Southern California
From Concept to Completion
Concept
At So Cal Urban Gardens, we work with you to come up with a design plan and plant palette to transform your Southern California landscape. In this scenario, we've created a CA Native landscape that incorporates both stone fruit and citrus trees.
The Process
There's a long to-do list between conception to completion: turf removal, sourcing materials and plants, creating water-retention features, refining irrigation, planting, mulching, and adding landscape details. We keep in constant contact with you through every phase of the process.
Completion & Journey
We are committed to using sustainable practices in all of our projects: from repurposing onsite materials to employing techniques to retain water. The journey begins as you watch your landscape grow and thrive, provide year-round color, and create habitat for pollinators, wildlife, your family and community.
DROUGHT-Tolerant lawns
Day of Planting
Folks often want to have a grassy area for their kids and pets to play but still save water and money, There are a lot of alternatives to our traditional water-wasting Ca lawns: various fescues and bent grasses, and above, UC Verde Buffalo grass.
3 Months Growth
After three months growth, the Buffalo Grass plugs have filled in nicely. It can either be mowed or left to grow in a meadowy style. It requires very little irrigation. Once a week watering during the summer months keep it green year-round.
Vegetable Gardens
Before
It's always a good time to plant a vegetable garden in Southern California. There's nothing more rewarding and tasty than growing your own fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Growing in raised beds allows you more control over your soil's health and helps increase production of food crops.
After
We transformed this front yard space with five raised beds and installed irrigation and pathways. There's a 7x2 foot bed on the end that's been seeded with CA Native flowers to attract pollinators. The natives will attract bees that will aid in pollination and increase the productivity of fruiting vegetables.
Garden spa days
Pathway and Weed Clearance
This property was severely overgrown and inundated with weeds. It happens... sometimes even the more cared-for gardens need a Spa Day.
After clearance, we added a pathway and lots of new mulch. The client now has a more defined space to add additional natives or even another vegetable bed.
Natives, Fruit Trees, and Vegetables
Another look at this beautiful backyard with established natives, fruit trees, and vegetable bed after clearance. CA Natives create habitat and attract pollinators creating a healthier and more productive environment for fruits and vegetables.
Desertscape
Before
Before
Before
This Palo Verde tree got lost in an overgrown landscape. Palo Verde's are an amazing centerpiece for the native garden with their green limbs and trunks and profusion of bright yellow flowers in the Spring.
After
Before
Before
We highlighted the Palo Verde in this section of the garden by using a pea gravel hardscape planted with an understory of Dudleyas, Mallows, Red Chief Poppies and Brittlebrush.
CA Native Landscape redesign
Before
Before
Before
Things can go wrong in a CA Native landscape when the mature size of the plants and their watering needs aren't taken into account. This property was both overgrown and over-watered forcing the plants to compete for space and airflow.
After
Before
Before
In our redesign, every healthy native was incorporated into the new landscape with the addition of flowering perennials along the pathway and a rock creek bed to improve drainage and save water on a low section of the property.
Hugelkultur Mounds In the CA Native Landscape
Building
Hugelkultur mounds are created for several practical purposes: to store water for plants, redirect or slow water flow, or to plant into when the existing soil is too poor and / or highly compacted. Use any natural material you have on hand as the base of the mound...branches, leaves, etc.
Completed
Mounds look great in CA Native landscapes mimicking the natural, uncultivated land around us. Here, the mound helps add texture to a flat section of the property and also slows water from draining to low-water Buckwheats and Sagebrush planted below.
Ca Native Shade Garden
Before
I like to reuse and incorporate any natural materials. Here, I've used the limbs from a recently-removed ficus tree to create garden beds. The limbs, rocks, plants, and mulch will help with runoff on this slope.
After
New plantings of flowering CA Natives that will provide Spring and Summer color at the side of a pathway in a shaded woodland area : Lillies and Blue-Eyed Grass, Columbines and Idaho fescue, and Coral Bells.
USING Ca Natives to stabilize slopes and prevent erosion
Before
Before
Before
This roadside slope was bare and vulnerable to erosion from heavy winter rains. CA Native plants are a godsend for slope stabilization. And a good layer of mulch helps the soil hold in moisture.
After
Before
Before
We laid a layer of biodegradable jute down, then planted with spreading Coyote Brush intermixed with Monkey Flowers and San Diego Sunflowers to add yellow blooms to the greenery come Spring. And, of course, mulch.