Garden By Design

Los Feliz

Low Maintenance

We took this backyard, which was little more that a wasteland with weeds and turned it into a peaceful, clean, low maintenance backyard.

The site was cleaned of all the builders’ rubble and weeds and regraded to flatten the slope. An Irrigation system was installed to water the plants. A bender-board edge was put in to define the decomposed granite area from the planter beds. It also creates a softer curve in a yard full of straight lines. The mass of the open space was covered with compacted decomposed granite. A concrete paver stepping stone path runs from the drive through the garden to create another line of interest as well as serve as a solid pathway with in the gravel.

The planting in this garden was designed to be low maintenance. The type of plants used were New Zealand Flax, Rosemary, Pitosporum, Native Grasses and to add color and smell some Climbing Roses. Three fruit trees were also planted along the fence. The will be espaliered as they start to grow.

An existing bird house was kept as a feature of the open space and to add a vertical element in the flat space.

Moorpark

More Entertaining Space

The existing garden of this home was a bare if not weed covered slate to work with. The aim of this design was to create a large open paved area and still provide a larger area of lawn, and also to link the front and side garden areas together.

The features of this design are the built in BBQ and Fire-Pit, the large shade pergola structure and the low seat walls. The BBQ Island provides a large counter space for serving and dining. The Fire-Pit is a focal point on the patio and the seat walls provide ample place to sit and enjoy the patio space and the grass area. The pergola provides a large shade area over almost half of the patio space.

A feature red glazed pot fountain is a feature of the transition from the patio to the lawn area and is seen as a focal point from inside the home.

The planting of the back garden area includes a number of large evergreen pear trees and mass plantings of Lavender, Mexican Sage, Buddleia and fountain grasses.

The areas on either side of the house are planted out as garden spaces with stepping stone paths leading through them.

The front garden space of the home was designed as a more lush planting space with bold foliage plants and a crushed brick dry stream meandering through.

More photos of this project can be seen in the Design Details page of this site

Calabasas

Perfect Entertaining Space

The existing garden of this home which overlooks a golf course was run down and underused. The existing concrete pool deck was stained and cracked and the lawn areas were work and patchy. There was no shade in the garden and there was no focal entertainment / BBQ area.

We cleared the garden of all unwanted plant material, removed to old concrete pool deck and kept the concrete to use in the new BBQ structure. A large Trex deck was constructed to hang out over the hill and give and provide a large useable deck on the far side of the pool over what was unusable ground before. A bench seat was also built to add much needed seating around the deck.

Large Arizona flagstones were laid throughout the back garden to provide the paved area and were interlaid with grass to give a much softer and cooler fell to the garden area. A large shade pergola with hand carved twisted posts was installed to provide some shade over the garden area and the large back windows of the house. Wisteria vines were planted to grow up the posts and cover the pergola.

A large BBQ area was built out of the used concrete that made up the old pool deck. It was built in a large curve to provide lots of counter space. A section was raised to be used as a bar counter area. A large stainless steel BBQ was installed and a “floating glass” sink sits on the smooth finished poured concrete counter top. A large carved granite rock trough is placed to the side to be used as a cooler box for the drinks.

The unused side area of the garden was cleared and an Asian inspired area created. The focal feature of this space is a Buddha head fountain the walls in this area are painted olive green and purple to show off the forms of the plantings of horsetail and papyrus. The area is covered in a very small black pebble.

To finish off the garden we planted a number of large palms to give height and add some more shade to the garden area, and a large number of ceramic pots and garden ornaments were added.