Looking great!

What a beautiful garden. I love that it looks very natural and not overly formal. Love all the color as well!

Just curious, with the severe drought here in California how does she keep all of this watered??? I live in California also, recently transformed my yard using drought friendly succulents & Meditteranean plants in very small numbers. I do love her garden though, it's beautiful!

Beautiful, cozy and inviting!! Thanks for sharing

I use leftover bathwater for watering my planters. There are several plants that are drought friendly too!

Lovely. Appreciate that the garden furnishings are not all "matchy". It adds to the uniqueness of the garden.

This girl has fabulous taste!!!

Pretty, pretty.

LOVE, LOVE YOUR YARD!!! You do make me a little sick though. My day job is all detail and precision. My playing in the dirt time is pure chaotic, depraved creativity! I've been doing it for over 30 years at 5 different homes and still haven't achieved your level of perfection. Well done!

I do live in a short season area. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

As an avid gardener I admire anyone who develops and cares for such well considered garden vignettes. When I read and see such color it makes me realize I must incorporate more color within my own gardens. Great article, thank you.

Just love it.

What a beautiful yard! Love all the flowering plants along with the fruit trees. The design is perfect and really utilizes the entire yard. I particularly loved the different sitting areas and all the container gardening. Stunning!

Joyful outdoor rooms ... very pretty.

The thing I hate about large parties - especially 'cocktail parties' is the whole thing of having to kind of stand around, trying to keep an interested and interesting look on your face, finally finding someone to chat to and sure as you live, the MOMENT the conversation starts to get interesting, someone else breaks in and breaks it up or the person you're with is pulled away by someone or something else.

What does that have to do with this garden? The fact that in such a garden, there are little getaway spots where two or three people can gather, sit and feel private and have a conversation. If it had had a large lawn or huge patio, everyone would be standing around in the middle, and no chance to have a tete-a-tete with another guest at a party.

My idea of a perfect garden is one that has 'rooms' and nooks and LOTS of seating for two to four people (four, max, if everyone is going to be able to participate in a conversation), and also places where people who aren't comfortable chatting (as well as kids, who are not the most riveting conversationalists), can 'do' something together and not feel like they have to be scintillating: horseshoes, croquet, bean-bag tossing.

This garden has lots to look at to keep people moving through it, but plenty of places to sit and relax and talk, too. Close to my ideal.

Great job Bibby! Love the natural vibe - I know you had to work hard to make it look so easy & effortless! I love the beautiful bold colors in your art work AND in your garden! Lots of people say they aren't afraid of color, but you truly express it! Congratulations on another successful endeavor!!

Love the riot of color in the plantings and the furnishings/decor. Gorgeous.

Great job, this garden is a magical place with hidden visual gems in each area truly an extension of your home. Simply .... lovely

What a magnificent job you've done in your garden - I especially like the antique box planted with succulents. I've just bought a collection of sempervivums and have been looking for imaginative planting ideas for them - so far, half of them are in a pot with a broken pot rim added as a small boundary and the rest are planted into a broken pot on its side. The seating area is fab too - why not add anoutdoor rug? I have two and use them on my balconies in the summer (I also roll them up and take them to the beach with me as they make great, heavy-duty beach

mats) and in the winter I use them in my kitchen and bathroom as they're water-resistant and easy to clean :) .

Thanks for this! It's beautiful! This will inspire me to add much more color to our new outdoor space that was designed by me and built by both my husband and I.

This is my dream garden! Love pop of color and variety of plants!

Beautiful garden. Love the purple/blue hydrangeas and purple chairs. Where are the purple chairs from? Would love to buy some.

What a beautiful area....great job.

A magical garden, I'd spend most of my time there too.

such a fantastic garden! it looks like it's full of joy and wonder. Amazing that it's your first garden...congratulations!

Stunning!

Very nice!

Beautiful, I think I've walked by this house and admired the garden! So nice to hear the back story. (but lounges, not longues... the modern world needs more editors)

the actual term is chaise longue, meaning "long chair."

By far, this is one of the best gardens I have seen in Houzz. I just love all the color, creativity, whimsy and playfulness. I think it is full of fabulosity dah-ling!!!!!! Luv it!

Just wanted to respond to a few of the comments. The lounge chairs are from Fermob. I purchased them in Marin at Wooden Duck but they are offered by many other on-line companies. In San Francisco, Flora Grubb carries Fermob. They come in many colors. As for the outdoor rug, i love that idea. I don't have one YET but at a recent party, I brought a rug from inside and put it on my driveway to create and "outdoor living room" feel. See photo where the rug is featured in the upper right-

hand corner.

