Outside a kitchen window in a sleepy corner of La Jolla, a small shrub blooms in three colors at once. The flowers open deep purple, fade to violet by the next day and turn white the day after that. It’s a continuous cycle that one longtime homeowner has watched for more than 60 years.
“You’re very conscious of each day passing because of the amazing different colors of this flower,” she said.
The plant is called “yesterday, today and tomorrow,” Brunfelsia pauciflora, a fragrant evergreen shrub named for its color-changing flowers. It first grew at the couple’s home in Saratoga, California, shortly after they were married. Now it lives tucked behind a Mediterranean garden in South La Jolla — in a hidden kitchen garden, down a little path where a lucky few have wandered.
On Saturday, more will get the chance.
That’s when the La Jolla Historical Society presents its 27th annual Secret Garden Tour, offering rare public access to six private gardens. The event raises funds for the society’s free exhibitions and educational programs, and garden locations – the hosts too – aren’t revealed until the morning of the tour.
It’s part of what has made the annual event a singular experience in San Diego for nearly three decades, but two of the hosts agreed to talk to Times of San Diego ahead of the tour provided we masked their identities to respect the spirit of the event.
The garden sheltering “yesterday, today and tomorrow” is itself a piece of history. The home dates to 1928 and 1929, built during La Jolla’s early residential development boom that followed the construction of a railroad line extending south from the village.
The architects drew on artisans who remained in San Diego after the Panama-Pacific Exhibition, and the result reflects the Spanish Revival craftsmanship of that era such as tile work, wrought iron, leaded stained glass and a garden that is formally included in the property’s historic designation.
“The architects actually designed some of the characteristics of the garden,” the soon-to-be-revealed host said. “It was in the plans from 1928.”
That designated landscape includes a marble sculpture of a boy holding a dolphin, boxwood parterres framing a tiled fountain and towering ficus and cypress trees that greet visitors as they pass through the front gate. It’s a threshold the host described as genuinely surprising.
“The house is kind of pressed up against the street very close to the sidewalk and then when you go in, it’s a very expansive garden,” the host said. “It really opens up enormously.”
Another participating garden offers something rarer still in Southern California: a Japanese dry landscape garden, or karesansui — a tradition associated with Zen temples in which raked gravel or sand represents water and every element is placed with deliberate intention.
The property’s landscape was designed in the late 1990s by Frank Koge, a landscape architect known for his work with mid-century modern architects including Sim Bruce Richards and James Hubbell, who favored Japanese black pines, Pinus thunbergii, as a signature planting material. After Koge’s death, a family member maintained the trees as best he could into his 90s. After his passing, a specialist from Huntington Beach was brought in and has spent the past three years artistically restoring them.
“They’ve certainly evolved into what I’m guessing Mary Ann would have hoped they would look like: beloved sculptures,” the garden host said.
Mary Ann was the host’s mother-in-law, and it was she who originally commissioned Koge to design the garden in the late 1990s. The current host hopes visitors slow down long enough to feel what the space was designed to offer.
“I hope they see the tranquility of the garden,” she said. “It’s a place for mindfulness. This garden is likely different from the others because the planting is intentionally sparse. Each element has a purpose.”
Lauren Lockhart, executive director of the La Jolla Historical Society, encourages attendees to see the tour as more than a garden walk or a trip down memory lane.
“I think folks attend both to enjoy being in these beautiful spaces but also to get inspiration for what they might be able to attempt in their own garden space at home,” she said.
Each garden visit includes live musicians, plein air artists and inspired tabletop designs. A free public component, the Secret Garden Boutique at Wisteria Cottage, 780 Prospect St., runs throughout Saturday, with a silent auction, artisan goods, plants and food.
The current exhibition, Space Maker, featuring work by 20 local artists, designers and architects, is also on view.
