Judy Horton, gardening from the inside out

A ficus hedge creates separation between the garden and the busy street outside. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

July 10, 2013 5:01 AM PT

When landscape designer Judy Horton moved into a 1925 cottage in the Hollywood Hills, the garden consisted of a lawn, a young sycamore tree, a camellia and a ficus hedge. “I needed to make quick and drastic changes,” said Horton, who proceeded to remake her landscape to deliver pleasing views from the house’s windows and doors.

A potted Nagami kumquat tree adds color just outside the front door. Horton under-planted the kumquat with a variety of teucrium called Summer Sunshine and a type of origanum called Amethyst Falls. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

The view from the porch toward the driveway is layer upon layer of green. The red-tipped leucadendron Safari Sunset is planted at right. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Dual hedges: To screen out the driveway, Horton planted fast-growing Teucrium fruticosa. “The hedge fools you because you don’t know where it stops,” Horton said of the sculpted barrier, which grows inside the taller ficus hedge ringing the property. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Outside her office window, Horton placed a potted Bonfire begonia on top of another pot, so it can be seen from inside. “When it’s out of bloom, I’ll move it somewhere else,” Horton said. “I move the plants around a lot.” (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

A California grape vine, Vitis vinifera (the cultivar Purpurea), pokes inside the living room of Judy Horton’s cottage. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Horton placed fuchsia hybrids in pots outside her bedroom window, so they frame the view with flowers. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

A view of the fuchsias from inside her bedroom. “They make me feel like I’m in Bermuda,” Horton said. Horton had to install a chain-link fence to protect her dogs. She painted the existing wood fence blue, then planted vines and added the chain link. Her hope is that eventually, the vines that are sandwiched in between the two fences will create a green screen. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

The view from the sun room includes hydrangeas in pots (sprinkled with aluminum sulfate to achieve that striking blue), echeveria in pots and bougainvillea along the back wall. On a nearby baker’s rack she is growing begonias, fuchsias and Spanish shawl in pots. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Aloes planted under an orange tree including Aloe maculata, Aloe striata hybrids and the Olea europaea cultivar called Little Ollie. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Daylily (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Rows of potted plants create a border along Horton’s driveway and serve as a nursery where she can audition plants for her clients’ gardens. “I don’t like to put something in a garden until I know it’s going to work,” she said. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)