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Home & Garden

Showcasing Glorious Gardens

The Toluca Lake Garden Club offers a glimpse of notable local landscapes.

by Jenna Anderson and Brenda Wong | May 7, 2019

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    FLORA AND FAUNA Kirith Prady with son Asher and dog Scout among the colorful blooms in their front yard, one stop on the Garden Club’s tour. “I love that the Toluca Lake ladies and the Pasadena ladies are coming together to celebrate gardens,” Prady says. Photo by Daniel Deitch.
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    DELICATE DELIGHT Hybrid tea roses line the perimeter of Darlene Carter’s front yard. “I was told those are Bing Crosby roses, from his time [when he owned the home]. They’re a golden color and terribly old,” she says. When picked, they “don’t last at all — maybe a day. But they are fragrant.” Photo by Daniel Deitch.
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    SIT AND SIP Carter says the bench area visible here is her favorite part of her front yard: “When the roses come up, I love going out there, sometimes with my husband or my daughter. We’ll have a glass of wine and sit and read. And the grandkids love the rocks all around there.” Photo by Daniel Deitch.
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    SOOTHING SOUNDS A tinkling fountain helps provide a restful environment. “I love the fountains because I can see them from inside the house and they sound so pretty,” Carter says. Photo by Daniel Deitch.
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    Prady enjoys her secluded backyard edged by orange, lemon and lime trees. “This is such a lovely place to be, for me,” she says. “It’s a huge stress relief to spend time gardening.” Photo by Daniel Deitch.
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    GLOBAL GARDEN At a third historic house featured on the tour, colorful plantings by landscape architect Greg Simms artfully surround artifacts the homeowners have collected on their world travels, including tiles from Turkey and sculptures from Tibet, Japan, India and Burma. Photo by Daniel Deitch.
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    PEACEFUL PATIO The tour also included this tranquil lakeside backyard, where Buddha statues are framed by profusions of roses. Photo by Daniel Deitch.
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    Photo by Daniel Deitch
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    Photo by Daniel Deitch
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    Photo by Daniel Deitch
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    Photo by Daniel Deitch
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    Photo by Daniel Deitch
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As part of its ongoing mission to preserve and enhance the beauty of our community, the Toluca Lake Garden Club hosted about 50 members of the Junior League of Pasadena Garden Club for a guided tour of five neighborhood homes and gardens on May 8. The excursion, which also included a lunch at Lakeside Golf Club and a presentation about local history, was an opportunity to build relationships with a like-minded nearby organization while promoting the scenery and culture of Toluca Lake — not to mention a fun chance for TLGC members to admire one another’s houses and yards, says president Dana Boyd. Here’s a peek at some of the featured properties.

EVER SO ENGLISH

A love of English gardens and a desire to conserve water inspired Bob and Darlene Carter to make over the front yard of their 1933 home, which was built for Bing Crosby and later owned by Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler.

“This was all lawn when we moved into this house six years ago, and our water bill was $4,000 a month,” Darlene says. After visiting England and admiring the gardens there, “we got rid of all the grass and asked, ‘What do we want to do?’ And we both went, ‘Let’s do an English garden!’”

“We tore out the front parkway and we did the Xs,” she says, referring to the design along a brick wall and on the 300 feet of parkway, where Kurapia is planted.

They transformed the yard into 11 garden areas, many of them squared off by boxwoods, which along with fountains and topiaries are de rigueur in English gardens. “Someone tried to talk me out of doing boxwoods, because when one dies they all look horrible. But I didn’t care,” she says. She and Bob scouted out “topiaries in all shapes and sizes” at Best Plants Direct in Pasadena. “We went there a couple of times and decided what we wanted and how we wanted to do it,” she continues. Their yard now includes foxglove, jasmine, camellias and an espalier of five varieties of apples (Fuji, Gala, Braeburn, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious and Gravenstein), all adding up to a tour-worthy garden.

A LEAFY RETREAT

Built in 1934 by famed architect Paul Revere Williams, the Prady family’s Toluca Lake Avenue home has a long tradition of notable residents, among them actor and director Lloyd Bacon, Lear Jet founder Bill Lear, Lockheed founder Carl B. Squier, “singing cowboy” Tex Ritter and actors Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli. In addition to the house’s history, beauty and privacy, the plus for plant lover Kirith Prady is the level lot with plenty of room for gardening.

After moving in six years ago, Prady planted masses of climbing jasmine framing the back side of the house and a variety of fruit trees, including citrus, avocado, apple and her favorite, a “fruit salad tree” that grows five different types of stone fruit, which she brought with her from her previous home in Encino. There’s also an olive tree grown from the tiny sapling brought home from the first Earth Day Celebration she attended after moving to Toluca Lake, and a small vegetable garden that includes artichokes, sugar snap peas and cherry tomatoes. “I can eat off my land,” she says proudly.

Prady is the newest member of the Garden Club, having joined about a year ago. “Not only do I love gardening, but I also really wanted to meet my neighbors,” she explains, adding that, along with having a dog to walk around the neighborhood, the club has been one of the best ways she’s found to make new friends.

About Jenna Anderson and Brenda Wong

Jenna Anderson is the managing editor and Brenda Wong is a senior editor for Toluca Lake Magazine.

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