This estate in Falbrook, California, features several gardens, outdoor sculptures and "exterior rooms" over four acres. When an insect attack ruined the on site vineyard, the homeowners – an exterior stone designer and his wife, both world-traveling garden enthusiasts – chose to turn the space into a winding labyrinth, with the help of a local design firm. The entrance into the garden is a flagstone courtyard with a ledger-stone fountain. In the background is a seating area with a semi-circular shade structure, with a cobblestone wall sculpture that appears to float above the boulder seat walls.

In mid-2010, Palm Desert, Calif.-based landscape architecture firm Pinnacle Design Company received a phone call from a local homeowner that had worked with the firm during the design and construction of a golf course community called "The Bridges at Rancho Santa Fe." He had been responsible for creating the color and stone patterns on the stone-veneered buildings throughout the development.

The homeowner, his wife and Pinnacle principal Ken Alperstein reside in Fallbrook, Calif., a small town in North San Diego County. The town is known for two things: first, and most notably, it is called the "Avocado Capital of the World", as most of the rolling hillsides are covered with groves of avocado trees; secondly, Fallbrook's mild climate, with few days of frost or excessive heat, has cultivated a large nursery trade in the area. The town has commercial nurseries growing cacti and succulents, sub-tropicals, citrus, specimen trees and palms.

Orchids, bromeliads and epiphytes thrive in the estate's greenhouse.

One of the couple's favorite activities, besides golf and gardening, is traveling the world visiting gardens. Inspiration for their home garden has come from Sissinghurst Gardens in England, La Alhambra in Spain, Villa d'Este, Villa Taranto and Villa Carlotta in Italy, the Sherman Gardens in Corona Del Mar, California and Lotusland in Santa Barbara, California.

This intimate seating area, one of many on the four-acre estate, is surrounded by a mass planting of lily of the Nile and shaded by a giant ash tree.

The couple had already transformed a former avocado orchard on their property into one of the most interesting private gardens in San Diego. The four-acre estate has a rose garden designed by David Austin Design, and a cactus/succulent garden designed by Scott Spencer. The owners had also designed and built a greenhouse stocked full with orchids, hanging gardens of stunning staghorn fern specimens, a bottle palm garden, a dry river garden, paths covered with wood trellises and wisteria, and many sculptures scattered throughout the property.

The panoramic view of the estate from the residence highlights the labyrinth garden, "blue fescue garden" and paths through mass plantings of many types of flowering shrubs and bush grasses.

The thread connecting these seemingly unrelated gardens is the concept that shrewd design can create multiple "exterior rooms" throughout an area, each with its own theme, palette and experience, while remaining a cohesive whole.

One such exterior room on site was a vineyard, before "sharpshooter" insects killed all the vines.

Agaves, yuccas, aloes, firestick and crassula grow in the succulent garden, with a small fountain featuring papyrus.

Knowing Pinnacle's experience with designing landscape and water features for golf courses and their surrounding communities, the homeowners asked if the firm would be interested in helping to finish the last quarter of the garden at their Fallbrook residence. They explained that the client's wife wanted a labyrinth in the yard, but she wasn't sure how to get from concept to completion.

The client challenged Pinnacle Design to master plan a garden incorporating a labyrinth as the focal point for this newest exterior room, while tying into the existing paths and gardens.

Brick paths with wood trellises covered in wisteria, staghorn fern and hanging pots provide a shaded transition from one outdoor garden room to another.

Building a Better Labyrinth
To meet the client's vision, the design team's first task was to research and understand labyrinths, both as a general concept and in a landscape application. In contrast to a maze, a labyrinth is used for meditation, and contains only one meandering path to its center. During their study, the design team found that existing labyrinth projects did not meet the spatial and textural feel that they had envisioned, and turned instead toward a three-dimensional component that would create a unique landform art sculpture. This "labyrinth sculpture" would be surrounded by large massing flowering shrubs and bunch grasses, with a series of intimate paths.

The intimate garden space outside the greenhouse contains ferns, fuchsias, begonias, impatiens and other shade loving specimens.

After many sketches and design vignettes, the final presentation contained a landform sculpture intersected by two strong axes. The experience begins at the center of the existing wisteria-covered trellis, meandering down a perpendicular path and series of stone steps to a landing area, which features a subtle flagstone fountain surrounded by stone seat-walls. A second set of stairs leads down a path to an intimate flagstone patio with seating, and a half-round wood trellis with what appears to be a floating wall of cobble, dry-stacked between two sheets of stainless steel mesh panels. The trellis and stone sculpture is the focal point of the latest "exterior room" in the garden.

A stone-carved gargoyle sculpture ruminates in a garden of variegated mock orange and azaleas.

The second strong axis of the design starts at the fountain, and is the main entrance into the Blue Fescue Garden and labyrinth. Though the landform sculpture appears symmetrical, the walls and fescue slopes are opposite from one another at the main path.

