June Project of the Month

The owners of this home in Rancho Santa Fe, CA, were tired of the uphill battle of maintaining a green lawn that seemed as out-of-place as the existing fire pit. On Lima's first visit, they requested that the concrete patio, where they sat to watch the sunset, and the concrete path leading to it, remain intact. The front door was aligned with the center of the old fire pit, so the design would have to consider that axis as a central vista of the new garden.

The new landscape has a fountain in the center of a fire pit. The water overflows over one of the sides of the fire pit and runs into a pond-like area beneath, where it's re-circulated back through the fountain. Echoing the shape of its predecessor, the new reservoir sits exactly where the old fire pit once did. Oversized concrete steps create a sitting area around the new focal point, and the grass between the blocks are watered with a system of perforated pipes embedded in the ground — ensuring dry steps and green grass.

"I often say that flowers are overrated, but it's perhaps only for green having always been my favorite color," Lima says. "I think gardens that play with foliage contrast can deliver a permanent display of color as originally intended by the designer. The beautiful and sometimes alien-looking arid-climate plants that comprise the indigenous climate add jades, emeralds, limes and olives into the gamut."