West berkeley garden installation: before and after

This was a quick and fun front landscape project for an office in a live/work space in West Berkeley. The object was to make it more attractive for employees and clients coming to the office, and make it more modern and clean. Before: The gravel driveway was a mess, the existing plantings were overgrown and raggedy, the cement paver pathway to entranceway (on left) was cheap looking and not noticeable, and in general the whole landscape had hardly any color.




After: We chose more modern plantings like leucadendron, kangaroo paw, flaxes, and succulents to provide structure and more color without making it too flowery or frilly. We constructed a larger, more significant entry/pathway out of flagstone set in gold decomposed granite. We also extended this flagstone pathway across the parking strip to provide access to the municipal water/sewer box and a place to step out if a car is parked alongside. The lighting and angle in the photos washed out the colors a little but the flagstone has really pretty orange and red and brown markings which you can see better closeup. We changed the gravel in the driveway to decomposed granite to match. The result is a cleaner, more colorful landscape with a more modern look. We also added two new square planters, both made of corten steel, to match the corten steel edging we used to edge the pathway. Also we updated irrigation and added a separate valve for the containers (pictured and behind fence).








Plantings were an eclectic mix of tough and colorful plants chosen for their color and form. Dymondia, a silver tight growing carpeting groundcover will set off the new flagstone path and planter and wine-colored blooms on the arctotis ground cover will provide year-round interest. Santolina and mexican feather grass will provide a drifts of silver and gold backdrop for the showy leucadendron 'Jester' that is a focal point near the sidewalk. Apricot tones in the two flaxes pick up the color of the leucadendron. A purple hopseed bush hedge was added in the back of the landscape to provide extra screening of trash/utility area behind lattice fence. This fence will soon be replaced with something more modern and attractive. I think steel panels to match the planters would look fab! Can't wait to see how this looks in 6 months after everything gets bigger and more established.