Greenbrae couple creates a peaceful, colorful garden retreat

The first time Susan Storch, a San Francisco native who came to Marin in 1972, became interested in gardening was when she moved to a lovely property in Kentfield, where she reared her children.

“It was on an acre of landscaped garden with a large lawn, a lush hillside of azaleas, rhododendrons and camellias, and a rose garden,” she recalls. “I took a gardening course at the College of Marin, and attended many free instructional events at Sloat Garden Center in Kentfield.”

When her children left home in 1999, she moved to a house with a smaller garden in Greenbrae’s Cape Marin neighborhood.

“It had been landscaped, but was very boring,” she says. “There were hedges, bottle brush and a hot tub in the backyard.”

Although she gave up the noisy hot tub for the quietness of the garden she sought, she kept the “amazing apricot tree” that produces so many apricots she still shares with her friends.

A year after moving in, she met her future husband, Bill. A Lincoln, Nebraska, native whose parents carefully tended a victory garden full of fresh vegetables during World War II, he really wasn’t into gardening.

“He didn’t have any interest in gardening during his childhood,” she says. “Like me, his interest began as an adult when he purchased a home in Atlanta, Georgia, and developed and planted his own garden.”

In 2001, when he moved in, “he took an immediate interest in creating a nurturing and pretty space for us both,” she says. “In the past 23 years of living here, the garden has gone through many transitions. For a while, it was a Japanese-themed garden. We planted a Japanese maple, which has grown and provides shade over the arbor and parts of the seating area.”

And since Bill Storch likes color, he planted azaleas and roses.

Now in their 80s, and smartly aging in place, the couple switched out their hard-to-prune, low-rise rose bushes for taller rose trees “which makes us — and neighbors — happy because they extend above the fence,” she says.

When he worried that the stepping stone pathway in front might be too wobbly and dangerous, the couple hired a landscaper to install a pebbled walkway and replace a wooden deck with travertine tile.

Storch credits her husband for designing the arbor in the backyard, from which a swing is now suspended, and under which they were married in 2010.

While that was fine for a while, the garden underwent a much-needed renovation in January.

“It had become overgrown, with plants infringing upon each other,” she says. “I wanted to simplify the space, and make each plant have better definition and stand out on its own.”

She found inspiration while walking her dog past the garden of her neighbor, Daphne Greene, and on occasion, peeking over the gate.

“Daphne would always be working, trimming her flowers and bringing in new soil and plants,” she says.

When she serendipitously learned that Greene was in the process of renovating the garden of her neighbor and fellow book club member, she asked for Greene’s help, too.

“Daphne arrived with her helper and her joy and their enthusiasm got to work — changing spaces, bringing in rocks, pulling out muck, fertilizing, spraying roses with Neem, doing startling things that never even occurred to me,” she says. “With very few additional plants and rocks, we have had fun and laughter along the way.

“I am forever saying, ‘I meant to do that,’ while Daphne is already in the soil doing what I never did. If anyone, or anything, made a difference in my life and my garden’s, I owe it all to this ‘wonder woman’ and her strong helper.”

Once Greene finishes installing the new efficient irrigation system, the garden will be complete, and that’s when the Storches will finally be able to sit back and fully enjoy their garden.

“We are retired, so we enjoy being outside in the garden every day, and for me, it’s all day,” she says. “I live for sun and follow it when it’s in the front in the dead of winter, or in the back garden the rest of the year when I can choose between sun and shade.”

The front garden “is an explosion of color in the spring when the tree roses, azaleas and bougainvillea are in full bloom. The shade garden along the side is filled with hydrangeas and ferns, and the back garden has colorful pelargoniums and azaleas framed by a rock border, she says. “Everyone says how peaceful they feel when they walk into our garden.”

With the removal of some old benches in the back garden, the Storches were able to create new garden “room” that captures more winter sun, follows the summer sun and offers a separate, quiet place to read.

Here are her top garden lessons:

• “We have wonderful nurseries in Marin. Sloat Garden Center, the Home Depot and West End Nursery are our favorites.”

• “Spend a lot of time just sitting and looking at what you would like your garden to be.”

• “Plan carefully, but realize that if you don’t like what you’ve done, you can change your mind along the way. You don’t have to live with something that doesn’t please you. What does Marie Kondo say? ‘Spark joy’?”

• An objective voice can help. “While Bill was the one who planned, planted and maintained the garden through the years, I had to be careful not to step on his toes with my determination and stubbornness to make changes that I wanted to make. When we brought in Daphne, with her ‘let’s see and listen to you both’ (approach), I realized that the three of us made a great team.”

Show off

If you have a beautiful or interesting Marin garden or a newly designed Marin home, I’d love to know about it.

Please send an email describing either one (or both), what you love most about it, and a photograph or two. I will post the best ones in upcoming columns. Your name will be published and you must be over 18 years old and a Marin resident.

Don’t-miss event

• Stroll among award-winning rose blooms and rose photographs, watch floral demonstrations, ask rose questions and take home a show rose ($1 each at closing time of 2:15 p.m.) during the Marin Rose Society’s “A Celebration of Roses” from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 20 at 110 Bon Air Center, next to Wells Fargo Bank, in Greenbrae. Win $25 by entering your most fragrant roses or best garden bouquets. The first 100 children to visit the childrens’ area will take home totes of information and miniature rose plants. For more information, go to marinrose.org.

PJ Bremier writes on home, garden, design and entertaining topics every Saturday. She may be contacted at P.O. Box 412, Kentfield 94914, or at pj@pjbremier.com.