Path of Glory : Movable Brick Paving Replaces a Labor-Intensive Lawn With a Flexible Cottage Garden

WHEN IT WAS time to repaint their Laguna Beach cottage two years ago, Lew Whitney, president of Roger’s Gardens in Corona del Mar, and his wife, Yoli, pulled down the tangled jasmine vines that had covered the house as completely as a drop cloth. Once started, they decided that they might as well redo the whole garden. So out went the troublesome dichondra lawn as well.

To begin, Whitney left the brick border that had surrounded the old lawn and filled it in with more brick to create an ample path. This paving was laid without mortar, on sand, so that individual bricks can be removed and plants put in their stead, and rainwater can soak into the ground to nourish nearby shrubs and a huge sycamore tree. Without the lawn--and the need to edge it--flowers planted at the edge of the path can spill onto the paving, making the garden look much fuller, even though little space for gardening was actually gained.

All of the beds were replanted because Whitney was eager to experiment with new plants and new design schemes, including one with colored foliage. For example, growing under the windows are carefully trimmed clusters of gray dusty miller and, across the path, lamb’s ears. Behind the birdbath (a treasure that came with the house) grows the almost-chartreuse Helichrysum petiolatum ‘Variegata,’ and, at its foot, is a clump of gray H. nanum surrounded by silver and golden thyme and golden sage.

Delphiniums and rose-colored Rehmannia elata provide strong vertical forms and an abundance of flowers against a background of pittosporums and nandina. Baby’s tears have spread on their own through the cracks between the paving and in a man-made meadow of native California iris. “It’s a real cottage garden,” Whitney says, “because it looks a little chaotic but is actually carefully tended.”