Lockwood Terrace

This is a spring day in the Laguna garden looking up one of the center stairways from the arbor.

This is actually a little terraced area we affectionately call "Lockwood Terrace" after our good friends Ed and Jenny. They spent an entire weekend many years ago, digging out, walling up and leveling what had to have been the hardest clay area anyone has ever tried to dig in, and adding compost and peat moss to make it so they could plant some vegetables.

At that time there was only about the top quarter of the hillside that was tamed and this was pretty much down in the middle of nothing. That weekend we put in re-bar and landscape-pole steps to make it easier to get down to the area. Years later those steps were redone into the sturdy timber and brick stairs in this picture.

Because this was down in the middle of the garden, all supplies had to be carried from the street level down 56 stairs to the top of the garden. Once they got that far they still had to go down the treacherous hillside to where they eventually were needed. No wonder it took years to create this garden!