Such a happy garden!! Thanks for sharing.

Just glorious and so what I love about a garden. Its a peace haven and also an intimate space to really treat some good friends!

Would have liked to see before photos especially where the hedges were. A great outdoor living space, not formal, very creative and diverse in plantings. I want a yard like that!

Here are a few photos. You can't see the extent of the hedges in these photos but you can see how open it is in the after photos! there were also 2 trees in front of my window so i removed one to provide more light and a view of Mt. Tam. Lastly, there was a 70's style path that i removed and replaced it with bluestone.

And 1 more!

Ms. Gignilliat neglected to mention that her younger sister owns a landscape design business in Chicago. It's in the genes! www.gardensthatgrow.com

Beautiful garden/cottage with picket fence as a finishing touch and the house looks as if it would be as adorable inside as it is outside. However, Mill Valley real estate prices are some of the highest in California.

I was lucky and found my place through a friend and purchased it off the market.

I wish I could eat this, to savor more..........knocked me over and I loved everything!

thank you!

Beautiful!

Gorgeous garden! Love all the colors. Great job!

You have inspired me Bibby. I have a country property with a lot of grass to cut on the tractor and so I only have pods of flowering trees and shrubs. I love flowers and wait all winter (Canadian) for the Spring to arrive and we see green again. I am trying to grow a meadow now from seeds but not many grew this year, it was so hot and dry. I will keep trying and not give up....especially after seeing your beautiful garden full of colour! Thanks very much.

Wow, what a great inspiration you just were for me! Your personality shines through your yard! Thanks so much for sharing yourself with us.

Love and appreciate the artistic inspiration ... great intuitive spirit ... a kindred spirit !!

Wish this had been done as a regular story with photos instead of a video. Can't watch the video. . .

Jerry Bob, here's a link to the story in article form: http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/71742530/list/houzz-tv-meet-a-california-garden-designed-for-color-and-fun

Lovely colors!

Your garden can fill cheerfulness in any dry soul. :D
Amzing !!! skills . Keep going .. Really, a very vibrant work shown by u .

very creative and colorful!

Love your yard, where did you purchase your blue or purple love seat?

Would love to see the inside of this cute little bungalow!

I love this! I'm not afraid of color either, although I have my combination rules of what I do and don't enjoy. Too much red? No such thing, as long as they don't clash with each other. We have lots of brick here in NC, and I choose colors that don't clash with the brick. I find hot pinks don't mix well with brick, for instance. Delphiniums are a gorgeous blue flower I wish we could grow in NC, but they don't like our heat/humidity.

Love the yard! I have many of the same elements in my own yard and now am looking for a fire pit for a reasonable price. Was the fire pit custom made?

what a beautiful garden, a nature photographer's dream yard.

Love it! I bet the inside of her home is beautiful too!

Such a magical garden. Almost expect animated bluebirds and elves to appear from among the bushes. Thank you for sharing such a colorful free flowing and creative space. It inspires me to want to paint.

Hi Bibby, You made me smile on a sad day in America! I was about to delete my houzz emails and thought "oh, I will just look at that one first...it looks happy. And your yard is so lovely! Such a fun serendipity! Lisa Shorney

Glad it made you smile which makes me smile!

Hi,

Regarding the fire pit, I originally got one from Restoration Hardware that was gray. I liked it ok but was not able to rest a drink on the rim or use the fire pit to rest my feet on. But then it broke and i returned it to RH and got the one pictured instead. in the catalog, it looked darker than when i got it in person so i was surprised with the light color of it and hope it weathers in time! i love the suggestion from Nancy Andres to paint it and I think that could be done. so thank you for that suggestion Nancy. This fire pit is great to rest drinks on and prop up your feet to warm them!

your yard is gorgeous, love the colours.

It's lovely!! If only we had a warmer grow zone here in Southern Alberta!

Such a magical whimsical garden with all these little nooks of different seating areas. Simply beautiful! ❤

This is so artistic, eye pleasing and gives me a lot of inspiration! We did away with our lawns this year and look forward to creative gardening like this! Just loved what the owner did. Thanks for the great article.

I want to be one of your cool friends that get invited to one of those magical parties in that magical garden.

