Another lawn conversion, starting from a clean slate framed by all-new hardscape. The softscape brief: low-water, low-maintenance — with one welcome exception. The client wanted roses.

Rosa ‘Ebb Tide’ Floribunda and Rosa ‘Twilight Zone’ Grandiflora were chosen for their saturated tones and compact form. Mounded beds let the roses live by their needs without dictating the rest of the planting — non-invasive ornamental grasses and succulents that hold to the original brief.

The structure of the garden comes from a few quiet specimens: ‘Little Ollie’ olives, trained to tree form, and a ‘Teddy Bear’ magnolia — chosen for evergreen presence, manageable scale, and the kind of foliage that reads well year-round. Lawn conversions can fall flat without that vertical layer; here, the trees give the eye places to land and the planting beds a clear architecture to settle around.