In My Garden: Diane Carter’s Mid-Century Blooms
GARDEN TOURS
Part of Superbloom’s mission is to bring more flowers, color, and joy into the world, person by person and petal by petal.
In My Garden is a series that provides glimpses of personal spaces and backyards — and stories of the people who’ve cultivated them — that are adding to our collective bloom.
Filled with camellias, geraniums, nigellas, agapanthus, Japanese maples, and so much more, the gardens that Diane Carter has cultivated are a plant-lover’s paradise.
Much to our delight, Diane graciously gave us multiple tours of her northern California garden over several different seasons, sharing stories of its evolution over the five-plus decades she’s owned the property.
Built in 1955 as a model home in San Rafael, Diane’s midcentury modern ranch is part of a neighborhood featuring homes that have affectionately been dubbed “Likelers.”
The name comes from the post-and-beam construction that’s nearly identical to the homes in the nearby neighborhoods designed by Joseph Eichler, a real estate developer who was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture philosophy of balanced organic harmony between interiors and exteriors.
Eichler had the goal of creating affordable midcentury modern homes in a tract-like setting, and although Diane’s home and those surrounding it were actually built first by Alliance Construction, they share similar design principles: clean lines, light and airy spaces, and a seamless connection to surrounding green spaces.
The epitome of the indoor-outdoor “California living” aesthetic touted in the sales brochures from the 1950s, Eichlers – and Likelers – feature a back wall of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out into the backyards of each lot, with sliding doors and easy access to gardens, yards, and flower beds. Diane’s home was the first of many that were developed in the area, serving as the original model for many of the neighborhood streets in an area known as Terra Linda.
Diane told us that she and her first husband had originally put earnest money down on an actual Eichler-designed home nearby, but proximity to a hill caused a mudslide to wash down into that house. Eight months pregnant with her first child, they needed to find a new home quickly. Luckily, the nearby model Alliance home was available and the couple moved in.
As the sole model home on the block, it originally had no landscaping except for a single Japanese maple tree in the backyard and a camellia in front of the house. Given that the area was mostly farmland at the time, with more housing just beginning to be developed, Diane believes that the plant was actually the first camellia in the area. When she and he husband moved in, the rest of the yard was just barren clay soil surrounding what she calls the “boxy” midcentury home.
Over the course of the 65+ years that Diane has lived there, she’s created an incredible garden that fills the entire property – alongside raising six children in the blended family that came about when she married her beloved second husband, Jack.
As Diane gave us a tour of her gardens, she noted spots that had sweet memories attached to them: fragrant melianthus plants in an area where a trampoline used to be, rose bushes climbing the fence that her kids had once climbed, and an espaliered lemon tree providing shade over the family’s back patio area.
Though Jack passed away in 2015, Diane has continued to cultivate her beautiful garden with many of the original plants and flowers she’d added over the decades, tending to them and honoring the memories they created there together. Prior to retiring, Diane worked as a physical therapist, which she credits as part of what helps keep her nimble at the age of (nearly) 93, as she does all of her own gardening and yard work.
One flowering plant in particular holds memories of her dear neighbor, Lucio Gonzalez. An avid gardener with his own lush, flower-filled yard just a few houses down from Diane, Lucio was a retired groundskeeping supervisor employed by nearby Mt. Tamalpais State Park.
Lucio often helped Diane with some of her larger outdoor tasks, and after he passed away in 2020, Diane propagated several of the plants from his garden, including a lavender-and-white pelargonium cutting taken from one of his plants.
Several seasons later, it’s grown into a voluminous bush, blooming with its distinctive white and lavender petals every summer.
Take a stroll through the rest of Diane’s gorgeous garden…
Framing the front facade, three mature camellias provide seasonal color in the leafy front yard.
Hundreds of bright coral geranium blossoms create a cheerful patch in the backyard.
Ferns and red geraniums fill a shady corner of the garden.
The tall stalks of pink oleander that bloom every spring.
Vivid orange nasturtium flowers emerge throughout the year on the leafy vines that clamber up a trellis.
Diane’s deep magenta hibiscus flowers that bloom in midsummer.
Purple puffs of agapanthus petals line the entire front yard.
Though there are only a few varieties in her garden, Diane’s roses provide pops of color amongst Japanese anemones and other greenery.
Stone pavers and a wooden bench provide a shady spot to rest in a backyard nook.
Flowering with bright crimson blooms, a large pomegranate tree filters sunlight through to the perennials in the garden.
Redwoods in the small park next to Diane’s house also contribute to the cooling shade over her backyard sanctuary.
Newer to Diane’s garden is a coral rose bush, which she’s training to ramble up over the fence her children once climbed.
Cultivated over several decades, an espaliered lemon tree winds through the pergola over the back patio.
The vibrant purple pelargonium that Diane propagated in honor of her friend Lucio and his neighboring garden.
Petals from the pelargonium plant strewn with bits of lilac.