Santa Barbara Natural Beauty

When you have a naturally beautiful setting, the task becomes how to create a new landscape design that works with nature rather than impose our will on her. This fabulous Santa Barbara Oak Woodland property was one of our favorite projects ever. With a year-round creek and a natural meadow, we wanted to make the house look as if it were hewn from the same stone and earth that surrounds it.

A Volkswagen-sized boulder dominated the back and when we arrived the owners were discussing how they were going to cut up and haul it away! Horrors! We convinced them that this monolith was worth featuring and thus became the centerpiece of the garden.

We started by creating destinations in a variety of locations on the property. In the only sunny spot, we created the “Boulder Garden” surrounding the giant boulder with a low-water color garden.

Meandering pathways made for easy access to all areas including across the creek, where we made various sitting areas and created a “walk through the woods”. We left the meadow to nature, changing as it does with the seasons, from the lush green of winter and spring to the golden of summer.

We changed the line of the driveway and chose to pave it in crushed stone that complemented the color of the majestic Oaks that inhabit the property.