Lisa Cox, of Lisa Cox Landscape Design has happily designed landscapes ranging from simple tract homes to vast estates.  As she plans an outdoor environment, she envisions a transformation that communicates the lifestyle and personal taste of the client, while incorporating her own style. Each garden is designed and built with all materials including stone, plants, trees, water features, and garden art selected by Lisa using local, top qualified growers and suppliers.

Commitment to sustainability, the use of drought tolerant plants and trees, including California natives, has been an integral part of her design process, allowing a more “naturalistic” result that mimics the local terrain.

When Lisa met with her new clients in the Santa Ynez Valley, they requested that the newly constructed home not have any sod in the front area, and that she use drought tolerant plants including grasses and succulents. Working with a blank slate, except four nice sized olive trees at the entrance, she was free to design the space, including selection of a plant palette that complimented the Hacienda style of the home. With the use of local sandstone boulders, salvias and phormiums as her base, she also incorporated deciduous trees and perennials for color in the Spring and Summer, and a few rows of grape vines because after all, it’s the Santa Ynez Valley!

Choosing Greek terracotta pots from Eye of the Day, filled with “Blue Glow” Agaves gave the clean, rustic look she was looking for on the front porch and the traditional Terrecotte San Rocco terracotta pot in front worked perfectly to show off the “Little Ollie.”

It seems everything progressed perfectly for Lisa and her clients, but there WERE a few important challenges:

1. The need to place a gopher basket for every plant as the local area is inundated with gophers that would quickly destroy the plantings, and
2. The necessity of paying close attention to selecting plants that can stand the heat as well as the sometimes frigid nights where temperatures can go into the low 20’s or below.

As Lisa’s work on the project came to a close, she felt deep satisfaction; in fact she felt this was a home environment she could inhabit herself.  The project was a dream to work on and the end result was exactly what the homeowner envisioned.

Visit Lisa Cox Landscape Design to view more of her work.

Planted pots and containers add color and visual interest to your landscape design, garden and outdoor living areas. Choosing the right pots can be a challenge with the wide variety of options available today. Consider adding beautiful Italian terracotta pottery, created to handle the elements and last for decades.

What is Galestro Clay?
Eye of the Day’s Italian terracotta pottery is fabricated from Galestro clay, fired at an extremely high temperature. It is a high-quality, dense clay known for creating particularly durable pots, frost resistant to -15 degrees Fahrenheit. Galestro clay is found in Tuscany, near the borders of Grosseto, Arezzo and Siena. Pots made from this clay are created by hand and air-dried before firing. If conscientiously maintained, this pottery will last decades.

Terracotta Pottery: Style
In addition to customary classic pottery like the beloved double roll rim, more ornate Italianate styles featuring details such as garland, rosette and leaf motifs, are available to infuse your home with old-world design. Eye of the Day’s Terre Colorate line brings clean, modern Italian design to contemporary garden style.

Whatever your garden style, with Eye of the Day’s help you can add a clear visual appeal using Italian terracotta pots.

Eye of the Day Garden Design Center provides high quality pots for decoration and for planting. Learn more about our Italian terra cotta pottery.

GROUNDSKEEPING is about my travels for my life’s work, keeping Eye of the Day fresh and exciting not just for me, but our clients and customers. I am always trying to find what others are seeking for their designs.  Like a chef experimenting with ingredients and flavors to interest his public, I look for those things that different places and cultures want and need, and that architecture requires for exteriors to be in harmony with structures.

Recently I decided to return to the East Coast, which is the market we ship to more and more frequently. While walking throughout New York and Boston my goal was to come up with new ideas and directions.

Revisiting and walking the length of Central Park, one of my favorite urban places on earth, was a specific goal.  It is 2.9 miles long (in a straight line), but my meandering probably added another half mile or so.  Fredrick Law Olmsted was a remarkable genius and I marvel at his accomplishments. The Ramble is still my favorite area of all.  It is hard to believe you’re in the city at all.

