Designer Mat McGrath's garden at age 3½: front yard

This is part 1 of my post about visiting landscape designer Mat McGrath’s personal garden in Rodeo, California in May 2025. For part 2 (back yard), click here.

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A couple of weeks ago, I made the 50-minute drive to Rodeo, California to check in on the personal garden of landscape designer Mathew McGrath of Farallon Gardens. The byline of his company is “Living works of art,” and that's exactly what he and his wife Mali have created. I've been to Mat's garden before (June 2023 and October 2024), but there are new things to discover every time I see it. That's why I hope to visit regularly, ideally every season, to capture the progress of this remarkable garden.

As always, I took a lot of photos so I'm splitting this post into two installments: the front yard (this post) and the back yard (here). Be sure to look at both posts – I promise you, it's worth it.

Even if I didn't know where Mat's house was, his company van would have given it away

Mat and Mali moved to Rodeo from the Berkeley Hills in the fall of 2021, and they immediately began to transform what was essentially a blank slate: two lawn areas, large expanses of mulch all around, and dry grass on the back slope. This photo from the original listing shows how bare the property was:

Drone view of the property from the original for-sale listing. The previous owner must have been a big believer in the transformative beauty of mulch.

Many people would have been intimidated by the amount of landscaping required, but for Mat and Mali it was the perfect opportunity to create a new garden without having to remove the existing landscape. The only areas that needed to be cleared were the lawns in the front and back.

The slope on the east side of the property has filled in even more. Every square inch of planting space is occupied. I'm tempted to say it's as dense as it can get, but who knows?

Agave salmiana

I've never seen a carpet of aeoniums as dense as this

If aeoniums thrived in my climate the way they do here, I'd have them everywhere

Every garden seems to have at least one Agave lophantha 'Quadricolor'. No wonder, they reproduce like crazy – read my recent post.

Agave guadalajarana and a spectacular NOID aeonium

Aeonium 'Zwartkop' is great, but I think this cultivar (left) is even more spectacular because of its bright yellow center

Aloiampelos striatula (left) and deliriously blooming Cotyledon 'Long Fingers' (right)

Aloiampelos striatula

Wider view from the street

Wider view from the driveway

Shrubs, too, especially leucadendrons

It's crazy how dense these clumps are

Perfect aeoniums

Scopelogena verruculata cascading over the retaining wall. This is a mat-forming ice plant that Mat uses a lot. You'll spot it in other photos if you look closely.

Now let's look at the front garden. In his professional work, Mat's focus has shifted somewhat from succulents to tropicals and palms, and this is becoming evident in his own garden as well – more plants like bromeliads, terrestrial orchids, and exotic perennials.

There's that impossible-to-pronounce Scopelogena verruculata again

It's rare to see Australian grass trees (Xanthorrhoea) in California gardens, mainly because they're so glacially slow that few growers even bother

Xanthorrhoea glauca, Agave vilmoriniana 'Stained Glass', Agave ovatifolia

Agave rosalesii, close relative of Agave ellemeetiana (newly described in 2022)

Walking into the front garden:

Mat has added more terrestrial bromeliads, like these deep red alcantareas:

Alcantareas

Xanthorrhoea glauca and Agave vilmoriniana 'Stained Glass' seen from the other side

Aloidendron 'Hercules' – every garden needs at least one!

Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’, Leucadendron ‘Jester’, Cannomois grandis, Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii’

Abyssinian red banana (Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii’) and Beschorneria yuccoides 'Flamingo Glow', unfortunately done blooming

Looking towards the driveway and street

Another Agave guadalajarana

Bowl with mangaves, aeoniums, graptopetalums, and trailing sedums

Aloe lineata var. muirii (left), Agave albopilosa (right)

Agave albopilosa tucked into a rock. That's exactly how it grows in its native habitat.

Agave titanota

Agave titanota close-up

Click here to continue this tour and explore the back yard.

RELATED POSTS

► RODEO GARDEN (from 2021 on)

• Designer Mat McGrath's garden at age 3½: back yard (May 2025)
• Designer Mat McGrath’s garden at age 3: back yard (October 2024)
• 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)

► KENSINGTON GARDEN (until 2021)

• 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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