Our Top 6 Planting Styles

Planting has a major influence on how a landscape feels. The same outdoor space can feel relaxed and coastal, structured and formal, or lush and secluded depending on the plant palette.
While every landscape we design is specific to the home, site, and people who live there, there are a few planting styles our clients come back to again and again.

1. Mediterranean
Mediterranean planting feels especially at home on California’s Central Coast. Think olive trees, soft grasses, lavender, rosemary, succulents, and other drought-conscious plants. The palette tends to feel warm and relaxed rather than overly manicured. It also pairs naturally with stone, gravel, warm-toned materials, and outdoor living spaces.

2. Modern
Modern planting is all about restraint.
Rather than filling every available space, we typically use a smaller plant palette with repetition, strong forms, and intentional placement. Ornamental grasses, sculptural plants, and simple masses of greenery can complement clean architecture without competing with it.

3. Tropical
Tropical landscapes bring a completely different feeling to a space. Large foliage, layered greenery, palms, and plants with contrasting textures can create a lush, enclosed environment. The goal isn't necessarily to make a Central Coast home look like it belongs in the tropics. It's about borrowing that sense of abundance and creating a garden that feels immersive.

4. French Garden
French-inspired planting tends to be more structured and refined. Defined hedges, symmetry, clipped forms, flowering plants, and intentional repetition create a garden that feels established and composed. We like balancing that structure with softer planting so the finished space still feels comfortable and livable.

5. Contemporary
Contemporary planting sits somewhere between structured and natural. Clean lines and repetition create order, while grasses, textured foliage, and looser planting keep the landscape from feeling too rigid. It's a style that works particularly well alongside contemporary architecture and simple material palettes.

6. California Native
Native planting takes its cues directly from the surrounding landscape. California grasses, sages, manzanitas, ceanothus, and other climate-adapted species can create landscapes that feel connected to the Central Coast while supporting a more water-conscious approach. Native doesn't have to mean wild or unstructured, either. With thoughtful placement and repetition, a native palette can feel just as refined as any other landscape style.

Finding the Right Planting Style
You don't necessarily have to choose one. Some of our favorite landscapes pull from several styles, a modern layout softened with Mediterranean planting, contemporary architecture surrounded by natives, or a structured garden with looser grasses woven throughout. Ultimately, the plant palette should make sense for the architecture, the site, the climate, and how you want the space to feel. A style gives us a direction. The details are what make it yours.
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