{"id":223760,"date":"2025-09-13T14:26:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T14:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223760\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T14:26:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T14:26:18","slug":"creating-a-serene-setting-in-encinitas-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223760\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating a serene setting in Encinitas \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

For The Union-Tribune<\/p>\n

Ramona Copley has lived in her Encinitas home since 1976, sharing it with her husband, David, who died last year. Their grown daughters live nearby. Today, her 16-year-old Chihuahua mix Cookey is her constant companion. Before David\u2019s death, the couple had been planning the relandscaping of their front and backyards. They let the lawns die and David installed brick planters and concrete. They got rid of a cypress and ants destroyed white birch trees, Ramona said. Once he was in hospice and then passed, the landscaping project obviously was put on hold.<\/p>\n

Within months, Ramona Copley, in her 80s and retired from being a seamstress for the San Diego Chargers, began to reignite the ideas that she and her late husband had put together. She had help from her stepdaughter Michelle in choosing plants that would be drought tolerant, hired a gardener after taking several bids and, in one month, had a front landscape anchored by three, four-trunk king palms that she\u2019d been fixated on to provide shade over a dry creekbed and a variety of variegated agaves, mat rushes and dymondia lining it.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s purposely kept a minimal look, and by the end of December 2024 she had her dream garden. She also won the Olivenhain Municipal Water District\u2019s 2025 WaterSmart Landscape Contest, for which she received a check for $250.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing I bought was one of those steel cable hoses, which are nice because they don\u2019t kink,\u201d Ramona said.<\/p>\n

\"BlueBlue fescue grows next to the sidewalk. (Alejandro Tamayo \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)
\nThe inspiration<\/p>\n

The Copleys wanted a low-water garden that would be simple to care for. Ramona took advantage of her neighborhood walks with Cookey to get ideas from her neighbors\u2019 gardens and, from there, formed an image in her mind of how to lay it out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had drawn pictures of what I wanted and knew exactly where to put the trees,\u201d Ramona recalled.<\/p>\n

The trees were the four-trunk king palms. She had seen them at the homes of a couple of neighbors, and that was it for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re beautiful and they\u2019re clean,\u201d she said. Fortunately, they were available at Moon Valley Nursery.<\/p>\n

\"AA monarch butterfly alights on a Cleveland sage plant. Pollinators are frequent visitors. (Alejandro Tamayo \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

Then there was the river rock \u2014 a whole pile of river rock that was gifted to the couple and had been sitting in their side yard for about 10 years. When Ramona mentioned to her gardener that she wanted a dry stream, he told her the rocks alone would be expensive.<\/p>\n

\"AA plaque honors David Copley, Ramona’s late husband. (Alejandro Tamayo \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Come take a look at my rocks.\u2019 They used every one of them,\u201d she explained. \u201cI\u2019ve always liked beach rocks, but I didn\u2019t want to go down stealing from the beach. So, they\u2019re being offered. I\u2019ll take.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dry creek isn\u2019t just decorative. The front yard had a history of flooding during hard rains when the water from the backyard would go down the drains and under the walkway. So the creekbed was designed to move the water across the front yard and guide it down to the street; any residual water can irrigate the plants.<\/p>\n

Originally, the idea was to plant reeds and ferns along the creekbed, but they didn\u2019t thrive, so Michelle took them for her house.<\/p>\n

Ramona decided to replace them with succulents and asked Ricardo Rodriguez of Tiger Landscaping, whom she had hired, to find plants with color.<\/p>\n

\"NewHigh on Ramona Copley\u2019s wish list was a dry creekbed. As luck would have it, she had been given a big pile of river rock. The feature helps direct water across the front yard and toward the street, avoiding flooding. (Alejandro Tamayo \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)
\nThe details<\/p>\n

Rodriguez was working from a clean slate, thanks to David Copley\u2019s advance work. Ramona had kept the L-shaped low brick planter her husband had built and that has been used to house a variety of aeoniums. As they have produced pups, Ramona snips them and replants them. They\u2019re thriving in the semi-shade provided by the roofline of the front yard\u2019s western exposure.<\/p>\n

The house is elevated a bit from the street. Below the retaining wall is a field of blue fescue that lines the sidewalk. Above is the garden, grounded by two of the king palms on the street side. The garden is divided horizontally by the creek bed and the third king palm is closer to the house and is expected to provide more shade as it matures and spreads. The dymondia is thick and thriving below it. Ramona had Rodriguez put down a small patio for a chair and table nearby that allows her to sit outside and watch the neighbors walk by, as well as the many butterflies and hummingbirds that visit.<\/p>\n