Project
Oasis
(3 generations of women in horticulture)
This piece of land has been tended by the woman of my family for three generations. As I child I learned to grow vegetables in this space with my grandmother. As her health declined, the garden fell to ruins. In junior high I used to play landscape design, redesigning the space. Little did I know that those hours messing with logs and digging holes in the abandoned dirt was going to take me on a life long path.
My mother and I designed a new garden after my Grandmother’s passing. My mother ran an import company from Indonesia, India and China. After years of traveling in these tropical places, we studied the gardens and set out to create an exotic oasis in the heart of Los Angeles. We took the opportunity to use the decorative elements form the import business. By carefully selecting plants and their placement, we came up with a landscape design that has the lush green feel of Bali or Hawaii in the Southern California climate without using a lot of water.
After years of collecting and propagating plants, this oasis is alive with birds and dragonflies. The thick plantings create a microclimate around the house that helps cool the property on hot days. Integrating edible trees has made our family home is rich in fruit, including pomegranates, several types of guavas, lemons, limes, and bananas. Today, my mother rents her home and garden for photo shoots and weddings. The garden has been used in fashion shoots for Free People, Flaunt, and Playboy, as well as celebrity photo shoot and music videos.
