The other day an energetic knock at our door roused me from reading. It was my neighbor, a retired dentist and exuberant gardener, with a bouquet for me.

“I just pick the colors I like,” he said after I told him he could have a second career as a florist. Indeed, he could. But he’s too busy traveling and working in his huge hillside garden. “Just one Toter a day, is all I ask,” he joked as he jogged back to his property, to get back to work. “It’s a lot of work, and I don’t even have a lawn!”

The bouquet he brought me is a fine example of the colorful bounty lighting up his yard now. Who needs turf when you can look out on an eclectic mix of salvias, ferns, gaura, lantana, even ginger lilies (Hedychium gardnerianum) and bougainvillea? His yard has trees, too; mixed hither and yon are fruit trees (citrus, cherry, peach, olives), horse chestnuts, dogwoods and redbuds. A huge sycamore shades a great swath of his yard.

My neighbor gardens smart. Once or twice a year, you’ll find him out there throwing fertilizer when the weather report includes a high probability of rain. He uses the fallen leaves on his property for mulch. He manages to keep tropicals growing year-round by placing them in microclimates they like. His bougainvillea, for instance, grows on a south-facing, light-colored wall. His ginger lilies thrive in morning sun along another, shorter wall.

There’s nothing formal or staid about this garden. Yet it’s a pleasing eyeful, layer upon layer of flowers and foliage. And not a blade of grass to be seen. How refreshing!