FormLA Landscaping

Home Improvement Professionals , Landscape Architects & Landscape Designers
13 Reviews
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FormLA Landscaping
13 Reviews

Coastal Canyon Retreat

Nestled in Santa Monica Canyon with deep, healthy redwood groves, this modern landscape epitomizes an authentic LA coastal canyon aesthetic. Vibrant natives surround the home with greenery and blooms throughout the year. While drought tolerant, they also add stability in deluge. Patios and paths go with the flow, using a variety of permeable materials for a look distinctive to Los Angeles and complimentary to the home's compelling architecture.

Photos by Lesly Hall Photography
Project Year: 2015
Country: United States
Others who worked on this project: Lesly Hall Photography
It is hard to find blooms more enchanting than Heuchera maxima, Island Alum Root. While its delicate blooms put on quite a show in shade garden, its deep green foliage keeps this California native garden green year round. Here, it is paired with Woodward fimbriata, Giant Chain Fern for a perfect...
Island Alum Root
Landscapes need not be overly edited to highlight the charms of modern architecture. To the contrary, natural, even rustic, foliage choice and placement can add enchanting warmth to homes and outdoor living spaces with clean lines.
Modern and Rustic Mix
LA knows how to go with the flow, and this walk way is no exception. It directs foot-traffic and water to just the right spot.
2017 Pacific Palisades Garden Tour
Even when the sun shines on the lounges overlooking the garden, the air is cooled by the thick grove of trees and stand of bamboo at the entrance to the back garden. Photo: Lesly Hall Photography
Lounges Overlook Garden
This IdealMow meadow of California native Carex Pansa functions much like a traditional lawn. It can handle foot traffic and roughhousing - and it needs only 20 percent of the water needed by a traditional lawn when paired with smart irrigation.
California Native IdealMow Meadow
This built-in bench provides ample seating, matches the home's sorrel trim, and provides protection from the garden's signifiant level change. California native grasses border the patio, adding greenery that makes the seat color pop.
Custom Built-In Seating
A blonde teak dining set complements the sorrel trim of the home without competing with it. Behind the dining set, a built-in container garden full of native Deer Grass gives the outdoor lounge a feeling of even greater privacy. Lesly Hall Photography
Teak Dining Set from Universal Patio
With 5 distinctive outdoor entertaining spaces adjacent to the home, this expansive garden can feel cozy and intimate. Lesly Hall Photography
Pool-Adjacent Gathering Spaces
Warm up by the pool-adjacent fire pit! In addition to separating the fire pit from the home and meadow, a low wall provides additional seating. Custom wood seats were designed and built by Kirk Aoyagi, FormLA Landscaping. Lesly Hall Photography
Modern Fire Pit
Kick back and enjoy the view from Loll Lollygagger Lounge seating. The Potted Store provides the lounge in a variety of colors - this bright green was chosen to create contrast with the sorrel trim of the home and draw greenery into the hardscape. Lesly Hall Photography
Loll Lollygagger Lounge from Potted
Every detail of the landscape's serene, natural greens and blues complements the home's warm, modern architecture and recognizes its sense of place.
Modern Pool and Garden
Contained succulents in custom planters surround the entrance to the pool room. A gravel and paver walkway leading to the pool passes alongside a redwood grove and raised beds of edibles.
Pool Room and Path
Against the dark green and shade of a redwood grove, maple adds levity and eye-catching greenery most of the year, erupting bursts of red that complement the home's sorrel trim in spring. Lesly Hall Photography
Maple Leaves
Raised, organic vegetable gardens emerge from trails lined with fragrant California natives, including Hummingbird, Pitchers and White sages.
Fresh Organic Herbs and Veggies
An authentic LA coastal canyon landscape beautifully complements this warm, modern architectural design. California native Deer Grass and an IdealMow lawn fill sunny garden spaces, and a mix of native salvias and shade loving plants form a fragrant understory to a redwood grove at the back of the...
The Modern, Native Landscape
Giant Chain Fern, Woodward fimbriata, provides a perfect shade-loving understory surrounding a grove of well-established redwoods. Lush and lovely, these ferns are also drought tolerant. Lesly Hall Photography
Giant Chain Fern
Lepechinia calycina, California Pitcher Plant, brings more than bountiful, fragrant, eye-popping blooms. It adds a lovely, spelt structure and bountiful green foliage to shade and partial shade gardens.
Pitchers Sage in Redwood Shade
Lepechinia calycina, California Pitcher Plant, bell shaped blooms distinguish it from all other native sages. Like other sages, the blooms extend up a delicate stem, and its fresh, earthy fragrance will delight you as well as the birds and butterflies!
Pitchers Plant
California native Canyon Prince adds blue-silver sparkle and vertical interest beneath a forest of substantial redwoods. These blues provide contrast to the sorrel-colored trim of the home.
Canyon Prince Wild Rye
This distressed wood fence becomes a work of art when adorned with pottery running the full array of neutral colors within the garden.
Garden Art by Switcheroo
Indoor or outdoor, Switcheroo ceramics brings a sense of whimsy to any wall.
Switcheroo Ceramics
Unlike the desert succulents in this playful, modern container garden, the lush landscape featured in this project is authentic to Los Angeles. It will thrive in both drought and high water years for decades to come. Photo: Lesly Hall Photography
Contained Succulents