Drought-tolerant redesign — Berkeley Hills

The lawn was already dead. Three consecutive dry winters and water restrictions had finished it off, and the clients were finally ready to do something permanent. They came to us having already tried twice on their own — once with succulents that got scorched in the summer heat, and once with a mix of random drought-tolerant plants that never felt cohesive.

The main design challenge was the site conditions: steep-ish slope, heavy clay soil that drains poorly after rain and bakes to concrete by June, and a fire risk designation that limited plant choices. Berkeley Hills has strict guidelines around what can go within 30 feet of structures, and we've worked with those rules enough times to know how to design beautifully within them.

We delivered a full design package — hand-drawn planting plan, plant list with sources, and a phased implementation guide so the clients could install over two seasons if the budget called for it. The palette is anchored by Cleveland sage (Salvia clevelandii), Penstemon heterophyllus, Artemisia californica, and clumping Festuca rubra with a decomposed granite surface between groupings. It reads as a California dry meadow and was designed to need no supplemental irrigation after the first year.

The clients installed the first phase themselves in fall of that year and sent us photos through the winter. They reached back out the following spring to add the second phase — which we consider a good sign.