Aloe, There!

Flower power takes on added significance Sunday when the Westlake Village Garden Club presents its 28th annual Garden and Patio Tour.

Five residences have been selected this year, all within a few miles of one another and offering a wide variety of landscaping, planting and patio ideas. This tour, the major fund-raising event for the garden club, last year attracted more than 1,000 people.

One of the colorful stops this year will be the cul-de-sac home of Ernie and Kathy Kristof. Event publicist Marion Ward called the couple’s lavish common-area landscaping “their gift to the neighborhood.”

The area between the street and a wrought-iron fence separating the property from a hillside is an almost totally drought-resistant garden, with lots of ceanothus (wild lilac), Matilija poppies and yellow day lilies. And here’s a free culinary tip: The flower petals of these lilies are sweeter than the sweetest lettuce.

There’s also a sea of Santa Barbara daisies, which make for a swell ground cover, and one unusual plant, a dogbane.

A number of red hot pokers are in the foreground, but mostly it’s a sea of blues and yellows in a hummingbird-friendly environment. Just across the fence, the gophers are forever massing for a fresh assault. But for this weekend, everything is near perfection.

With more than 100 plants thriving in a relatively small area, there obviously is not a lot of wasted space at the Kristof residence. The side garden is highlighted by a very healthy pink clematis vine and an equally robust Queen Anne’s lace, about to explode in bloom. There’s also a nice specimen of blue star milkweed.

The backyard patio area is well stocked with healthy specimens, including some polka-dot plants that will survive outside in our area, plus a couple of California peppers, which one day may take over everything.

The sideyard features baby’s breath, flanked by a number of Ilex (holly) bushes. The garden near the front door features a beautiful Anisodontea capensis, as well as a number of ranunculus plants and some happy Leptospermums.

“This garden was designed so there’s always something in bloom--always something to be thrilled by,” said Kathy Kristof, a gardener who took the tour last year and is an integral part of it this year.

The gardens each year are chosen for their diversity as well as to show a variety of sizes.

“It’s nice when you have a smaller area like the Kristof house, because two of the five gardens this year are larger than 2 acres,” Ward said. “On these tours you may see just one little thing that solves your problem. It’s nice to have a contrast, and people will think, ‘I can do this.’ ”

A few miles away, the Joe and Tanya Caligiuri residence is more spread out, with a lot of brickwork on three levels and more traditional landscape plants.

There are a number of hydrangeas as well as the ubiquitous nandinas and canna, but the really interesting thing about this garden is near the creek that flows below the backyard fence. The clivia and the ferns are fine, but a stand of coastal redwoods is a surprise. Very healthy, these growing giants contrast seriously with some nearby palm trees. In growing zones 20 and 21, just about everything will thrive.

The other gardens on this year’s tour are at the homes of Lawrence and Patty Cantor, Ed and Kim Hartounian, and David and Susan Harkins.

“These are people who take a great deal of pride in their gardens and want to show it,” Ward said. “We get a lot of people who are into flower arranging. The garden club has a variety of activities, from flower shows to how-to-do-it seminars to ecological and environmental land-use issues.”

No pets are allowed; neither is smoking. Low-heeled shoes are recommended.

DETAILS

28th Annual Garden and Patio Tour, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday; $10; 496-6805.

Bill Locey can be reached by e-mail at blocey@pacbell.net.