Garden California Dreamy
Perched on a steep and rocky West Coast hillside, this multi-terraced garden in Pebble Beach, California, brings layered beauty to an unpromising parcel of land.
Preserving as many of the native oak trees as possible topped designer Stephen Suzman's to-do list when he began planting the bare landscape around this Pebble Beach, California, home. "I pictured a Tuscan hillside garden," says the homeowner, and that's what San Francisco–based Suzman delivered, albeit with regional references, such as the use of the warm local stone.
The owners also asked for year-round bloom, plant variety and an abundance of blue flowers, not an easy assignment on land so impenetrable it is known locally as Rock Hill. Situated on a steeply pitched parcel overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the property presented other design challenges—notably, the region's persistent water shortages and an equally persistent population of deer. Plantings in the unfenced front of the house are drought and deer tolerant—Suzman knows better than to say deerproof—with broad drifts of erigeron, Spanish lavender, coreopsis and agapanthus hugging the curvy, decomposed-granite paths. A deliberately limited palette based on blue and its complements—primarily cream and yellow—leaves a subdued and soothing impression.
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