Survival of The Fittest
Hardly run-of-the-mill for suburban Encino, the garden of Marla Manalis and Joseph Geisinger was conceived as an otherworldly oasis in a harsh spot. It features plants that can take the beating of 110-degree summer days and frost-glazed winter nights. Over the past five years, any that couldn’t--a certain flax, a touchy crassula--have given way to tougher types: aloe, agave, opuntia, senecio.
As practical as these succulents are, they have a vibrancy that sets off other greens. Layered against bamboo and shaded with palms, agaves fan out around a swimming pool, casting sharp reflections on its mirrored surface. The opuntias, jostling smaller succulents, loom along a stair. “We wanted a garden that was compelling and exotic--that pulled you outside as soon as you walked into the house,” says Manalis, an artist and potter. Along with Geisinger, a production sound mixer, she was drawn to their 1950 house for its pavilion-like simplicity and half-acre lot. “The relationship between the two is crucial,” she observes. “It expresses how we live and who we are.”
To enhance that relationship, they streamlined the house, which they bought in 1992, by removing several interior walls and adding banks of single-pane French doors that open to the garden. At first, despite the big views they created, there wasn’t much to see beyond a stand of bamboo, a cracked pool and yards of concrete patched together over decades. For Manalis, an experienced gardener, the bamboo evoked the mystery of a jungle. The vintage concrete, “in the rubbed colors of old erasers,” showed potential as hardscape--future terraces and steps--if it could be saw-cut and re-laid. The damaged pool, cast in a grand Regency style that clashed with the house, was more complex. It was to be kept and fixed, given the baking climate. But considering its place at the heart of the lot, it needed to be reconceived as part of an overall garden plan.
The couple turned for help to former Venice-based design partners Jay Griffith and Rob Steiner, who recommended slicing off the pool’s curves and recasting it as a simple rectangle amid a larger grid of plants and paving. For Max, the couple’s 11-year-old son, they replaced some of the concrete with lawn, but they saved a portion of the original paving to create terraces for seating. When it came to planting, they teamed up with Manalis to mix the succulents she loves with softer perennials in aqueous blue and silver greens that harmonize with the pool. Sycamores were picked for shade, the ornamental grass Muhlenbergia lindheimeri for its spray of blue leaves, and gray honey myrtle for its smoky foliage and creamy blooms. The designers also carved a cool retreat into the bamboo grove, a secret court complete with concrete floor and ‘50s garden lounges that Manalis has collected for years.
Recently she developed another passion--fragrant, pale-toned English roses that so far seem to be weathering the Valley’s seasonal extremes. “I’m an L.A. native,” she explains with a smile. “I learned early about the seduction of gardens. You see something, you want to try it. If it works, you want more.”
