Clairemont garden is a former dive-boat captain’s love letter to the ocean.
Carol Kent’s extensive succulent-filled landscape in Clairemont brims with visual echoes of aquatic life. The front yard has a dry riverbed theme; the backyard, undersea life, paying tribute to her love for the water.
Kent, who retired from research at UC San Diego, was a dive boat captain before that. Gardeners tend to have unique sources of inspiration for designing their spaces: recreating the essence of their grandma’s victory garden or perhaps styling a flower-filled cottage garden that recalls a trip to England. Or going for practicality: choosing to establish a native garden that reduces water use and attracts pollinators.
Carol Kent’s astounding succulent garden in Clairemont is very specific. As a young woman in San Diego, she worked from 1975 to 1990 on a scuba diving boat, including time as captain. She gave it up for what she calls a “real job” as a cardiology researcher at UC San Diego, which she did for 25 years before retiring 11 years ago.
But her true love is the ocean, so, five years ago she — with the help of Patrick, her husband of 20 years — created her “undersea garden” on their quarter-acre abutting a canyon, in a landscape inspired by her years on and in the ocean. It’s her tribute to her diving days. Carol Kent, shown by the front yard, says she and her husband, Patrick, only paid for soil, irrigation and lighting.
They got almost everything else — plants, rocks and art — free. One work estimate she got priced the backyard alone at more than $150,000. Originally from New Jersey, Kent’s landing in San Diego wasn’t planned; it was just a function of following the 8 freeway west.
“What brought me out to San Diego was my ‘64 Chevy,” she said, joking. “I was just driving around the country. I thought I was going to go back to Colorado. I had been to Colorado for a year, and I came out to Ocean Beach.
You know, you follow the 8 all the way. And I met this really cute guy on the beach. He invited me for dinner, and I stayed. ” In April 1985, Kent bought her Clairemont home.
For decades she had a conventional garden, but six or seven years ago she developed an interest in succulents. A crested blue candle cactus looks like undersea coral. “I was just trying to learn about them and growing them in pots,” she said.
“I wanted to save water. I’ve just felt terrible using so much water. I’m still using a lot of water because I grow most of the succulents myself. So I have pots and pots and pots and I need to get rid of those.
“Now, the reason I didn’t want to buy a bunch of succulents was because I didn’t know anything about them. And you can spend $20,000 on succulents and then kill them all. ” Kent never took any classes and never hired a landscape architect or designer. But she did do research.
Her most profound influence was “She’s got a website, and she’ll work on a yard for a week and be posting every day what she does,” said Kent.
“So that’s how I learned a lot. I also learned a lot from A sentimental section of the backyard is a reminder of Kent’s past as a dive-boat captain. It includes a treasure chest filled with costume jewelry from loved ones who have died. A teal tool shed that looks like a tiny New England cottage has succulent-filled window boxes and patio chairs on the deck.
An African sumac tree in the backyard is decked in Spanish moss, providing shade for staghorn ferns, clivia, bromeliads and more. A sentimental section of the backyard is a reminder of Kent’s past as a dive-boat captain. It includes a treasure chest filled with costume jewelry from loved ones who have died.
The first hint of what’s to come is in the front yard. Kent mounded up soil the couple bought fromto create some elevation. At the top right is the head of the dry river bed — where the life-size heron statue is — and the bed curves down to the driveway on the left.
Above and below are mounds of colorful succulents — from green and yellow“I had very little vision for this yard, but I knew I wanted a dry streambed, and I wanted three big plants,” she recalled. She got them. Years before, she had bought a small ponytail palm for $10 at The Home Depot that she planted in her backyard. Over time it had grown tall and substantial.
The couple dug it up and hauled it to the front, where with its four trunks, it anchors the left side of the yard. Opposite it on the front right is a sprawling plumeria. And in the back right is a large orange and green ‘Sticks on Fire’But the front, as stunning as it is, is just the hors d’oeuvres course. It’s the backyard where Kent has gone all out weaving land and sea.
Walk through the gate, and the size of the yard itself is unexpectedly large and sprawling. If you weren’t sure of the theme before you walked in, you certainly get it at first sight.
“Those are my jellyfish,” Kent said, pointing to a couple of interesting plant figures hanging from a wire, with another sticking up from the ground. “The bottom part is Spanish moss. The top part is ghosties, or A repurposed pallet is used as a vertical planter for various succulents.
Kent inverted a hanging basket and planted the ghosties onto it, attaching the moss underneath to create a succulent “jellyfish” hanging on a wire. In the garden are three distinct sections separated by walkways of decomposed granite with plants of all shapes and sizes — mostly succulents, of course — and so many different species.
Next to them, close to the house is another dry riverbed with a burbling fountain at the head and a miniature bridge still large enough to walk over toward the bottom. A large African sumac looms over that part of the garden, the shade enabling Kent to grow bromeliads, clivia, staghorn ferns, more Spanish moss hanging on the tree’s limbs, epidendrum and Fortnight Lilies alongside still more succulents.
Nearby is a teal tool shed that looks like a tiny New England cottage, complete with three succulent-filled window boxes and patio chairs on the deck. Kent’s created what look like tide pools with succulents and shells, surrounded by lava and boulders.
