May Project of the Month

Morton's clients were a couple who had just purchased a 1937 Spanish revival/Mediterranean hillside home in the foothills of Los Angeles. "The landscape was seriously overgrown and awkwardly laid out," she recalls. "It consisted of a series of terraces backing up onto an undeveloped natural hillside. Ficus pumilla and Tecoma capensis had encrusted every retaining wall and tree, as well as a section of the house." (Pictured is a "before" shot of the pool area.)

The clients wanted a distinct function and personality for each terrace-outdoor space for entertaining and relaxing, with a dash of Old World charm. "The spaces should feel open to the surrounding hills, appropriately planted for the area, but not too wild," Morton says. "They were enthusiastic about employing a bold color palette."

Morton extended the indoor living spaces onto "living room gardens," which included a den with gas fire pit off the living room, a dining room with water feature off the kitchen, a small park off the master bedroom (created for the couple's little dog, Pina, and pictured here) and a lounging terrace near the pool.

"Creating a native habitat was especially important on this project due to the proximity of the native hillside," Morton says. "I decided to make this project uber-sustainable."

Her team began by stripping the ficus off some of the retaining walls, discovering many had failed or shifted. The rebuild meant that the pool remodel budget was affected. Still, as the photo shows, the pool was able to enjoy plenty of attention. There was even an upside, says Morton: "It allowed me to make some adjustments to heights of the walls in various places so I could play with volume."

After sandblasting away the peeling paint, the walls were slathered with richly toned natural pigment lime plaster. Unlike a paint emulsion, Morton explains, "lime plaster can 'breathe,' and ages with that typical crystallization reminiscent of Europe. This approach provided me with colored canvases to drape and layer new plant material."

During the development of the design, Morton relocated and created a new room (pictured) to house pool, irrigation and other equipment and accessories. A wider stairway provided grander accessibility to the pool terrace. Morton also developed a new lighting concept throughout, relying heavily on LED technology. Two large infiltration pits manage storm water on-site, and a concrete swale behind the main retaining walls "relieves the pressure that caused those walls to fail in the first place," she says.

Morton developed a planting plan that contrasted typical European clipped and structured evergreens like Cupressus semprevirens, Myrtus communis compacta, Laurel nobilis and several Rosmarinus varieties with California chapparal natives and some flowering plants. Espalier forms and strategic planting of vines will soften the many wall edges, she says.

The color palette for each space was based upon the pigment color of the walls, and Morton worked the plant selection and building materials almost monochromatically, layering hues, tones and textures to echo back and forth to each other — with an occasional surprise thrown in for punch, she says.

However, access to the back terraces was difficult, Morton says: "We had one 28-in.-wide pathway due to an oddly placed bay window. So all materials were brought in with what my contractor called the 'bucket brigade.' Fortunately, the delivery crane could just reach the upper pool terrace, so we airlifted in some 36-in. boxed Arbutus marina. The crew worked miracles to get them to the fountain terrace. I was fortunate to work with some wonderful craftsmen on this project."

A lucky find: Morton and her team "recycled a couple hundred antique wrought iron pickets into lacy ironwork for railings, gates and a decorative ribbon for the tops of walls, visually sewing together the different levels and providing a support for the vines." In the foreground is a vintage birdbath.