patio pillars —were mostly dug up on the property, but some were purchased. “Yes, we actually paid for rocks,” Kathie confesses, with a smile. “Don’t judge!”
Succulent Wagon
No worries there. The duo conceived different zones, with succulents, ferns, and variegated eugenia on the shady north side, fruit trees on the sunny south and east sides, and flowers, flowers everywhere—in rock-rimmed beds, in traditional pots, and in an assortment of inventive planters. First, however, “we had to figure out how to work with what we got,” says Dan. “The lot was flat, so elevation changes weren’t plausible. Yet while the rocky aggregate soil would be difficult to dig, from an agronomic standpoint it was pretty good.”
Shown: In this garden, virtually anything can be a planter, including a Radio Flyer wagon. “Drainage is critical with a repurposed planter, but imagination is most important,” Dan says.
Potted Succulents
So the Wickhams got down to some serious planting. For groundcover, they chose a mix of baby’s tears, pink clover, ornamental strawberry, and a variety of sedums, with a lawn of bonsai dwarf tall fescue. Trees include a weeping paperback (melaleuca leucadendra) and a weeping bottlebrush for the bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds they beckon; for shrubs, they eschewed traditional hedges, putting in heavenly bamboo and Benjamin ficus, “a common houseplant that’s more interesting in a garden as its multiple trunks and sweeping form take shape,” Dan says.
When it came to layering in flowers, the Wickhams limited their annuals to under 10 percent, but they contribute a lot. “We have perennials that bloom every year, but the annuals we add really give the yard a punch,” Kathie says. “We just buy nursery packs that fill in quickly for great color.”
Shown: Potted succulents border the widest swath of concrete cobblestones. Key to growing the euphorbias, echeveria, aeonium, haworthia, and senecio? “Don’t overwater them!” Dan says.
Miniature Cottage Garden
She makes it sound so easy! “With full-time jobs, children, yadda yadda yadda, it was a challenge to get out in the yard,” Kathie admits. The duo was also distracted by various home remodels, including the addition of a second-floor bedroom and deck over their patio. To satisfy earthquake code, they had to sink long metal supports deep into the ground; these were boxed out and stuccoed before Dan clad them with a veneer of boulders.
Shown: Kathie, now semiretired, teaches miniature-garden classes that, she says, “are so popular they fill up fast!” The secret is to use plants that will stay small, she adds, like the Scotch moss, Irish moss, and fescue grass on display in the four gardens here. Large saucers make ideal vessels, says Kathie, who suggests adding objects with personal meaning.
Miniature Lighthouse Garden
But they did find time to garden, and the typically lovely SoCal weather worked in their favor—for the most part. “We lost a weeping willow to the Santa Ana winds in 1995, planted another in the same spot, and lost it the same way, seven years later,” Kathie says. Now they know that watering deeply will encourage the tree’s typically shallow roots to delve deeper, and they trim No. 3 every year in early fall to thin out its canopy.
Miniature Trellis Arch Garden
The Wickhams also had to deal with the drought that parched the region for much of the last several years, trading sprinklers and bubblers for a drip irrigation system to conserve water.
Miniature Trailer Garden
The division of labor has always been equal. “We work together, with me doing most of the heavy lifting and Kathie most of the design,” Dan says, though Kathie counters, “Dan does more design than he’s admitting to. But I do love the colorful, creative stuff—the containers and moss baskets—and I remake the miniature gardens every year.”
The Three F’s
Walk through the Wickhams’ yard and you’ll find the little charmers tucked in here and there. Kathie made her first one about a decade ago, and it was such a hit on the charity garden tour the Wickhams take part in each spring, she is compelled to do eight to 10 a year now.
While such miniatures have become trendy recently—marketed as fairy gardens, with the makings sold in kits—Kathie assembles hers from scratch, inspired by things she and Dan enjoy together. “We’ve toured old lighthouses on vacations—most recently the one in San Simeon, near Hearst Castle—so we’ve got a lighthouse garden,” she says. “And I always do one with a toy trailer, since we love to camp, taking our full-size Airstream up to the redwoods or out to the beach.”