There are abalone shells and conches and other shells Kent has collected from diving, an octopus sculpture, little clay sea animals, including seahorses that Kent made in her ceramics classes, and other odds and ends of cool ocean-related tchotchkes. Most are treasured gifts from friends and family. One of the most emotional pieces is a treasure chest overflowing with jewelry.
“It’s filled with costume jewelry from people that have passed away,” Kent explained. “So I love it. They belonged to my mom and Patrick’s mom and a couple girlfriends of mine, because their husbands always go, ‘What am I going to do with all this stuff? ’ And so I get to keep it and think about them.
” An Agave impressa spreads its spiky leaves wide in the Kents’ Clairemont backyard. A fire lily’s orange blossom creates a bright splash of color in the backyard. The garden has ‘Purple Heart’ plants . An Agave impressa spreads its spiky leaves wide in the Kents’ Clairemont backyard.
Kent has used the vast array of succulents’ color, texture and size to draw the eye. From one angle, a large tree aloe and stands of Sticks on Fire are the backdrop for a porpoise seemingly about to leap into the air from a sea of sedums. But she also has sneaked in other types of plants. Paddle plants are separated from large Aeonium ‘Sunburst’ by Blue Fescue.
Kent’s created patterns from various succulents and melds them with the placement of rocks of different colors and textures. If you think you’ve gotten a thorough look at a section, the next time you glance over, you’ll see something else thanks to the changing light — or just the sheer amount of plants and other components arranged with them. Wildlife is clearly drawn to the garden. On the day I visited, there were scads of bees.
There were hummingbirds, a pair of stunning yellow hooded orioles flitting about and lizards darting between rocks. Among the more unusual succulents Kent has are crested plants — mutations of plants that give them unusual shapes and other characteristics.
For instance, Kent pointed out a small crested blue chalk fingers plant, or“You try to get mutations that look like a whale’s tail,” she noted.
“I grow so many of them out in the back, trying to get the whales tail. Hundreds and hundreds. ”.
“It’s kind of a collector’s thing. Some people don’t like them. I like them. I think they’re cool.
” Kent takes interest in growing crested succulents, whose mutated forms create unusual shapes. Here, a crested blue candle cactus . . Some are green, some are orange, others are brown.
The colors, said Kent, reflect the relative stress of the plant. Kent will often pull out the brown ones, remove the roots and replant them elsewhere, a little shadier where they’ll slowly return first to orange and then back to green. One of the most remarkable things about Kent’s gardens is that almost everything in them she got for free. The plants, the rocks and gravel and boulders.
The garden art.
“The backyard, not counting the shed and stuff, was $5,000 to do,” she said. “I got an estimate from someone. They said $150,000 to $200,000 to do that and then the front yard was $3,500. And I got an estimate from Laura Eubanks for $67,000!
Wow! A quarter of a million dollars to do this! ” Kent, who explained that she’s very frugal, said that the money they did spend was on soil, irrigation and lighting. And because her husband Patrick was a plumber, he did all the installation.
A view of the backyard garden. Expand “Craigslist was a big source,” she said.
“So like in the backyard, we’ve got a lot of stories about Craigslist rocks and how to get them into the truck and home. We had to be very creative to be able to do it smarter, not harder. ” Pots came from Craigslist. Quartz, sitting in the front yard, came from a couple who inherited their parents’ house and had a quartz fountain.
“We got four truckloads of quartz! ” she said. Other rocks came from neighbors, mostly people walking by who saw Kent working on the yard and offered to give her theirs. And plants.
Kent got a lot of plants from a lady in Clairemont on Craigslist. Neighbors gave her cuttings.
“I had one lady, she had just watched me while I was building this, and she just came back and she had a trunk full of plants and says, ‘You want these? ’,” Kent recalled.
“Very, very generous people. ” For a creative succulent “jellyfish,” Kent used an inverted hanging basket that contains so-called ghosties, or Graptopetalum paraguayense, with Spanish moss trailing below. In the years that Kent has been gardening, she’s learned a lot. Understanding water needs, she said, is an important issue.
“Many succulents still need to be watered but much less than a lawn needs; however there are many succulents that don’t need any additional water,” she said, adding, “Many “soft” succulents need attention two to three times a year if you want to keep them looking ‘intentional. ’ Some get ‘leggy’ and need to be trimmed or clipped and reset in soil. ” She’s also learned that “plant people are wonderful.
I’ve made a lot of new friends with like interests. ” As for the neighborhood’s reaction, “My ego gets really big because they say so many nice things,” she said.
“And people ask me if I would help with their yard. But I don’t. I don’t have the time. ” At this point in her life with Patrick, she said the two are ready to spend more time traveling.
So she’s planning to give up starting plants, which is very time-consuming, and buying more instead. Kent, whose yard was a stop on the 2026 Clairemont Outdoor Living and Garden Tour on May 2, will also be showing off her succulents on May 16 as part of the “Coffee in the Garden” event held by the San Diego Cactus and Succulent Society. Inland San Diego is getting its first Whole Foods Market. Here is the address.
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