Portfolio

Because of the relative youth of my design business, these photos depict young gardens whose plantings have not reached maturity. That said, they should give you an idea my style preferences, design sensibilities and plant palettes.

• Moroccan Blue Garden
• Rustic Redo
• Sonoran-Asian Fusion Courtyard
• Bear Grass and Silver Carpet
• The Pine-Oak Desert Woodland
• Working With Yellow
• Going in Circles
• The Green House
• Desert Zen
• Beneath Palms
• Rock and Roll Fence

  

Moroccan Blue Garden

Taking cues from a notorious blue-walled garden, Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech, Morocco, this central Phoenix courtyard uses silvery leaves and blue walls to make a design statement. Although the wall color is Moroccan influenced, the major plants are Sonoran desert species like palo blanco and sweet acacia.

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Rustic Redo

Around a low weathered adobe wall, we added Chihuahuan desert plants like Damianita daisy to existing plants like catclaw acacia and jojoba to add color to this backyard redo. The design also features a seep-like fountain.

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Sonoran-Asian Fusion Courtyard

Using pavers from Kornegay Design (www.kornegaydesign.com) we fashioned as simple courtyard planting using Sonoran plants like desert willows, yellow orchid vine, bamboo muhly, slipper plant and grape ivy. This design also includes a basalt column fountain and steel trellises for screening.

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Bear Grass and Silver Carpet

In a narrow rectangular space, we created a geometric grid of flagstone, ‘Silver Falls’ dichondra, interspersed with bear grass and rain lilies. In order to hide a water softener, we offset two ocotillo fence panels and let wild snapdragon vines grow through them. The design also includes a fountain and pots from Stonesmith Garden Vessels (www.stonesmith.com), and large specimen yuccas from Mountain States Wholesale Nursery (www.mswn.com).

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The Pine-Oak Desert Woodland

The main challenge in this garden was to integrate a mature shade-producing Mondell pine into an updated xeric landscape design. To accomplish this we augmented the pine with Chinqaupin oaks, white orchid trees, ocotillo, deer grass, superb penstemon, sandpaper verbena and pale-leaf yucca. The design also included a new circular decomposed granite driveway, lighting, veggie garden, trellises and rainwater collection cisterns.

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Working With Yellow

In this garden, we took advantage of a vibrantly painted yellow house and used contrasting purples, silvers, and reds to “pop” off the walls. Beginning with a very-much-alive ocotillo fence to screen an adjacent construction site, we planted two varieties of Texas ranger, Texas firecracker bush, beaked yuccas, and mesquite, acacia, and ironwood tree in addition to parry’s penstemon and orange bells.

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Going in Circles

In this central Tucson backyard, we used circles to concoct a curvaceous plan: we began with a cylindrical rainwater cistern, a circle of turf, a raised circular cacti and succulent bed, with an adjacent circle pattern pavers. Behind high colored walls in the corner of garden, we tucked in big circular wooden hot-tub. The garden, which is kept-up by a busy mom with a very green thumb and good design eye, also contains a veggie garden and pot shelves along the wall. The central cactus bed contains, fire barrel, white-stripe agave, and slipper plant.

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The Green House

Working with a young architect, Rich Michal, we took the very contemporary rammed earth home that Rich designed built for his family and added a lavender-blue serpentine masonry wall around the front around a central fire pit and used a mix of upright native plants like saguaros and ocotillos to punctuate the design. In the back we created a deer grass oasis around a stock-tank style fountain and salvaged mesquite tree. The back yard is watered by graywater from the Michal’s outdoor shower.

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Desert Zen

This backyard project, which is currently under construction, is being installed entirely by the homeowner and his elderly father. The style is a clean-lined take on desert using many plants from the Organ Pipe area and adjacent Pinacate region as well as plants from other North American desert areas. Designed with multiple uses in mind, the design uses a crescent-shaped jack-o-lantern orange seat wall, fire pit, fountain, and barbeque area and ramada. Plants include senita cactus, ‘Silver Peso’ Texas mountain laurel, organ pipe cactus, saguaro cactus, ironwood trees, ‘Desert Museum’ palo verde, ‘Trident’ sage, bamboo muhly, superb penstemon, and brittlebush.

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Beneath Palms

This very recently installed project features a circular stabilized decomposed granite driveway, new brick stoop, and plantings like smooth spoon, Mexican fencepost, deer grass and Mexican bird of paradise. A curving gravel path and offset ocotillo panel fencing provide a secret passage to the rear garden. In the backyard, a large curvilinear brick patio moves people to and from the guest house around a raised circular seat planter with Texas ebony which over time will shade the patio. Still to come is a raised bed veggie garden and children’s play area.

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Rock and Roll Fence

This garden, in this picture just under construction, features a fence design that is an expanded metal envelope filled with river rock. It will keep out javalinas and rabbits but serve as a high-rise hotel to lizards. The rustic wall also matches the hand-made character of the straw-bale home which the owners built themselves.

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