Shown: The brick patio flaunts the three F’s: fountains, flowers, and ferns, including such favorites as staghorn, Boston, bird’s-nest, and Polypodium.
Vegetable Garden
Their fondness for the great outdoors is apparent in their own little slice of nature. “We live in a tract house we’ve hidden from the neighbors with foliage, and right beyond our back wall is a wilderness park—all tall pines and no buildings—so it gives the illusion of living in the woods,” Kathie says. So that log cabin actually makes perfect sense! “It does to us,” Kathie says, chuckling. “The house was built to look like an Arts and Crafts–style bungalow and our style is pretty rustic, with lots of wood, sort of lodge chic, so it fits.”
Shown: The vegetable garden is fenced in so the couple’s pet tortoises can’t enter freely. Dan DIY’d cobblestones for the garden paths by filling forms with concrete.
Potting Bench
The Wickhams had the 12-by-8-foot storage shed built on the southwest portion of the property, added on the porch themselves, and devoted the interior to gardening supplies. The shed replaced an old gazebo—and that’s not the only change the yard has undergone in three decades. They put in a vegetable garden, then had to fence it off after adopting two desert tortoises, Mortise and Little Girl. “There’s so much vegetation here, we don’t have to feed them,” Kathie says. “But Mortise, he’s about 15 inches long, he’ll park himself on a plant, and it will be history!”
Shown: Kathie believes the best potting bench is low enough to let you look down at the plant you’re working with and is equipped with a lower shelf for storage. “But keep your good clippers in a box so they stay dry,” she warns.
Faux-Bois Dining Area
The couple’s non-reptilian children (son Nolan was born seven years after Janess) also had an effect on their Eden’s evolution. Their daughter’s obsession with the fritillary butterfly, for instance. “We have a passion vine that attracts them,” Kathie says, “and when Janess was little, she loved watching the caterpillars eat that vine down to the stems. We practically let them decimate the plant!”
The insect phase ended, and when the young Wickhams started testing their own wings, their play sets and wading pools went the way of all things. “That’s when the yard really came into its own,” Dan says.
Shown: The faux-bois picnic set is made of concrete and has a Magic Kingdom vibe visiting kids can’t resist.
Wheelbarrow Planter
Today, it certainly keeps the couple busy. “Upkeep is never-ending,” Kathie says. “There’s always something to prune (like roses in January), trim back (shrubs that burn after an August heat wave), and replace (out with petunias, in with pansies). And did I mention weeding?”
Still, they have never lost enthusiasm for their garden, and it’s not all toil. The Wickhams entertain outdoors often—barbecues and beyond. “We’ve had a friend’s wedding and a 25th-anniversary party here,” Kathie says. “Only a few plants trampled and some really great memories.” And if no actual wee folk are present, there are plenty of birds—among them mourning doves, scrub jays, towhees, finches, and the occasional Cooper’s hawk.
Shown: The nice thing about a wagon or wheelbarrow planter—like this one filled with ivy, fuchsia, and dianthus—is you can easily move it around, to a shady spot during a heat wave or out of the way when company comes.
Tricycle Planter
Now, while they look forward to the day when their first grandbaby, Michael, born in November, can explore their creative accomplishment, the Wickhams savor their solitude. Dan has a favorite spot under the fig tree, while Kathie prefers pulling up a chair on the patio and gazing out at the greenery. “The garden has really filled in over the years,” she says. “It looks better than ever now.”
“We’ve created a peaceful, quiet space away from urban Orange County,” Dan says. “We don’t mind the real world, but we do enjoy the isolation of our garden, and there’s great satisfaction in having created it ourselves.”
Talk about a happily-ever-after story—no pixie dust needed.
Shown: Also on the move is this upcycled tricycle planter, with a basketful of pelargonium and calibrachoa blooms.
The Plan
Cedar fencing borders the trapezoid-shaped lot, and DIY cobblestone paths connect the various planting areas. Curved beds lined with boulders and a log-sided storage shed add to the rustic feel.
A. garden shed
B. potted succulents
C. brick patio with fountains, flowers, and ferns
D. vegetable garden
E. potting bench
F. picnic set