One of our favorite Bay Area landscape designers, Daniel Nolan eschews the colorful and floral in favor of the textural and sculptural. He specializes in creating dry, lush gardens, which may sound like an oxymoron, but in his hands, it’s not. As Gardenista contributor Kier Holmes wrote in a story on his work: “Forget everything you think you know about dry gardens (especially if you are imagining harsh, spiky, half-dead-looking landscapes). A low-water garden can have lush foliage, soft textures, and will welcome you into deep, luxurious shades of greens if…Daniel Nolan created it.”
In his own words: “I’ve been designing gardens for over 15 years now, beginning my career in garden design working for Bay Area plant legend Flora Grubb of Flora Grubb Gardens, starting with building their plant displays to eventually becoming their resident in-house designer. Five years ago I started my own design studio, where I still maintain my signature look of strongly balanced plantings with a focus on evergreen and architectural plants.”
Read on for Daniel’s “spirit plant,” wish-list outdoor furniture piece, and favorite gardening book (it has an intro by Truman Capote!).
Featured photograph, above, by Alanna Hale, courtesy of Daniel Nolan Design.
Above: Perennial grasses and trailing ground cover softens the edges of the spineless prickly pear cacti (Opuntia cacanapa ‘Ellisiana’) in a garden designed by Daniel in Austin, Texas. Photograph by Caitlin Atkinson, from Low-Water Landscapes: 8 Ideas for Dry Gardens, from Designer Daniel Nolan.)
Your first garden memory:
One of my earliest memories was after a particularly strong summer storm, our driveway was covered in the flowers of the Liriodendron tuliperifera, the trees that surrounded our house in the heavily wooded area where I grew up. You would rarely notice when they were in flower because the trees grow so tall and they would be hidden among the leaves, so to walk outside barefoot down the driveway with the smell of the rain in the air and this carpet of green and yellow flowers all over the ground was magic.
Garden-related book you return to time and again:
Above: Photograph courtesy of Daniel Nolan.
First Gardens, by C.Z. Guest, is a slim little book, but the illustrations by Cecil Beaton are so beautiful, and her matter-of-fact gardening advice feels like you’re catching up with an old friend. Plus the forward was written by Truman Capote.
Instagram account that inspires you:
@exotic_nurseries is my go-to for when I need a hit of inspiration.
Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.
Intentional, dramatic, and low-maintenance.
Plant that makes you swoon:
Above; Xanthorrhoea at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Cranbourne, Australia. Photograph via @danielnolandesign.
Xanthorrhoea. My spirit plant.
Plant that makes you want to run the other way:
I believe every plant has a purpose, except for a variegated Euonymous. They’re dreadful.
Favorite go-to plant:
Hellebores. They are wonderfully versatile, providing elegant flowers in the winter and year-round foliage.
Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:
The need for gopher cages, particularly in the Bay Area where the slightest soil disturbance seems to call every gopher and ground squirrel from miles away.
Unpopular gardening opinion:
Above: Better than artificial turf: Dymondia margaretae. Photograph by Caitlin Atkinson.
Artificial turf isn’t as eco-conscious a replacement option as you might think because not only is it inhospitable to insects and animals, it smothers the soil, baking it when it gets hot, and breaks down over time releasing microplastics.
Gardening or design trend that needs to go:
Cramming in too many plants—seeing 20-foot-wide trees planted 6 feet apart gives me anxiety.
Old wives’ tale gardening trick that actually works:
“First year it sleeps, second year it creeps and third year it leaps.” It really is true.
Favorite gardening hack:
Plant labels are full of misinformation when it comes to their mature sizes. I always add an extra 3 to 4 feet for shrubs and 10 to 12 feet for trees
Favorite way to bring the outdoors in.
Even as a poor college student, I would always have a vase with a simple palm or Monstera leaf in my apartment and I’m still that way. My first stop after I return from a trip is to my corner flower stand and I pick one kind of flower—never a mixed bouquet.
Every garden needs a…
Above: A firepit conversation area for a garden in Castro Valley. Photograph by Caitlin Atkinson.
A comfortable chair to do nothing in.
Favorite hardscaping material:
3/8 black basalt.
Tool you can’t live without:
The Sun Surveyor app on my phone, it tracks the movement of the sun and can be adjusted to any day of the year.
On your wishlist:
Above: A Galanter & Jones heated sofa. Photograph by Caitlin Atkinson.
Anything that Galanter & Jones makes.
Go-to gardening outfit:
Usually my bathrobe. My poor neighbors.
Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:
Flora Grubb Gardens, of course.
Not-to-be-missed public garden/park/botanical garden:
Above: Daniel at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Cranbourne.
The Cranbourne Botanic Gardens outside of Melbourne, Australia, is a revelation, particularly the Red Sand Garden. It’s a religious experience.
The REAL reason you garden:
As a hobby, it’s great physical exercise—it clears your head and you often come back in a much better mood than you did when you started. As a profession, it’s rewarding to bring beauty to the world and see your vision physically taking shape.
Thanks so much, Daniel! (You can follow him on Instagram @danielnolandesign.)
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