This charming Cambria garden has flowers, a fruit orchard — and chickens on webcam

On a curve on a windy road in Cambria is a green-trimmed, tan home surrounded with lush green shrubs, trees and flowers.

Lee Oliphant and her husband, Don Sather, built their home more than 15 years ago and started work on their landscape soon afterward.

Oliphant, an occasional writer for The Cambrian, describes her style as “English-cottage garden meets drought tolerant.” But, she says, "It is more a serendipitous thing, full of plants I like or serve a specific purpose, like providing food or color."

They planted one section at a time beginning with the street corner that had to be deer-resistant. Rosemary, lavender, Mexican sage, Shasta daisies, Erigeron, lantana, Pride of Madera, and an existing large liquidambar blend well together. Creeping thyme grows among a broken rock walkway leading to the front door. A birdbath is nestled in the daisies and a 10-year-old wisteria vine hangs from the front eaves of the house.

A large gate with an arch of climbing roses leads to the backyard. Oliphant never had a design for the entire garden; she and her husband made paths and patios one section at a time, planting what they love and what grows well in Cambria.

As visitors enter the garden, there is an 80-foot raised bed of sloping river rock that is brilliant with pink and white African daisies as well as butterfly bush, Mexican marigold, rock rose, lavatera, sage and pelargoniums. Succulents add varying heights and color ranging from shamrock to olive green.

A small wooden bridge leads from the dirt path over the river rocks to more plantings along the oil pipe and wire fence.

Off the back of the house is a beautiful sunroom facing west. A slope of lavender, rosemary, rock roses, golden California poppies, calendula, foxglove, and hollyhocks add color to the spectacular view from the large windows.

Red hot pokers, bird of paradise plants and native white and purple irises are planted throughout the property, as are white daffodils, Hot Lips salvia and geraniums.

Some of the larger bushes and trees featured in the landscape are snowball viburnum, a lime-colored Japanese maple, a low-spreading maroon Japanese maple and different varieties of hydrangeas.

Further down in the garden are several wooden raised beds planted with zucchini, tomatoes and strawberries. Thyme, oregano, parsley, cilantro, oregano and garlic are grown year-round in an herb garden.

Snow peas have just sprouted and will be trained to grow on a bright blue teepee-style trellis. Underneath grows spinach and a purple Asian mustard plant. A large artichoke and rhubarb grows nearby.

A red door garden shed, made from reclaimed wood from an old summer cabin original to the property, is nearly covered by a pink flowering jasmine vine. A potting bench leads from the shed to a small greenhouse used for propagation. Friends provide Oliphant with starts and plant cuttings which she will grow and plant in her garden.

Oliphant and Sather eventually bought the plot next door, calling their “mini orchard.” There, they’ve planted five different species of low-chill apple trees, which will produce fruit in the mild climate of Cambria.

In their “old orchard,” part of the original landscape, are Anna apples, Granny Smith apples, Asian pears and Santa Rosa plums. Other edible perennial plants — raspberries, olallieberries and rhubarb — are mixed throughout the landscape.

But the star of this garden is the chicken house. A rose was growing along the fence, so Oliphant and Sather built the chicken run around it. Another rose grows along the front and over the door of the chicken coop.

Viewers can watch live video of their chickens via webcam at www.backyardhencam.com. Oliphant shares information about raising chickens and fields poultry questions on the site.

She also writes about gardening at www.centralcoastgardening.com

Tips

• Plant for color and fragrance year round.
  
  
• Hang flowering baskets from trees that are sparse or may not have leafed yet.
  
  
• Don’t worry about color-coordinating your plants. Nature has a way of working things out.
  
  
• Have fun. Gardening is all about experimenting.

This story was originally published June 20, 2018 at 11:08 AM with the headline "This charming Cambria garden has flowers, a fruit orchard — and chickens on webcam."