Dan Bifano is in a rush, but it surely’s in his nature to be gracious, so he retains his countenance serene although gnarly visitors on the Pacific Coast Freeway has made his guests very late.
“I was afraid I would be late too,” he confides, glancing at his watch, “because I had to make a quick stop at Lady Gaga’s.”
The remark is offhand, meant to assuage slightly than impress as a result of Bifano works with the wealthy and well-known daily as a grasp rosarian and backyard designer. His solely promoting is phrase of mouth, and his longtime purchasers embrace Oprah, Barbra Streisand, Tom Ford and different Montecito-Malibu-area folks so personal he can’t title them due to nondisclosure agreements.
He politely guffaws on the concept of a daily individual like, say, this reporter, calling him for a session, however then rapidly explains it’s as a result of he actually can’t tackle any extra purchasers. He’ll be 75 in July, Bifano says, and he’s attempting to chop again so he and his husband can spend extra time with their youngsters and grandchildren.
Gardener to the celebs Dan Bifano patrols the perimeter of Barbra Streisand’s 3-acre ocean-facing backyard in Malibu, making psychological notes of what work must be performed to organize for spring.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
Bifano says he’s even chopping again on one other ardour: biking. He used to trip 100 miles per week. “But now I only do about 75,” he stated. “I’m getting old.”
He says this significantly, although he’s striding round Streisand’s 3-acre property like a leggy teenager. He’s tall and so lean his skinny denims look extra like a necessity than a trend assertion. He’s sporting a primary pocket T-shirt, outstanding just for its shade (raspberry), a skinny grey zip-up hoodie and a pair of colourful slip-on Vans that quietly tie the entire ensemble collectively. His salt-and-pepper hair is close-cropped like an athlete’s, “because it’s all falling out,” he laughed.
On at the present time in mid-March, he’s delivering the elements for his well-known natural fertilizer “cocktail” to purchasers round Malibu and Santa Monica, which will likely be used to feed Streisand’s assortment of greater than 800 roses. He’s left an enormous stack of luggage close to the gate, and must make yet one more cease at Tom Ford’s dwelling earlier than he drives again to his own residence in Santa Barbara that night time.
In Streisand’s extraordinary backyard, shade and perfume are paramount, Bifano stated. Whereas many options look pure or aged, like a stacked-stone bridge over the burbling stream, beside a big pond with an enormous water wheel, there may be nothing that’s random or unplanned as a result of Streisand is exact about what she needs.
Dan Bifano selected these ColorBlaze Rediculous Coleus crops as a result of they’re a close to excellent match to the colour of the so-called “Barn” on his consumer Barbra Streisand’s property.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
In March, nonetheless, the backyard is simply rising from winter. The superbly pruned roses are simply starting to leaf out and the crops within the vegetable backyard are seedlings. There’s nonetheless a lot to be performed, comparable to planting greater than 500 burgundy coleus round one of many elaborate, custom-made buildings on the property referred to as the “Barn,” so named as a result of it resembles an old school pink barn on the skin. The crops had been rigorously chosen by Bifano to be an virtually actual match to its weathered, darkish pink paint as a result of Streisand believes colours within the backyard ought to match the outside of the buildings, and/or be an extension of the colours inside.
Her imaginative and prescient is exacting, and normally nonnegotiable, and it’s Bifano’s job to make it occur. Which fits him simply tremendous, since he leans that approach himself.
While you’re aiming for perfection, even the smallest particulars depend.
Dan Bifano planted the Santa Barbara daisies within the stone bridge on Barbra Streisand’s property, and hid a tiny drip irrigation system within the bridge as properly, to offer the bridge an aged look.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
“It’s like a movie set,” Bifano stated, gesturing to the elegant barn, brook, bridges and all of the crops that tie them collectively. On that chilly March day, his objective was “to have everything perfect by her birthday” on April 24.
That’s not one thing Streisand calls for, Bifano emphasizes later. It’s simply one thing he places on himself, and one of many primary causes his providers are in such excessive demand.
Most of Bifano’s purchasers are well-heeled, with giant gardens in swanky communities comparable to Montecito, Malibu and Bel-Air, however in fact, he stated, his gardening enterprise is extra ardour than enterprise.
Bifano grew up in Montecito and acquired a level in political science. He thought he’d be a trainer, however quickly found the classroom wasn’t for him, so he invested in multifamily housing together with his father. The revenue from these investments left him free to pursue the eagerness he developed when he was 9, when his household moved from Indianapolis to a house in Montecito previously owned by a UC Santa Barbara botany professor.
Dan Bifano’s favourite roses are pink, and that is his high decide: “In The Mood,” a aromatic, profuse bloomer created by his good friend, famed hybridizer Tom Carruth.
(Al Seib / For The Occasions)
The property included a proper rose backyard with 100 roses, he stated. “That’s where my real love for roses began, and I’ve had roses ever since.”
Bifano threw himself into the examine of roses, changing into a consulting rosarian by means of the American Rose Society, and one of many first three grasp rosarian’s for the society’s Southwest District when the designation was created in 2004. Like his good good friend Tom Carruth, the famed rose breeder who now oversees the Huntington’s rose backyard, Bifano is a strolling encyclopedia of roses, prepared for particulars about each rose we move within the backyard, from its origin and breeder to its skill to resist illness.