As I approached the northern end I came to the Conservatory Garden, the only formal garden in the Park. It’s truly an intense, wonderful experience for garden lovers. I recommend that you go to Google images for more wonderful photos. From the corner of 110th Street I took the bus down 5th Avenue to my reward, lunch at Gramercy Tavern. I needed plenty of oysters to soothe my soul and rest my sore feet.

Next, I traveled to Boston ($ one-way bus ticket) to compare cities and get a better feel for this historic place and the homes and offices of its famous residents. Boston is to NYC as Santa Barbara is to LA; while it is a major city and urban center, it feels much more intimate.

Boston Public Garden, like Central Park, is right in the center of the city; it’s smaller, but very dynamic. The 24-acre park was the first public botanic garden in the USA, established in 1837. My favorite site is the magnificent bronze statue of George Washington on his horse.

Across the street from the Park is Beacon Hill. The word “historic” doesn’t begin to do justice to this neighborhood. Walking its narrow streets is not for those of weak ankle. I immediately saw what I was looking for, something you rarely see in the West: window boxes.  They were everywhere and many decorated for Halloween.

I could have walked all day through the streets of Beacon Hill, taking pictures of the Federal style homes packed side by side sporting window boxes below every wonderfully fenestrated opening.  San Francisco, Pasadena, and Brentwood: why don’t you have any window boxes?  They are jewelry for the home. Designers, what are you afraid of?  I want window boxes.  I have window boxes.

Next, my pilgrimage led me to the unassuming home office of Frederick Law Olmsted in Brookline, Massachusetts. This is the location where The Master worked on his brilliant, timeless designs. The Park Rangers and volunteers were wonderful, helpful and spunky. It is moments from downtown Boston, just a short cab ride.

Finally: the fountain I stumbled upon when I walked through Boston’s main library.  In the courtyard is a fountain that replaces my favorite for many years, The Electric Fountain at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills.  In the courtyard of Boston’s public library is the most wonderful fountain, Frederick MacMonnies’ Bacchante and Infant Faun.

In its unique setting it is difficult to think of another fountain I’ve seen in my travels that could make me smile more.

Where to next??

The owners of this classic Mediterranean home in Glendale, California contacted Sally Farnum of SE Farnum Associates in Altadena for a new front yard design requiring minimal maintenance and low water use. Her design included a Gladding McBean Oil Jar fountain conversion in Caribbean, as well as two Gladding McBean planters flanking the front entrance.

The neighborhood in Glendale, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, was lined with houses showing off well-manicured lawns and lush plantings. But like most streets, it had ”that one house.” You know the house. Dried and dying lawn, gopher holes dotting the landscape, and essentially an eyesore to a neighborhood that otherwise boasts its curb appeal.  Before their neighbors stopped talking to them, my clients contacted me to revamp the landscape in front of their home. These were busy clients who just work, work, work, leaving very little time for yard work. They were leaving the digging and turning of the soil to the gophers and the trimming to the deer. They even spent a few hours a week unsuccessfully trying to combat rodents with traps, flooding, and varmint bombs.

Change did not come easily to these clients, but they knew they needed to do something. They requested a garden design that would require minimal maintenance and low water but still incorporate beautiful plantings, as well as being deer and gopher proof. I discussed the beauty of replacing their lawn with a composition of decomposed granite, new and colorful water-wise plantings, hardscape using saltillo concrete tiles and a new fountain.

Initially the clients’ three colors of choice were beige, dark beige, and white, but I was able to convince them that a lively color palette can be beautiful, energizing, and attractive not only to them, but to desirable visitors like butterflies, bees, and birds. The plantings include colorful sages, ceanothus, lantana, and achillea that not only drink little but the deer and pesky gophers don’t find them to their culinary liking.  It’s been almost a year and they haven’t lost any plants to the wildlife, what a success!

