Eanes
School
Road
Located in the hills of West Lake, this landscape was reimagined to create a stronger connection between the home, its architecture, and the surrounding natural environment while supporting the rhythms of modern family life. Existing plantings were replaced with a layered palette of native and climate-adapted species chosen to thrive in the site’s conditions, bringing greater resilience, seasonal interest, movement, and habitat back to the property.
Throughout the landscape, new pathways create a sense of discovery while improving the way the family moves between spaces. A limestone boulder crossing through a dry creek bed becomes both a functional passage and a defining landscape moment, turning necessary drainage into an experience within the garden. A central courtyard, anchored by a mature oak, extends the home’s living spaces outdoors and creates an intimate place to gather, dine, and spend time together beneath the canopy.
Rather than treating the landscape as a series of separate areas, we designed each space to flow naturally into the next, using planting, pathways, and changes in texture to create distinct experiences while maintaining a cohesive sense of place. Soft, naturalistic plantings temper the architecture and hardscape, while moments of structure give the garden a sense of intention and permanence.
A productive vegetable garden adds another layer of life to the property, creating a place for the family to grow food, learn, and participate in the landscape together. Designed as an integral part of the garden rather than a purely utilitarian space, it reinforces the idea that a landscape can be beautiful, productive, ecological, and deeply connected to everyday life.
Just one year after installation, the garden has filled in beautifully—demonstrating how quickly thoughtful, site-appropriate planting can transform a property. What was once simply the space surrounding the house has become a living landscape: a place for gathering and exploring, for wildlife and pollinators, and for a family to experience the natural world right outside their door.
Large limestone pancake boulders create a welcoming walkway from the street, leading guests through dramatic steel terraces and lush, sculptural plantings layered with texture, movement, and fragrance.
We added discreet street parking that integrates seamlessly into the streetscape, while crossvine softens the existing iron fence and creates a lush, living backdrop.
Sculptural plantings are layered with flowing grasses for movement and texture, punctuated by restrained moments of color. The intentionally limited palette brings a sense of cohesion and sophistication to the front of the home, creating a streetscape that feels both striking and quietly elegant.
A striking arrival, where sculptural silvers and warm, sun-washed tans create a dramatic first impression.
By bringing lush, layered planting to the front of the property, the landscape reclaims a sense of privacy while still allowing carefully framed views of the home and celebrating its architecture. The garden offers a glimpse of what’s to come—a landscape that feels bold, sophisticated, and full of life. It also reflects the spirit of the clients themselves: thoughtful, creative, and willing to rethink what a front yard can be. Rather than simply decorating the home, the landscape begins to restore ecology to the site, creating habitat, supporting biodiversity, and proving that a garden can be both beautifully designed and meaningfully alive.
Pops of purple coneflower woven through soft, billowing Mexican feather grass create a cheerful welcome along the drive, bringing movement and color while inviting butterflies and other pollinators into the garden.
A striking arrival, where sculptural silvers and warm, sun-washed tans create a dramatic first impression.
Terraced steel planters form a dramatic retaining wall, layered with evergreen, sculptural, and cascading plantings to create a more elegant and beautiful outlook from the front of the home toward the driveway.
Steel terraces are layered with sculptural agaves, flowing ornamental grasses, and vibrant pops of color, creating movement, texture, and a striking welcome along the drive into the residence.
A soft, billowing meadow unfolds along the driveway, tempering the strong architectural lines and creating a more natural, welcoming arrival. Layered with movement, texture, and seasonal change, the meadow brings the landscape to life—creating valuable habitat, inviting pollinators, and transforming the drive into a living garden.
Layered plantings soften the clean lines of the paver driveway, creating a lush, natural transition between the hardscape and surrounding landscape.
Lush, soft plantings frame the new welcoming entry steps, crafted from natural limestone pancake boulders.
Newly planted frog fruit already doing its job in creating a carpet of green to the newly installed boulder walkway.
Beyond, the entry courtyard unfolds in lush, billowing mounds of sedges, creating a soft, immersive transition from the architecture into the garden experience.
The sedges were planted in soft, sculptural mounds to create a lush, layered green view from the entry windows, bringing the garden experience inside the home.
A new walkway of oversized limestone pancake boulders, softened by swaths of sedges, creates a welcoming path from the street to the home’s rear office entrance, with dramatic, layered plantings framing the journey on both sides.
Planting of sedges in limestone pancake boulder steps
A simple custom steel sign subtly directs visitors toward the path while cleverly concealing ground-level utilities.
Billowing bamboo muhly screens utilities while introducing soft movement and a rich green layer that beautifully softens the strong architectural lines of the home.
In the backyard, oversized steel terraces create multi-layered tiers of lush planting, defining distinct garden spaces while adding depth, structure, and layers of green.
Swaths of bright green, waxy gopher plant punctuated by pops of purple salvia create a bold, sculptural tier of planting.
Lush root beer plant softens the architectural edges, creating a welcoming transition between the staircase and pool.
At the pool level are more steel planters filled with silver pony foot and sculptural evergreen plantings.
A striking, purposefully muted palette of mauves and greens creates an intriguing corner garden rich with subtle color, texture, and depth.
Planters filled with agaves and mangaves, layered alongside lady’s slipper, gopher plant, and sedums, create an elegant, sculptural palette of silvers and soft mauves.
This intimate corner garden, perfectly positioned within a prominent window view, offers an unexpected moment of rich texture and layered planting while creating another inviting destination to discover within the landscape.
Additional terracing in the backyard creates dramatic changes in elevation, defining a series of distinct garden levels and inviting a variety of experiences throughout the landscape.
Oversized steel planters are filled with lush swaths of waxy, bright green leopard plant, while silvery ponyfoot cascades over the edges for a striking contrast in color, texture, and form.
A small Fermob seating area anchors the substantial steel corner, creating an intimate, private place to gather beneath the moon gate entrance to the garden above.
A custom steel moon gate creates a welcoming entry to the new vegetable garden.
Custom cedar raised beds create an inviting, accessible edible garden where the family can learn, grow, and harvest together. We planted the garden alongside the children, combining their favorite vegetables with thoughtful companion plantings designed to attract pollinators, support beneficial insects, and naturally help deter pests—turning the garden into both a productive space and a living classroom.
Wild and happy, the purple kale is flourishing and ready for harvest.
Steel screens layered with climbing vines create a lush living wall around the garden while beautifully concealing the AC units from view.
Rows of cherry laurels along either side of the home provide natural screening, creating lush, evergreen walls of privacy that soften the property’s edges.
Stately steel planters create striking focal points, anchoring key views while forming a series of sculptural terraces throughout the landscape.