This garden show (at the time held in the piers at Fort Mason), occurred the Spring following the great Oakland Fire. In retrospect, it was clear that the dream of living in the hills amongst the trees put one at mortal risk of recurring wildfires.

I wanted to do an environmental piece, however, given the show’s title of “Monopoly” and out particular location at “St. Charles Place,” it was a stretch.

In our case we “packed all our things, locked the door and left New Orleans for California.” We called our garden a “California Survivor, resistant to drought, frost, deer and wildfire.” We used a vaguely Spanish style, but put an “art” spin on the board.

In collaboration with a team of artists, we created an imaginary garden with a “stone” entrance made of several tons of rusted plate steel. Benches of the same faux-stone metal design lined the flagstone patio. Coil-built clay pots sat atop the hand troweled and colored stucco walls. In the center of the space was a huge copper-clad aqueduct, softly dripping water into a stone reservoir (a solidly built metaphor for California’s tenuous water supply).

Rather than vines on our walls, we had leaf-shaped metal trellises of welded construction rebar. Behind stucco columns was a mural replica of California’s turn of the century “fruit crate art,” which often featured softly rolling hills, a golden setting sun, and row upon row of formally planted fruits or vegetables.

By the way, should you have the available land, one of the best possible living fire breaks is a trim, well pruned orchard. (Probably not terribly likely given the price of real estate, but you never know...)