They turned a junk-filled L.A. yard into a weird and wonderful habitat garden

If a wildlife show wanted to film in the middle of Los Angeles, Casa Apocalyptica — a dizzying jungle of native plants, abundant wildlife, soothing water and salvaged debris — would be a great place to land. “But the garden sat for some time because we had so much to do on the house.” It wasn’t until 2007 that they began on the yard, Elwell said, and both were still working full-time. The front yard was a dense thicket of “freeway ice plant” that required several dumpster loads to haul away, and the bare-dirt sloping backyard was full of interesting trash that people had been dumping for 100 years — “old motorcycle parts, water heaters from the 1920s, horseshoes, lots of whiskey bottles, and lots of old cobblestones and bricks and building materials.” To their eyes, the “junk” was weirdly wonderful, and it gave them their theme: L.A. after the apocalypse, with native plants growing in and around society’s broken remains. “They’d say, ‘Dad hasn’t opened that door in 20 years; let’s see what’s in there.’” The landscaping was part inspiration and part experiment, guided by fun, Elwell said, and plenty of mistakes. From there, they began frequenting the Theodore Payne Foundation in Sun Valley, one of Southern California’s premier native plant nurseries, “and as a new gardener, I just wanted to buy everything,” Elwell said.