City — Piedmont, CA
Budget — $90,000 - $110,000

An expansive pollinator meadow was designed to rehabilitate the front slope of a Dutch Colonial style residence along the highly visible Highland Avenue corridor. A row of Hawthorn trees balanced the naturalistic planting with a more formal, privacy enabling foundation to the composition.

Around the home, new container planting and furnishing layouts enabled the owner’s to maximize the usability within the intimately scaled patios.

Themes — Lawn replacement, Pollinator Garden, Curbside Appeal, Container Planting

The Space

Situated along Piedmont’s highly visible corridor Highland Avenue, a family had “inherited” a poorly maintained frontage of Ivy and Lawn from the previous owners. The intimately scaled patio areas were also in need of sprucing up to fit the new owners furnishing goals.

Building the Vision

Coming up with the overall plant palette involved several iterations that would eventually balance native plant driven “habitat garden” principles with more classic species that are contextual to the historical gardening culture within Piedmont.

The backyard patio layout was carefully considered in order to accommodate both dining and lounge seating comfortably in a limited area. This space also required a complete drainage overhaul, in which dry wells in the front meadow provided a terminus for partial roof and patio stormwater runoff.

New property fencing at the back of the property provided enhanced privacy for the main entertainment space, while shoring up the existing patio slab with a concrete retaining wall mitigates further settlement and erosion.