Urbanite Path and Cut-Stone Patio Entrance : Cupertino, Ca.

Native plantings line this new Urbanite path leading to a custom stone patio with a recycled concrete bench. A new wood gate offers privacy and openness to the narrow but airy side garden.

The beautiful flowers of Chilopsis linearis Desert Willow add seasonal texture and paint summer color to a gray fence.

A small variegated form of reed grass, Calamagrostis acutiflora 'Overdam' flowers under the window sill of the kitchen. Ribes aureum and Ribes malvaceum are spreading as espaliers along the wall above Erigeron glaucus 'Cape Sebastian'.

A Myrica californica Pacific Wax Myrtle will quickly grow to screen the neighbors roof. (The Maple branches have since been pruned away from the new plant to give the space it will need)

Monardella villosa Coyote Mint grows with Ribes saguineum 'Claremont' in the morning sun along the new Urbanite path as Dymondia margaretae forms a mat to soften the edges of broken concrete.

The Urbanite path is ready for planting and the space is open for business.

Scraps of concrete salvaged after reconstruction to be water-jet-cut by Rustworks of San Carlos into this custom bench.

Pictured here ready for grout, a custom cut-stone patio will give the family a new experience to the front door. The path and grade leading up to the patio was lowered for a step up, slowing down the original axial passage through the space and framing the entrance to the house.

The stone ledger is mortared as a level coarse.

A baserock was compacted around the perimeter of the existing aggregate slab as the foundation for the new mortared cut stone ledger.

This grill area was reset tightly as a mortarless transition space. The new Urbanite path now flows more naturally to the families large existing mortared flagstone patio and private garden at the rear of the house.

An Urbanite path takes on a permeable "flagstone look". This path will be planted with a drought tolerant groundcover to soften the edges and add living beauty to what was once a sidewalk.

After the jackhammering, unused pieces are trucked to the Smart Station for recycling. The remaining slabs are then arranged and reset as the new path.

The entrance area before pictured here, opposite the front door to the house which lies along the concrete path. The existing aggregate will be the foundation for the new mortared cut stone patio entrance.

...plenty of material to hammer out a new path.

The path before was an axial "runway" type sidewalk. The client wished for something more natural and sustainable. Another goal became to slow down both visual and physical movement through the space so one may enjoy the garden path and the clients beautiful existing landscape.

Native Wildlife Garden : San Jose, Ca.

 A Spring walk through this garden strikes the senses with the buzz of pollinators and spice of sages and wildflowers.

 This container and rock water fountain will soon be planted with bird loving Juncus and ground cover Fuschia offering seeds, nectar and a cool rinse to the neighborhood birds. The feature is placed to be viewed and heard in the house as the homeowner can relax in a cozy chair.

 Patio view, April 2010. 

A young Dark Star Ceanothus explodes with color late Winter through Spring.

 In the rock planter Salvia spathacea blooms amoung native Verbena and Poppies.

  

Beginning of Spring 2010 brings the annual return of wildflowers.

The garden is cutback for the winter rains making way for annual wildflowers to sprout.

Salvia apiana against the dried flowers of Eriogonum fasciculatum

The winter buds of Verbena lilicina in a bed of fresh Poppies.

Look closely and you can see a small butterfly larva.

Eriogonum arborescens Santa Cruz Island Buckwheat flowers along the border of a southeast facing wall.

The creamy pink flowers of Eriogonum fasciculatum foliolosum offer late summer nectar to butterflies as Nassella pulchra Purple Needle Grass goes dormant.

Muhlenbergia rigens blooms in a circle of non-native Mulhenbergia capillaris Pink Muhly.

By Fall 09', Carex pansa Dune Sedge has really filled in around the base of a raised rock bed as a drought tolerant alternative to lawn.

Calamagrostis foliosa Leafy Reed Grass

Late August 09', Lilac Verbena, Buckwheat, and Matillija Poppy bloom with the hot reds of 'Silver Select' Fucshia and Fairy Duster.

The flower of Calliandra californica.

An island of Andropogon saccharoides Silver Beard Grass

All sorts of bees bumble in the native garden.

Mid summer 09' Zauschneria 'Silver Select' rises with the heat.

A mix of native wildflowers.

Clarkia unguiculata takes the show as the poppies begin to fade. Several types of native grasses including Carex pansa slowly spread.

Salvia 'Bee's Bliss'.

A new path of Gold fines gives passage where once was a lawn.

Poppies are the first seeds to sprout in the raised rock bed.

Spring 09'

Fall 08', the first bloom of a young Romneya coulteri Matillija Poppy.

Here, the backyard is ready for planting. The old lawn was sheet mulched over once the irrigation and rockwork were complete and the concrete sidewalk was reformed and set as a natural looking permeable "Urbanite" path and planted with non-native Dymondia margaretae to soften the edges.

The backyard before.

A Ceanothus lights up the driveway in the front.

This Connecticut Bluestone path is a gradually stepped entrance to the front door. The path is anchored with rock and native plantings including Yarrow and Monkey flower, with Blue and Yellow-eyed grass and non-native Wooly Blue Thyme.