Canyon Acres

This one started as a water problem. Rain sheeted off the roof and the patio and ran straight across the property, scouring a rut through the decomposed granite walkway and leaving a real tripping hazard. At the top of the slope it was quietly eating the hillside. The owners had put boards up to hold the bank, but the water kept working around them and they were losing plants. The rest of the yard had drifted too: dead grass, overgrown beds, and a collection of pieces that had never quite added up to one garden.

We started with demolition, but carefully. The homeowners were clear that they wanted to keep as much of their existing planting as possible, especially the fruit trees, which were healthy and well established. So we were selective. The dead grass and the plants that were past saving came out, and everything worth keeping stayed.

Then we fixed the water. We re-graded the entire site, sloping the soil to carry runoff positively away from the house. We supplemented the boards at the top of the hill to hold the bank, and ran a new dry creek through the garden bed between the patio and the slope, built in Santa Barbara sandstone cobble. Rather than stop there and let the water find its own way out, we plumbed it from the dry creek all the way down to the base of the hill and out by the creek. The erosion problem is finished, not relocated.

With the grading right, we reshaped how you move through the space. Flagstone at the end of the patio handles the transition where the washout used to be, and from there a pea gravel walkway runs from the driveway, through the raised beds and around the property, held with a low profile metal edging that disappears into the planting. New drip irrigation went in throughout, and fresh mulch covers the lines and pulls every bed together.

The fountain is the piece that makes it. The owners had bought a prefab unit, so instead of building something custom we took the inexpensive route: set it in place, ran a new electrical point out to it, and made sure it had everything it needed to run properly. When we moved the dirt for the re-grade we deliberately left a high point in the middle of the garden for it, so that as the planting fills in the fountain still rises above it. From the kitchen table and from the couch inside, they can see it through the windows. It has brought in the birds, the butterflies and the hummingbirds.

We are back at the property regularly on ongoing maintenance, keeping it at its best.