Designer Mat McGrath's garden at age 3: back yard

This is part 2 of my post about landscape designer Mat McGrath’s personal garden in Rodeo, California. If you missed part 1 (front yard), click here.

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If you thought there were a lot of plants in Mat and Mali’s front yard, you’ll be blown away by the backyard. It’s a large space, and virtually every square inch that’s covered with soil has something growing in it.

This is what you see as you walk into the backyard:

Epiphyte wall (a few small staghorn ferns, too)

Potted tropicals on the patio:

Bromeliads, ferns, begonias, and other tropicals

Bamboo fern (Coniogramme japonica) and Vriesea fosteriana

Vriesea sp. and a variegated crassula named in honor of Mat’s wife Mali (Crassula multicava ‘Mali’s Thai-Dye’)

Bromeliads, red pagoda plant (Crassula capitella), and Mexican fencepost cactus (Lophocereus marginatus). And cool rain chain, too!

Tropical corner on the patio. The tall variegated plant is Tupidanthus calyptratus (formerly Schefflera pueckleri).

Potted succulents against a protected wall

Mangave ‘Pineapple Punch’ on the left and Mexican fencepost cactus (Lophocereus marginatus) on the right

Billbergia ‘Darth Vader’ and a variegated Graptopetalum paraguayense made a killer combo

A closer look at the thousands of succulents at ground level and in the first level of the retaining wall:

The concrete lounge is by Manos. The founder of Manos was a neighbor of Mat’s at his old place in the Berkeley Hills.

This gigantic pebble is a SoMA Stone, also by Manos, “bold and expressive seating for a variety of spaces”

To hold back the steep slope on the east side, the previous owner built two retaining walls, each with a planting strip, as well as a wooden deck at the top that affords stunning 180° views. When Mat and Mali moved in, the plantable areas were bare dirt or mulch. This is what it looks like three years later:

The dense succulent tapestries were created by Mat’s wife Mali. She loves designing with small soft-leaved succulents, and her passion shows.

The variegated succulent is Agave bovicornuta ‘Holstein’, with Graptoveria ‘Fred Ives’ in the foreground

Metal art interspersed with the plants

The small tree next to the wooden steps is a fine-leaved form of Cussonia paniculata

Looking back...

...toward the entrance to the backyard

The wooden steps you saw above lead to a part of the garden that is decidedly more lush and tropical:

I’ll show you more photos of the tropical area later on. For now, let’s walk up to the viewing deck. On the way, take a look at these impressive prickly pears, both bearing massive pads:

Opuntia robusta

Opuntia gomei ‘Old Mexico’

The deck on top of the retaining wall is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a garden. There are two more planting strips against the wall!

The views of the lower levels of the garden – and of course of the house – are pretty amazing:

This is the hillside along the sidewalk in the front of the house. There are more photos in part 1 of this post.

Now we’re back in the tropical area. It’s dominated by large-leaved plants, some of them 12 or 15 feet tall.

Mat and my friend Kyle

Mat ready to take yet another cutting for us

Red Abyssinian banana (Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii’)...

Acacia pravissima, Agave attenuata, and Cotyledon orbiculata var. oblonga

This canna (Canna ‘Cleopatra’) stopped me dead in my tracks. The leaves are either all green, all purple, or a combination of both. Similarly, the flowers are either red, yellow, or both. What a crazy plant! Cannas want more water than I usually give my plants, but I sure am willing to find a special spot for the cutting Mat gave me.

Alcantarea imperialis

Agave attenuata and ‘Mrs. Pollock’ geranium (Pelargonium ‘Mrs. Pollock’), a legendary cultivar dating back to 1858!

The curved metal pipes in the upper garden...

...are from a playground structure. Like many metal pieces in his garden, Mat found them at Urban Ore Ecopark in Berkeley. Originally they were orange, but now they sport multicolored blobs.

Looking toward the upper garden from the far side of the tropical area

This canna (Canna × ehemanii) is a good 8 ft. tall

Another Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’ in glorious bloom. Mat says it doesn’t spread aggressively like many other types of alstroemeria. I’m tempted to give it a try in my garden.

Look at these gigantic cuttings of Canna × ehemannii Mat gave us! We had to bend them over to get them into the car.

More cuttings, including that spectacular Canna ‘Cleopatra’ and variegated Plectranthus ecklonii

If you want to find out more about Mat and Mali’s garden, read this post from 2023. It features Mat’s answers to a series of questions I’d sent him as well as some eye-opening “before” photos, like this one:

RELATED POSTS:

• Designer Mat McGrath’s garden at age 3: front yard (October 2024)
• Mat McGrath’s new one-of-a-kind Bay Area garden: front yard (June 2023)
• Mat McGrath’s new one-of-a-kind Bay Area garden: back yard (June 2023)
• Mat McGrath’s Berkeley Hills garden: spectacular even in late summer (September 2021)
• Revisiting Mat McGrath’s garden in the Berkeley Hills (May 2020)
• Sloping succulents and upcycled metal: personal garden of Bay Area landscape designer Mathew McGrath (August 2019)

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