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Beautiful drought tolerant garden in San Marcos

June 30, 2014 By Christiane Holmquist 2 Comments

drought-tolerant garden in San Marcos

This landscape was transformed from lawn-centric static space into a living garden designed for outdoor living.  It is colorful and entertaining year round, and invites to enjoy and relax, play and garden.

Shade trees and pergola

 We transformed the yard into a drought resistant landscape with room for many activities: A patio roof and shade trees make outdoor living comfortable; with play lawn and plenty of garden beds (both homeowners are avid gardeners) there’s room to play outdoors year round.

A colorful waterwise landscape is more to the homeowner's liking

PROJECT SUMMARY: After sitting down with the homeowners, we opted for lawn-removal in front and kept only a minimum of lawn in the backyard for the children to play on. With this landscape re-do, the homeowners have reclaimed their front yard and created a private “buffer zone” at their front door. The homeowners are passionate gardeners, so we significantly increased their garden space and filled it with exceptional drought resistant plants.

  

We replaced the paving material of the existing terrace with a tumbled paver placed on sand and added a shade structure.  Although the terrace was reduced in size, it is comfortable for the many uses of this family, and the large shade cover creates lovely dappled shade in this space. A wrap-around seat wall invites garden visitors to observe the plants and the fish in the small pond placed at the edge of the terrace for close-up viewing.

A low water landscape after the renovation

As the trees grow, they will not only cool the entrance and protect shade loving plants, they will also complement the horizontal lines of the architecture, anchor the house to its site and “shrink” the home to a more human scale.

Tricycle path in the backgarden

To allow more water to penetrate into the subsoil, compacted pervious DG (decomposed granite, a local material) was used to create paths through the garden.  These paths lead to benches and arbors and provide a clean, fast-drying surface to walk on or ride a tricycle.

  Raised beds and DG path

Partners:

Nature Designs Landscaping, Vista, CA

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Filed Under: Low Water Landscape, San Diego Landscape Design Projects, Sustainable Landscape Design, Xeriscape designs Tagged With: drought resistant landscape, drought resistant plants, drought tolerant gardening, drought tolerant plants, landscape design, landscape designer San Diego, san marcos

Comments

  1. gw & karen medley says

    November 18, 2014 at 10:50 am

    LIVE IN SAN MARCOS AND WOULD LIKE TO CHANGE FRONT YARD TO NATIVE CA LANDSCAPE CUTTING WATER COSTS.

  2. Christiane Homquist says

    November 24, 2014 at 12:08 pm

    Hello,
    Thank you for contacting me, and sorry for the late response; I had a family emergency.
    Kindly contact me directly at ch@cholmquistgardens.com or call me at 760-586-6065, so that i can learn more about your project.
    Thanks!
    Christiane Holmquist

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"I want to thank you for all the gardens you planned for me. Your ability to interpret my ideas is spot on! I see in my mind what I like but am not always so articulate in transforming an idea to a reality. I always tell you that nature is my art...and now I am surrounded by masterpieces. Every day I am thrilled to open the front gate and walk through the first garden you designed.”

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Christiane Holmquist

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