The colors of the Malibu tiles that we used in the hardscape were definitely an influence on my desire to use a Gladding, McBean oil jar for a fountain. I was thrilled that my clients selected the Caribbean blue over a more subtle color and love the fountain conversion done by Eye of the Day. The clients are so happy with their colorful garden that they recently asked me to help select the palette for the re-painting of their house and of course the selections are very close to the color of the Gladding McBean fountain.

Succulents are all the rage and for several good reasons: many have a unique make-up that puts them ahead of the game in extreme heat. Succulents are composed of spongy tissue capable of storing water in dry times. And they maintain their good looks without a lot of maintenance.

Some of my favorite succulents are in the plant family known as the houseleek family. Many form rosettes of leaves, giving them a floral quality, but without the need for deadheading and other pruning. The other great part about this family is that there are a variety of shapes and forms to choose from. Their main requirement is a bright sunny spot, though some will even take a spell of shade if they have to.

The stone crops are all in the genus Sedum and most are low-growing perennials. Sedum acre is grayish with leaves that form small, whorled rosettes. Two other diminutive species are S. brevifolium and S. dasyphyllum.

“Live Forever” is just an English translation of the botanical Latin Sempervivum. All form densely star-like rosettes composed of many pointed leaves. Two commonly available species are S. tectorum and its many varieties and S. arachnoideum, called the cobweb houseleek because of the white filaments that cross from leaf tip to leaf tip.

Another group of ground-hugging plants are in the genus Echeveria and many are commonly called hens and chicks. Their leaves come in simple or densely whorled bunches that look like fleshy roses and the colors and forms are mind-boggling. From pale whitish green through bluish, to purple, bronze, red, and even yellowish tones, collectors can go wild accumulating them all. Then, there are the leaf shapes and textures; edges may be smooth to wavy to elaborately crimped and top surfaces may be cupped and smooth or bowed and covered with warty bumps (or both!).

Last are the many forms of Aeonium. From flattened dinner plate sized A. tabuliforme to the more tree-like forms such as the nearly black A. ‘Zwartkop’ and colorfully variegated A.‘Sunburst’, there are many selections for bold color and form.

Tough, sculptural, colorful—what more could you ask for in a plant family?

Author Brené Brown stated in her now famous Ted Talk, “The opposite of scarcity is not abundance, it is enough.” As we deal with the drought in our gardens, let’s not respond by grabbing more water from others or becoming despondent about losing lawns that are largely unsustainable in our climate.

Use your creativity and discover how container gardening can enliven your landscape while using little water. Let go of those garden images where plants luxuriate in 95% humidity and weekly rainfall. Let’s get started.

Destination Inspiration

Why do we love love love Italy, Mexico, Spain, or Morocco? Courtyards and shade. It’s not the turf. Most of our residences have outdoor living spaces that are too small or too close to the house to be truly enjoyed. If you are considering what to do with your thirsty landscape, think about expanding or adding terraces or courtyards adjacent to your home. Add new gathering areas in other parts of the garden. Even in a very small garden, you can create a new space at the back or side of the property and discover a new view into your landscape.

Planters: The Versatile Garden Feature

These new spaces can be paved with a variety of materials such as gravel, recycled concrete, stone or pavers. A grouping of planters can serve a variety of functions. Need some shade? Find a large pot, 42” diameter plus and add a drought tolerant small tree such as a fruitless olive. Add smaller pots with succulents or color and you have quickly filled your new garden space with pattern and detail, two aesthetic qualities that enliven our living spaces.

Planters can be adapted or reinforce the visual quality of any type of garden. If you have young children, add lots of color and tuck in a few edibles to share at the table. If you are looking for a place to escape the pace of work and family, discover the cool palette of succulents. Be brave, take a risk. Planter gardening is a great way to play with plants without breaking your budget.

So let go of some of the old ideas and embrace the challenge to live with ‘enough.’ Take a fresh look at that existing landscape and find joy in a new direction for your garden.

To view more of Puck Erickson’s work, please visit Arcadia Studio.