Not like Carruth, Bifano has by no means been serious about breeding roses. His focus has all the time been on admiration and show, which he stated is straightforward in Santa Barbara, which he considers one of the best rose-growing area within the U.S. “They start blooming here now [in April] and they’ll be blooming until Christmas, and you just can’t do that anywhere else. In L.A., you have the summer heat that will just cook your roses, but we don’t have that here.”
His gardening enterprise started by chance in 1979, when he started volunteering on the A.C. Postel Memorial Rose Backyard in Santa Barbara’s Mission Historic Park. Town’s park upkeep finances had been slashed after Proposition 13 froze property tax revenues in 1978, and the rose backyard was starting to deteriorate, Bifano stated, so he lobbied town council for funding to revive it. They acquired a grant of $50,000 from the Elizabeth Firth Wade Basis — “a lot of money at that time” — and Bifano went to work.
Dan Bifano has deep respect and affection for this deep yellow rose named “Julia Child,” for its perfume and sweetness, but additionally its illness resistance, profuse blooms and total influence when planted in giant swaths in his purchasers’ estates.
(Al Seib / For The Occasions)
It was publicity in regards to the restoration that led to his first personal gardening gig within the late Eighties — a rich consumer wished him to create a rose backyard as a Christmas reward for her husband. It turned out so properly, she requested him to create one other, and shortly her pals had been calling him with requests for gardens of their very own. After Streisand noticed one in every of his gardens, she had her assistant name him to request his assist along with her property in Malibu. And different celebrities adopted swimsuit.
Dan Bifano helped resurrect the A.C. Postel Memorial Rose Backyard in Santa Barbara in 1979, close to the famed Santa Barbara Mission.
(Al Seib / For The Occasions)
His focus is on creating and sustaining large-scale rose gardens. “I certainly would work for people who are not wealthy,” he stated, “but gardens with 200 [roses] is kind of minimum for me; 500 is the average and some are well over 1,000 — I’ve created seven rose gardens for Oprah — so you’re talking about a lot of money, not just for installation but for maintenance. It takes a lot of manpower to take care of 500 roses, or even 200 roses. I tell people, 200 roses are going to take eight hours a week that are concentrated on nothing else but the roses.”
Bifano doesn’t have his personal backyard crew — “I have people who work for me in my apartment buildings, and that’s enough.” As a substitute he works with contractors he respects after a few years of doing initiatives with them.
They do a lot of the bodily work nowadays, underneath his steering, however Bifano nonetheless makes the rounds at his consumer’s gardens. By late April, when the roses begin blooming, they’ve already been pruned and fertilized, however Bifano is all the time on the prowl for any indicators of illness or pests.
Vigilance and fast motion are particularly necessary right here as a result of Bifano solely makes use of natural management strategies, so no chemical pesticides or herbicides. His strategy to eradicating aphids, as an example, is to convey out a small paint brush as quickly as they’re noticed, to actually sweep them off the crops. “My neighbors think I’m nuts, they think I’m painting my roses red,” he stated, laughing. “But if you just knock them off when they first appear, they stay away. If you wait until they’re packed on [the stem], they start to ooze sticky stuff and then it’s too late.”
Bifano stated he doesn’t have a “typical” consumer. Some are pickier than others, “although nobody’s as particular as Barbra … she’s always a challenge and that’s one of the reasons I love working for her.”
Dan Bifano likes to create gardens with influence, so he creates blocks of shade utilizing the identical rose, as he did at Barbra Streisand’s Malibu dwelling, the place butterscotch roses — one in every of her favorites — bloom in abundance alongside the sting of the property overlooking the ocean.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
However normally, he stated, “I find billionaires the easiest to work with because they tend to not have the time to get directly involved. They give me an idea of what they want and I do it, and for the most part, they tend to be happy.”
As an example, one rich consumer wished a rose backyard with blooms that matched her dwelling decor. “She didn’t even meet me. She just said, ‘Go inside and pick roses that match my interiors,’ and it was easy because everything was pink and flowered. I put in a large rose garden with nothing but pink roses and she was thrilled.”
One other longtime consumer offered her mansion and moved right into a 3,000-square-foot condominium on high of a 41-story tower. She wished an enormous rose backyard inside her home, he stated, “and it was almost like a terrarium. It was gorgeous when it bloomed.” However as a result of the backyard was all enclosed, the roses by no means acquired correct air flow and all the time developed issues. “I redid her garden three times before she gave up. We’d tear one out and put in another, wasting a great deal of money hauling soil and plants up 40 floors in an elevator. … But it was hard to say no to this wonderful woman.”
A wonderfully shaped David Austin rose referred to as “Prospero” is without doubt one of the 1,500-plus roses within the A.C. Postel Memorial Rose Backyard in Santa Barbara.
(Al Seib / For The Occasions)
Bifano insists there aren’t any secret ideas for working with the wealthy. “They’re just the people who tend to hire me,” he stated. “If you have a good work ethic and know what you’re talking about, you will please any client and that’s what I try to do.”
In addition to, Bifano stated, “I try not to think of them as celebrities. I think of them as people who love roses.”
