Lose the Lawn,
Gain a Garden

Los Altos, CA

With children no longer living at home, these homeowners wanted to replace their large and thirsty lawn with something that required less water and less maintenance while still looking beautiful. After removing the entire lawn, we created a flagstone patio surrounded by several lush planting beds, a raised vegetable garden, and a private, shaded dining area.

One of the challenges was to blend the existing brick and flagstone from the rest of the garden with the new patio areas. The solution was to create two distinctly different spaces, using flagstone for one patio and brick for another. This not only helps to tie the two hardscaping elements into the rest of the garden but also defines the separate spaces.

To further help define and separate the two areas, a skinny half-moon shaped bed was created and filled with tall and narrow trees, casting shade while acting as the ‘walls’ of the dining patio.