MIRA VISTA
EL CERRITO, CA
2022
This yard came with baggage: a DIY retaining wall hanging on by faith alone, a pampas grass the size of a Volvo, and some wildly off-brand bottlebrush trees along the parking strip. The front was half barren, half jungle. The back had ambitions, but no spine.
Our clients were a rabbi and an acupuncturist who work on spiritual and physical healing, respectively, and whose son-in-law just really wanted a shed to shred on his guitar. The whole family was thoughtful, hilarious, and not at all precious about plants, which made this one a joy.
The front yard borrowed its bones from a neighbor’s landscape who is also a client, but we dialed up the native palette and leaned into low, grassy structure with swathes of low growing perennials. Lots of lomandra, grevillea, ceanothus doing the heavy lifting. A rustic mossrock wall breaks up the space, and in a small moment of irony, we hedged off the trash zone with Pineapple Guava instead of fencing it in. The bins now have their own edible fortress.
Out back, we replaced the crumbling wall with a new one that ended up feeling, unexpectedly, like a modern ruin, something between Brutalism and ancient Greece. The old pampas pit became a tidy terrace for rotating seasonal veggie beds, and we left space for a future shed/practice studio (guitar solos pending).
Process-wise, things went smoothly aside from one poetic misfire: a brilliant and now published UC Berkeley student doing research as grunt labor managed to break the water main not once, but twice, the second time directly at the point of connection. A disaster narrowly averted by our ace plumber and a whole lot of deep breathing.
Today, the front yard feels like one of our most coherent planting compositions. It is soft, alive, and grounded. Out back, the once-collapsing slope now has a proper backbone: a sturdy wall anchoring veggie beds, future jam sessions, and the everyday chaos of family life. What was once a yard with no structure now holds space with strength, intention, and just the right amount of wild.
