Wild and crazy on the West Side

Today I saw one of the most delightful gardens I’ve seen yet while preparing the Garden Walk book. You’d never call it subtle, but the combination of the tightly packed front yard planting, the tire containers, and the upper porch hanging baskets are so colorfully over the top, they defeat demur. It’s also a fun block—Hispanic and Asian, mainly—with lots of kids playing in the street.

The gardeners, Le and An Ly, have—as far as I could tell—dahlias, roses, coleus, allysum, hollyhock (gone now), cleomes, petunias, hibiscus, abutilon (flowering maple), zinnias, perilla, and some evergreens. The tires are particularly interesting—one usually only sees painted tire containers in the rural and suburban south. I think they work better in an urban setting. These are creatively painted, too—not the usual white.

And I’m seeing it now. I can only imagine what it was in July. I’m going over there Sunday to talk to them—my final interview. A good thing, as the book goes to print Monday.

The photo was taken earlier in the summer, by Don Zinteck.