The front of a pale green bungalow seen from the street, framed by deep beds of flowering California native plants.

chateau chaparral

welcome

Wild and Delicious Chaparral Wildlife Habit - a California twist on the “wild English garden” style.

We designed our ‘Chateau Chaparral’ garden to be a wild, colorful, deliciously aromaed coastal mountain living habitat. The goal was to create a habitat for native insects, butterflies, and birds, providing each plant with enough space and nutrients so they can thrive into one collaborative native plant mass to support life. For the humans, there are intentional spaces of rest and relaxation to facilitate enjoyment of the shade, smells, sounds, and visual beauty of the garden. Our aim was to create a calming oasis of relaxation, where animals and humans can find respite and replenishment from the bustling city environment.

plants

front

back

parkway

scenes from the garden

The front yard before the redesign: bare dirt and gravel with a few scattered agaves, potted succulents, and a brick path.
The back yard before the redesign: a bare concrete slab, patchy grass, a white fence, and a tall blank stucco wall.
Looking out from under the patio cover across the empty back yard before planting began.
The back of the house before work started, with a covered porch and worn patchy lawn.

chateau before chaparral

A printed photo of the front yard covered in yellow sticky notes, each naming a plant for that spot.
A hand-drawn colored sketch of the planned front garden, with a handwritten plant list and quantities below.
A scaled site plan of the front yard and parkway with dimensions marked in feet and inches.
A 3D model of the whole property showing the house, the long back yard, the studio, and the fences.

right plant, right place (?)🙏

The freshly painted house with a new flagstone path and small young plants set out in bare soil.
The back yard mid-construction, with irrigation trenches dug through bare soil and a potted tree waiting to go in.
The back yard graded and mulched, with irrigation flags marking planting positions and a wheelbarrow standing by.
The finished studio and covered patio at the back of the lot, with bare ground still waiting to be planted.

how the (plant-based) sausage is made

The established garden with a jacaranda in bloom, drifts of flowering perennials, and the white studio beyond.
A prickly pear and a yellow-flowering shrub against the pale green shed, with silvery groundcover spilling forward.
A long wooden table under the vine-covered pergola, looking out to the jacaranda and the garden beyond.
The finished front garden from the street, deep beds of native plants softening the path to the door.

chateau chaparral

Visitors gathered in the studio and under the pergola on a bright open-garden day.
An outdoor film night in the garden, an audience seated in the dark beside vines lit up in pink.
A large glowing manta ray sculpture covered in blue lights installed in the garden at night, with lit jellyfish below.
A costume party under the pergola at night, warm light and a patio heater among the guests.

chaparral life!

Three people standing arm in arm on the front step of the newly painted house at dusk.
Two of the builders at a sawhorse workbench on the new patio, plans spread out in front of them.
Three members of the crew giving a thumbs up in the back yard beside a prickly pear.

Thank you Angel, Rene, Moises, Carlos, Miguel, and Jorge!

materials & installation

Plants
Theodore Payne Foundation
Grass (Native Mow Free Fescue Blend)
Robert Sjoquist at Soils Solutions
Gravel (Black Lava ¾)
C&M Topsoil
Install & Irrigation
Carlos Díaz & Miguel García
Phoebe and Brian on stage with microphones at a night event under the pergola.

💚 Phoebe and Brian (email us!)