Montecito Senior Care---Our Garden

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Welcome to the gardens of Marge Mason! We have created landscapes vibrating with life and color yielding cut flowers, fruits, herbs and vegetables. My name is Marshall Chrostowski, a Landscape Horticulturist (a fancy name for gardener) specializing in organic practices and edible landscaping. I have worked with Marge for many years seeking to enhance all elements of landscaping for the enjoyment and stimulation of her clients. We are pleased to share our vision and activities with you via Marge Mason’s website.

As we age we lose a step, our senses slip, and generally have some health troubles limiting activity and enjoyment. At Marge Mason’s we have created unique landscaped "rooms", often featuring raised beds, high pots and trellises to ease access. Our folks touch, smell, munch, weed, deadhead old flower, or just admire as they desire. They often just sit in sunlight or tree-cast shade watching hummingbirds, lizards and other life drawn to our little Garden of Eden. On the west and north sides are fruit trees and berries (mandarins, oranges, tangerines, lemon, lime, avocados, sapote, peaches, apples, plums, figs, passionfruit, macadamia nut, and persimmon).

Marshall the Horticulturist says "hi!"

Starting in March we begin harvesting Chandler strawberries (our favorite variety) from raised beds (what the clients don’t get first!). Other sections of raised bed and containers are replanted often in colorful mixes of flowers, herbs and seasonal vegetables too numerous to list here. Realize that our facilities straddle the "banana belt" zone so we are largely frost-free and enjoy year-round gardening! Central to the rear yard are the Japanese Garden and Rose Garden that bracket a small lawn facing the enclosed patio where clients enjoy sitting out of the elements among potted palms, ferns, and flowers.

For those folks who miss their gardening, we encourage active participation in the exterior gardens or related projects such as drying rose petals and herbs for potpourris and sachets. Others harvest snap beans, cucumbers or tomatoes found along the south side on bamboo teepees or tall chimney pots used as raised planters for better access by our elderly clients. We also encourage flowerpot gardens in clients’ rooms put together by me or sometimes by the clients themselves.

At every opportunity we integrate the gardens with the clients’ daily life through the food they eat or activities they pursue, even if only the tentative steps with walkers or quiet conversations with loved ones under the tree.

It is a joy to so serve!

Stop and smell the roses

Click on any of these images to see Marshall's handiwork.