Gladys and her husband, Marv, moved from the Central Valley to Santa Cruz over fifty years ago. After building a house along a forested bank of Branciforte creek they commissioned local landscape architect, Roy Rydell, to design a garden around their house. Gladys said that they had requested a low-maintenance garden since Marv was concentrating his attention on establishing his medical practice and Gladys’ was directing all her energy on raising their children. The garden that Roy Rydell designed was all that they had asked for. There was plenty of paving and lawn for the children to play on and a large cantilevered deck overhanging the slope going down to the creek.
Roy had used a basic palette of easy, undemanding plants including a few Japanese maples. Gladys was so impressed by the elegance and grace of the maples that she asked Roy if she could plant a few more. He told her that it would be fine with him. Gladys said that after that her passion for maples snowballed. She now cares for what is probably the largest collection of Japanese maple cultivars in the Monterey Bay area if not the entire Central Coast.
Besides the Japanese maples she has filled the woods around her house with dogwoods, Chinese pistache, crape myrtles, redbuds, smoke trees, Parrotia and persimmons along with several other species of Acer. Beneath all these trees are azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias and ferns. The native redwood sorrel and wild gingers are part of the groundcover.
Gladys says that the big show is in the spring. This time of year there is plenty of fall color overhead and underfoot as the deciduous trees go out in a blaze of glory.
