Mid Century Westside Oasis

 Here was this sloping square with a sudden drop –off, seven year’s growth of weeds, and the desire for a cactus garden.  With concern over the steep slope, I felt a second level of retaining wall was necessary. The weeds were cleared. The hillside contoured, and half walls built in front and on the left, left open in the middle to allow for a dry stream bed to break through.  I wanted to capture the image of a wild torrent of a  flash flood bursting the ½ wall open, leaving behind rocks where a smattering of desert plants had regrown over time.  Rocks were imported: boulders,  several pallets of smaller support rocks.  Groupings of phormeum dark delight creates a backdrop for blue agave, various aloe, puya Bolivia, senecio and a few variegated agave.  Sticks of fire light the yard up.  By the entry /driveway a pattern of barrel cactus warn away would be climbers of the wall, and agave blue glow settled in black pebbles provides ordered borders, both at the sidewalk and lining the planter below the window.