I love your garden, California has such great growing weather! Add some climbers (roses) my NewDawn is carefree just add ties to climb and fertilize, loves a sunny place but there are lots of bright colored climbers like piñata ! Happy gardening! Connie Deems!

So much inspiration here. What a treat!

My dream is to have a garden of my own. Currently, I overstuff my little balcony. Your garden is my goal!

Hi All, Just wanted to respond to a few of the questions. Someone wanted to see the inside. The inside was just shot for Houzz so you will see it. It is very whimsical and filled with color like the outside is. Also, someone asked about the purple love seats. Those are from Fermob and Fermob is widely carried in California and i would imagine in other parts of the US. Those chairs came in a few colors but the purple looks so good when the blue/purplehydrangeas are in bloom!

So many of the garden projects I see on Houzz are in Californoa which generally has great weather for plants which permits much flexibility. We live in Boulder, Colorado. It tends to be feast or famine here. It can rain for days during the spring and then suddenly dry up and not rain again for a month. The sun is also quite fierce as we are at 5000 ft. I'd love to see more stories using water restricted, drought tolerent plants, which as the climate changes may help us all conserve water and beautify our surroundings at the same time. I would love to remove the lawn in our complex which is a water 'hog' and replace it with some useful, xeriscape meadow planting. Any ideas or thoughts?

HI Bibby! that was so cool to open up Houzz and see you and your current beautiful creation. I love the garden!!

Lovely and easy! Love it

Great design!

That's a great idea, Phil. The Houzz Garden Guides section has some ideas that might help you get started:

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/native-plants

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/rocky-mountains-native-plants

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/saving-water

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/query/meadow

very nice. love it

Hi Phil, You might consider succulents. They are so beautiful and certainly drought friendly!

Oh I just love this space and what the owner has done with it, living in a condo after having had a garden makes me just a teeny bit envious, still love to see videos like this, thanks Houzz

That's so amazing, love your garden!

What a lovely place to call your home & garden.

Your garden makes me smile. Feel like we are kindred spirits. I live in Texas and my garden is my favorite place. Turns out it is my neighbor's too! Love your place!

hi Bibby - so much fun to see your beautiful garden on Houzz TV - they always do the best videos!

Hi ! your garden looks great ! Where are the chairs near the fire pit from?

Hey Sheila and Bibby, thank you for all the great suggestions and links to helpful articles. I have so much to learn in this area. Now if I can present a viable, financially responsible and sound plan to our Home Owners Association, perhaps I can help bring an environmentally conscious design to fruitition.

Lovely garden. She really has "green thumb". Very nice.

Bibby, I love it, and I like the fact that you did it all yourself. I live in a tract house in So. Cal. Got rid of the lawn decades ago and have little by little played with plants, paths, pots, etc. I don't think I have the good soil and rain you have, so the flowers are limited. I am envious of your persimmon tree. I got 12 persimmons from my little one this year, but the squirrel got half of them. (Anybody have a solution?)

Finally, I love the colorful sphere that your friend made. Does she make them for sale? I'd love to have one just like yours.

My view from my bedroom window as I have been very sick. I have watched a garden spider spin its web ,a green frog sitting on my window sill trying to catch a humming bird at my feeder, I am sad to see the cold set in ,as the bougainvillea will have to be brought in to keep it from freezing ,and the hummers long gone and Mr. Frog hiding in the mud till spring.

Hi, There were a few questions i want to respond to and a few comments i want to make. First, i got my chairs around the fire pit from Room and Board. Second, my friend sells the tile spheres and her name is Kate Zimmer. You can reach her through her website at KateZimmer.com. Lastly, i did not do the whole garden by myself. I had a garden designer that i used initially and we worked side-by-side with the initial plan. Her name is Marilee Gaffney. www.marileegaffneydesign.com I have done a lot of the updates since then including planting 60 dahlias myself from SwanIslandDahlia.com and spend a considerable time working in my garden!

Sound so relaxing!

So jealous cause where I live, the winter here last 5months at least and sometimes we have -40c temperature!

So beautiful and stunning... I so much love outdoors.

I would be one of the visitors who would not want to leave.

Ah, it's just beautiful. Congratulations!

Love your garden Bibby, it gave me a real lift seeing it on this wintry day in Toronto.

I love this!!! So beautiful!!!!!

Absolutely beautiful work! Thank you for sharing and inspiring us with possibilities. The love you give with your work shows through.

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing. I obtained so many wonderful ideas for my yard.

It gives me an idea that I need to have a garden as well.. this is such a wonderful space