This garden is the urban escape for two families with young children. The brief was to regenerate the abandoned lawn for the soccer enthusiasts as well as create spaces for the kids to play creatively and interact with plants and nature.

An existing elaborate French drain system that was good in theory but, in practice was killing the grass was dug up and removed. The white gravel was diverted from the landfill and instead kept to eventually be repurposed as mulch in the garden. The remaining lawn was lifted and the soil amended in preparation for a new California friendly, lower water usage lawn.

The edges of this angular garden were softened with curving garden borders edged with a granite cobble and filled with low maintenance perennials. Blueberries sit in terra cotta pots to address their need for ericaceous soil. They are strategically at the edges of the garden beds and are underplanted with strawberries so that children can pick the fruits as they walk by on their way to the play structure. The planting palette is filled with purple and yellow blooms including English lavender, Princess flower, butterfly pea bush, and black eye Susan. Mirror bush, aralia, and asparagus fern provide the evergreen backdrop in this garden. The canopy of the aralia creates a small “cave” that the kids like to play in.

A sandbox was included in the design alongside storage bins, a chalkboard, and a mailbox for waterproof place for chalk and chalkboard pens, all attached to the nearby fence for easy toy storage.