Introducing Sunrise Landscape Designs
Creating Sustainable Gardens
Portfolio
Since 2016, I’ve designed California native, drought-tolerant, and edible gardens for single-family residential landscapes and school gardens in the Orange County, CA area. My goal is to create thriving and inviting landscapes that re-connect my audience with nature. Browse through some of my most recent projects below, which are numbered for reference. If you like what you see, schedule a free consultation today.
Kid-friendly and CA Native Backyard
2020
This CA Native garden was designed for a young family with children so the yard allows for play among edibles and flowering, fragrant shrubs. Rather than a traditional, water-intensive lawn, Dymondia grass is an attractive and sustainable ground-cover. Additional water-saving features include a dry creek bed to infiltrate rain water and a rain barrel.
Preschool garden
Fall 2016
I organized a diverse volunteer group to help install raised beds with irrigation, an apple tree, blueberry bushes, a native plant pollinator garden, and a worm compost (vermicompost) box. This allows children to discard food scraps and study decomposers. My fundraising resulted in local nurseries and hardware stores donating all of the initial plants, irrigation supplies, compost, and other materials.
CA-Friendly Front and Backyard
2019
This design entailed selecting attractive, drought-tolerant perennial grasses, plants, and trees to add a clean and structured look to the yard.
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Contemporary Style Backyard with Edibles
2020
The objective of this project was to improve planting areas surrounding the pool to create a functional, low-maintenance, contemporary aesthetic. This included edibles, succulents, and perennial plants with clean and defined form. A swath of native strawberry plants lines the northern planting area and invites kids to hunt for tiny woodland strawberries.
CA Native Event Space with Pergola
2020
This very personal project was to create an outdoor event space for a celebration of my Dad's life. I envisioned it being held at a native California garden. The site would be surrounded by native plant communities, including Coast Live Oak woodland, chaparral, and native grassland with pockets of wildflowers. Man-made features include a 20’ x 20’ pergola with a Decomposed Granite path leading to it.
The Coast Live Oak provides a natural shade canopy and sense of togetherness. It is grand, majestic, and symbolic of my Dad’s life. A single Manzanita would be planted in his name. RIbes menziesii and Trichostema lanatum dot the periphery of the gathering site. Native grassland is dominated by Stipa pulchra and other native bunchgrasses. Wildflowers blooming in April (at the time of his birthday) include Lupinus sp., Sisyrinchium bellum, Eschscholzia, and Castilleja species. Vitis californica vines grow along the western trellised side of the pergola.
Wrap-around Tree Bench Model
2019
This is a dream project. I am inspired by shady benches under grand trees such as coast live oak or even an elegant olive tree. I built this model using balsa wood and made a clay tree trunk with thyme as the canopy. My son added LEGO mini figures to complete the display.
Lawn replacement with rain garden and CA Natives
2019-2020
This water-saving landscape design compliments the existing eco-conscious features, including solar panels. Plants are chosen to function as a pollinator garden that will support the existing fruit and vegetable garden in the backyard.
A dry creek-bed/sunken rain garden feature is created with stones of varying sizes. It will be surrounded by native perennial shrubs and Roman chamomile groundcover. Colors are primarily blues/purples and yellows.
