April Yard of the Month

Approaching 100 years, the craftsman bungalow chosen as April’s Yard of the Month by Spring Lake Garden Club is a handsome example of popular residential architecture and landscaping in the 1920s and 1930s in urban areas of the United States. This house got a new lease on life 2 years ago when new owners renovated both interior and exterior. Now home for Skyler Sadler, whose parents spent a year on the project, the house at the corner of Hopkins and Endicott Streets has seen San Marcos grow and change but continues to honor the city’s architectural heritage.

Sadler handles plant maintenance herself and says she enjoys the landscape already in place, explaining “I do more upkeep than anything.” A next-door neighbor found records of a landscape update on the property from 1998, and several additions then are now mature specimens. Dominating the front yard, a large Monterrey Oak offers ample shade and, along with a low hedge of Chinese holly, provides privacy for the large front porch typical of craftsman homes. In that era, the front yard was considered a public space and landscaped accordingly, and residents could sit on the spacious front porch and admire the outdoor scenery. In this case, the front porch becomes a shady outdoor living room, perfect for socializing and studying.

 Bountiful blooms on sages by the front sidewalk contrast with dark green leaves of rose bush (left of entry) and Chinese holly shrubs lining front porch. 

Other characteristics of craftsman homes are low-pitched gable roofs with eaves extending far out from exterior walls, and thick tapered columns along the perimeter of the house. These features suggest horizontal lines, in contrast to the vertical emphasis of Victorian home design which preceded the craftsman era. The Sadler home includes all these craftsman features, and plantings in the front yard follow the period’s ideal of simplicity in style. Areas near the street are filled with reliably colorful red and white sages, which Skyler says “do wonders during drought.” A Mexican redbud anchors the corner bed, and the entry steps are flanked by a Martha Gonzales rosebush and a young pomegranate tree. A larger pomegranate tree with multiple trunks marks the left front corner of the house and dates from before the 1998 landscape renewal.

A mature multi-trunk pomegranate tree shades the porch of the Sadler home.

Beyond the large pomegranate in the side yard on Endicott Street, red berries abound on a yaupon holly and on several Gulf Stream nandina plants next to the house. A taller shrub/tree further along the planting bed appears to be a fully grown pittosporum, which may be a near-original plant since it is not listed on the 1998 landscape record. Dark green leaves of other shrubs in the side yard are probably Sandankwa viburnums, listed in the 1998 update plan.

A smaller pomegranate tree shows off small red fruits.

Planting beds bordering the house may host annuals or additional perennials like lantana later in the year, but meanwhile the Sadler landscape remains true to its craftsman heritage of simplicity and a human-scale home, where both residents and visitors can enjoy what’s growing and blooming in the front yard.