Photography by Trevor Tondro, courtesy of Trevor Tondro/OTTO, unless otherwise noted.
For more than two decades, Los-Angeles based landscape designer Kathleen Ferguson has been creating climate-appropriate gardens in southern California. Come with us on a tour of a Santa Barbara, CA garden she recently designed for a couple's modern home.
On the path leading to the front door, Ferguson planted tall, reedy Juncus textilis adjacent to the weeping boulder.
To work with an elevation change on this side of the property, Ferguson designed large Cor-ten steel planters to encase the existing oaks on the property, so she didn’t have to lower the entire elevation of the area for the patio.
Photograph by Isabel Bannerman and Dunstan Baker.
Another view of the gravel patio featuring a mature, native oak tree, recirculating Cor-ten steel fountain, and native Mimulus aurantiacus (syn. Diplacus aurantiacus) profuse with gold blooms.
Photograph by Michael Ferguson
Along the entry path, she planted blue-green Festuca glauca, a drought-tolerant grass that will tolerate the heat from the Cor-ten steel pavers.
Ferguson designed a low, recirculating Cor-ten steel fountain to provide a gentle gurgling to counter the noises from the canyon.