Nothing else like it: Jim Bishop's garden in San Diego

Note: For the sake of convenience, I refer to the garden in this post as Jim’s garden, although of course it’s his partner Scott’s garden as well. When Jim was honored as Horticulturist of the Year by the San Diego Horticultural Society in 2019, he gave a touching tribute to Scott, calling him “the most significant person in my world, plant or otherwise … He has enabled me to truly follow my passion for plants and led me on journeys around the world.”

Of all the gardens I’ve visited over the years, Jim Bishop’s garden in San Diego is a standout. When you look at the photos below, it’s easy to see why. It’s a large garden, and almost every square foot is landscaped to perfection. There are well over 1,000 species of plants ranging from California natives to succulents to South African and Australian shrubs. They all seem to thrive in the garden’s hilltop location just a couple of miles from Mission Bay.

But it’s not just the size and the variety of plants: It’s how everything comes together as a whole. Jim’s garden is unlike any other I’ve seen, and that’s because of his sense of design, his creativity, and his intuition. He seems to know instinctively what works and looks good. That is a skill that is very hard to learn. Jim has it, and that is a major reason why his garden is so spectacular.

It’s been three years since my first visit in February 2022 (read my post here; some of the information below is reused from that post). Jim’s garden has continued to evolve at a steady pace. The streetside landscaping is all new, and several “wild” areas on the steep slope behind the house have been tamed and developed.

Streetside landscaping

When I visited a few weeks ago, just before the Cactus and Succulent Society of America’s (CSSA) Biennial Convention, Jim and his helper Justin were busy getting everything ready for 100+ visitors about to descend on the garden. They were from two different garden tours, one from the CSSA and one from the Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD) – all on the same day! Even though Jim had a million better things to do than to entertain me, he graciously took the time to show me around.

Cramscaping at its most exuberant – that’s the theme running through the entire garden

Jim and his partner Scott live in a 1938 hacienda-style home in Mission Hills, a historic hilltop neighborhood overlooking Old Town and San Diego Bay. Their house is on a quiet, narrow street, and from the front you’d never guess what’s hiding in the back.

The property is almost an acre, most of it on a steep slope which plunges 100 feet (the equivalent of 10 stories) from Mission Hills down to Mission Valley. When Jim and Scott bought it in 1998, there was no landscaping and no irrigation. The slope was covered with over a hundred eucalyptus trees, chaparral and scrub – plus rocks and decades worth of discarded roofing debris, which made it impossible to get down to the bottom of the hill. In spite of the tremendous potential of the site, most people would have walked away, overwhelmed by the amount of work that would need to be done. Not Jim. Over the next few years, with dogged determination and boundless enthusiasm, he cleared the slope, hauling away the debris and eventually removing the eucalyptus trees and scrub. Now there are 300 steps leading down the hill. There’s still no wheelbarrow access, so everything – tools, supplies, and plants – has to be hand-carried.

Great aerial image showing the layout of the property, © 2019 San Diego Magazine (from this article)

Today, the slope is terraced and home to a huge variety of drought-tolerant plants. As I was walking through the garden, I didn’t know where to look first because there’s so much to see. Even though I’d been there before, I felt giddy: Jim’s garden is a wonderland for plant nerds.

I could go on and on about the house, the garden, the plants, but I’ll let my photos do the talking.

Entry courtyard

This is a wonderful place to sit and relax

I’m not the only one who likes metal mariachi musicians

Front door

Jim’s professional background is in software. After retiring, he started his own landscape design business dedicated to climate-appropriate horticulture. He’s been chronicling the evolution of his garden and his plant-centric travels around the world on his blog My Life with Plants, and his garden is a sought-after destination for groups from far and wide.

Cleverly disguised rain barrels

Below are a couple of views of the veranda, the largest garden on top of the hill:

A staircase inside a tower (yes, there is a tower) leads down from the top level to the casita:

Tower with staircase leading down from the main house

Exquisite tile and mosaic work

Tower on the left, casita on the right

In a garden full of superlatives, the casita tops them all. It looks like it’s been around since the late 1930s when the main house was built. In reality, it was built in the early 2000s on top of the original swimming pool. Located on the north side of the house, which receives a good deal of fog, the pool was almost unusable; Jim calls it “the world’s coldest swimming pool.” For more details on the pool removal/conversion project, read this post on Jim’s blog.

