Several years ago my wife planted creeping fig on the side of our house and gave a whole new dimension to typical beige suburban stucco. It's a pain sometimes to trim and keep in shape, but the beauty is awesome. She's really got a knack for that.
Downtown today, I gazed at the same designer tactic in a commercial setting. Here below is the same creeping fig covering an entire side of the Clarion Hotel. It really gives the place a flair of downtown classic that it might not have otherwise.
And here below is the city parking garage across the street. I remember it being built when I began working in downtown Sacramento in 2001. Now look at the place a decade later, covered in Ivy. It's picking up that leafy Sacramento ambience.
(Incidentally, as I took these pictures a guy walked up, starting chatting me up and showed me a driver's license from Canton, Ohio. Then he started a story about being here because somebody in the family died and what a nice city, and his three kids were in a car nearby and they didn't have money to eat because somebody was wiring him money in 24 hours. Ironically, I went to high school in Canton, Ohio. I did a dance in my head, ready to pull out $5 and give him the benefit of the doubt. Then I remembered that I've heard varying versions of this story for years. I just didn't trust it. I felt a little guilty and left to get back to work. More than you wanted to know from a site about architectural design, I know. Nice day for a story, though).
Some city worker has to trim this to keep the parking sign showing. Great city.
AND here is our look at home:
Just trimmed at the beginning of November. Note ladder, soon to put up Christmas lights:
