From Lawn to Habitat Garden

Another quarterly visit up to Santa Cruz for work, family and play. A client who I designed a back yard for a few years back gave me free reign to transform her front yard. We used the mature live oak as inspiration creating a habitat garden with mostly natives and had a lot of fun tearing out the lawn in the process.

BEFORE

1.5 days of sweat- Lawn gone. Oak happy. Marking out path and seating area.

Tagging boulders for seating and dimension in the garden. The sonoma fieldstones blend perfectly with the oak and are locally harvested in cow fields.

Sonoma boulders delivered and keyed in, plants placed. Repurposing existing old bender board from removed lawn to outline and border CA gold gravel path.

Front lawn to habitat garden transformation complete! Just add chairs and wine.

Happy oak woodland with sunspot seating in friendly Santa Cruz cul de sac. Now wait for plants to grow, create layers and close in the space

Gallery of Before + Afters: Part 2

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, here's our latest in Before + Afters. Some of these are still fresh and new and need another year or so to really shine, but I couldn't wait to show them to you- so here they are.

Mission Hills Lawn Loser
Large corner lot goes from lawn and more lawn to curb appeal pollinator haven- boulders, creek bed, flagstone path, CA natives, Mediterraneans and pollinators and color color color!

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE. Side Yard.

AFTER

In the side yard we kept this delicious citrus tree row but swapped out the dying ornamental plums with CA lilac, native sages and grasses and made a sweet little flagstone path to navigate from gate to front














Normal Heights Charmer

BEFORE

AFTER

We had a lot of fun designing this project as the property and historic home already had such wonderful bones. We designed these columns and fence to tie the landscape in with the architecture and visually separate the front yard from street. We built car arbors on the new driveway and reused all the broken concrete from demolished driveway as urbanite paths and patios in the backyard. We installed a functional dry creek bed that manages the stormwater on the slightly sloped site by percolating and diverting it toward the fruit and and veggie garden beyond the fence.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

We had a new deck with multiple "rooms" come off of the back door and gorgeous custom lights and columns to weave the architecture back into the landscape. Due to scale of project the planting was phased and will be completed later this Spring.

AFTER

Clean + Contemporary in Point Loma

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

Clients have been living in this Pt Loma home for a few decades and never touched the landscape. We redesigned the entry to be more inviting and easy to navigate. On the side yard we removed the weedy pepper trees and brought in boulders, creek bed, arbutus and ceanothus along with grasses and succulents and sages. Client wanted to keep existing birds of paradise which we divided and weaved throughout and will really pop with its orange against the purple of the  mexican and cleveland sages. Note- images taken only a week after planting.

BEFORE.

 AFTER.