Architect's drawing of the casita (February 2002)

Inside the casita. The doors and windows are open to the outside.

The tile work was done by Jim and Scott themselves

Walled garden next to the casita:

The terraced garden extends all the way down the hill:

In many of the photos below, you’ll see retaining walls made out of bottles. The walls were created by Jim himself. It all began with the bottles from Jim and Scott’s New Year’s Eve party in 1998; when people saw what he’d done with those, they started to bring him more. Today, there are over 10,000 bottles throughout the garden. The dominant colors are blue and green: blue primarily from Bud Light, and green from Pellegrino. In this video by Debra Lee Baldwin, Jim demonstrates his bottle installation technique.

Agave ovatifolia...

... starting to flower

Colorful South African perennials

Circular seating area near the bottom of the hill, with an Aloidendron ‘Hercules’ as the centerpiece

While much of the terraced section of the garden is in part shade or shade, the lowest part of the garden is bright and sunny. It’s home to South African shrubs like conebushes (leucadendrons) and pincushions (leucospermums) as well as a large variety of aloes that bloom at different times of the year. There’s also an Australian garden featuring a variety of grevilleas, banksias, acacias, and the like.

Leucospermums and aloes

At the bottom of the hill, on the other side of the fence, is a hotel parking garage

Opuntia erinacea ‘Snow White’ and Agave geminiflora

Another leucospermum in flower

Pride of madeira (Echium candicans) at the top left

Variegated form of Euphorbia ammak on the right, Furcraea foetida ‘Mediopicta’ in the center

At the bottom of the hill, a row of Mexican fencepost cactus (Lophocereus marginatus) along the fence separating Jim and Scott’s property from the hotel

Arguably the most striking elements in the garden are the mosaics embedded in the walkways in the lower garden, all done by Jim himself. Some mosaics incorporate old roof tiles, others pebbles and rocks in various colors. On his blog, Jim has written extensively about making mosaics; read this post and this post if you want to learn more.

The latest addition to the garden is the metal moon gate below. After seeing two moon gates on garden tours, one in the Seattle area and one on the South Island of New Zealand, Jim knew he wanted one as well. It has become an instant landmark in the lower garden.

Jim posing inside the moon gate

I have no idea what Jim will do next, but I do know it’ll be worth seeing. I’m already looking forward to my next visit.

FOLLOW JIM ONLINE

• My Life with Plants blog (periodic posts on the garden and Jim’s and Scott’s travels)
• My Life with Plants Facebook page (lots of photos from the garden; updated continuously)

SELECT ARTICLES ABOUT JIM BISHOP’S GARDEN

Jim’s garden has received widespread acclaim. Below are some of the articles written about it (and him):

• Jim Bishop’s Steep, One-Acre Garden (Debra Lee Baldwin’s website, ND)
• Bishop Borden Garden (98 photos by Saxon Holt, PhotoBotanic website)
• A Mission Garden (Old House Online, June 23, 2021)
• Horticulturist’s artful Mission Hills garden unveils beauty step by step (The San Diego Union Tribune, February 6, 2021)
• Ornamental Landscaping: Wander Through Jim Bishop’s Missions Hills Oasis (San Diego Magazine, May 7, 2019)
• Horticulturist of the Year: Jim Bishop (San Diego Horticultural Society website, May 1, 2019)

VIDEOS ABOUT JIM BISHOP’S GARDEN

If you have a few minutes, watch Debra Lee Baldwin’s videos listed below. They show many architectural and horticultural details I wasn’t able to capture in my photos:

• Bishop Garden Part One: Streetside, Courtyard, Veranda, Walled Garden (Debra Lee Baldwin, 7:07)
• Jim Bishop’s Garden Part Two: Terraces, Mosaic Garden, Bottle Walls (Debra Lee Baldwin, 7:59)

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