A private hedge encloses the rose garden, which features more than 100 different varieties of roses, and boxwood hedges border the pebble paths. (Designed by David Austin Designs)

Just before reaching the labyrinth, the garden is separated with three flowering crepe myrtles under-planted with more ivy geraniums. At this point, the visitor has four new options: first, to make a right turn and walk up a series of stone steps and enter into the lower end of the rose garden. Second, go left and walk out of the fescue garden into a series of long paths surrounded by mass plantings of kangaroo paws, firecracker plants, Pride of Madera, Mexican feather grass, cistanthea, callistemon "Little Johns,' New Zealand tea trees, euryops, sea lavender and agave. The third choice is a small sitting area featuring a stunning bronze sculpture on a stone base. The fourth choice is to enter the labyrinth.

The main entrance into the new labyrinth garden – in the foreground is a mass of La Jolla bougainvillea, which surrounds the passive "blue fescue garden" sculpture.

As mentioned above, the design team decided that this project needed a dash of art or sculpture if it were to become the focal point of the space, extending beyond the one-dimensional nature of a traditional labyrinth. The key focus, however, was the meditation path from the beginning to the center point, where visitors have the opportunity to release extraneous thoughts and discover a sense of tranquility during their travel down the path. Rock walls were added to provide a vertical dimension and visual differentiation to the space. A solid planting of mondo grass adds a strong, dark green contrast to the fescue garden. The stone walls, berming of soil, and mondo grass create borders for the intimate decomposed granite paths that make up the traditional path of the labyrinth.

The hanging garden separates the garage, greenhouse and residence. The display of staghorn ferns, clivia and chain ferns provides screening and enclosure, and creates another interesting exterior in what would have otherwise been a sterile transition space.

Blue Fescue Garden
The Blue Fescue garden is a series of concentric 18-20" high stone walls on one side, and a 3:1 slope of soil planted with blue fescue on the other. The center is planted with a multi-trunked olive tree and under-planted with ivy geraniums. The tree's location is meant to give a person experiencing the sculpture the choice to either "bushwhack" under the tree, or follow one of the paths created by the concentric circles of this landform sculpture. The view from the paths below the fescue garden looks across mass plantings of agave, firecracker plant and accent plantings of deergrass.

This gathering area features a flagstone patio, circular wood trellis and a stone wall sculpture. Kangaroo paw, cistanthe agave, green euryops, acacia shrubs and trees surround the seating area to screen the adjacent properties.

The Blue Fescue garden and labyrinth were built on the old vineyard site within the property. A series of stone retaining walls and steps were installed to frame the garden, and allowed for the creation of the leveled area for the labyrinth and garden. The sloping hillsides that originally marked the area were great for grape vines, but difficult for landform sculpture gardens.

Paths below the labyrinth garden provide wonderful wandering experiences through mass plantings of Mexican feather grass, pride of madeira, kangaroo paw and geraniums.

The expansive site and Fallbrook's versatile climate allowed for an amazing palette of plants to thrive on the property, and since the plants have matured, something is blooming in the garden all year. During construction, the labyrinth was planted with mondo-grass and a sprinkling of bulbs, which provide springtime blooms that accent the decomposed granite paths and cobble stone walls. Across the labyrinth, olive trees, ash trees and melaleuca trees frame the garden, while the purple fountain grass, geraniums, firecracker plants, blue fescue and bouganvillea provide color and interesting textures all year round.

A multi-trunked crape myrtle, framed by trailing ivy geranium, provides a backdrop for one of the many sculptures placed throughout the garden.

Another of the many paths through the estate features a large fountain basin transformed into a succulent garden placed on a flagstone base. Iceberg roses, agapanthus and large California peppers provide the framing along this part of the path. In another corner of the estate sits a shade structure, cobble wall art sculpture and bench, a great place to sit and view the bottle palm garden established by the homeowners over the past few years. The accent pots of sedum, echevaria and other succulents add warmth and texture to this garden.

The view from the paths below the fescue garden looks across the mass plantings of agave, firecracker plant and accent plantings of deergrass.

Two contractors were key to this project's success: Integrity Golf used their years of expertise to grade and shape the site, install irrigation and purchase and install the beautiful plant material. Creekside Construction, responsible for some of Pinnacle's best golf course lake and stream construction, agreed to build all of the rock walls, rock steps, labyrinth, Blue Fescue Garden walls and fountain.

A kinetic steel sculpture that spins in the afternoon breeze sits on a stone base that matches the new rock walls of the labyrinth garden, surrounded by purple fountain grass and agave.

After traveling for the past seven years to countries such as Dubai, South Korea, China and Mexico for design projects, an installation practically in Pinnacle Design's back yard was a refreshing endeavor. Most importantly, clients supportive of the design process granted the firm the creative license necessary to bring their vision to fruition.

A large six-foot tall ceramic pot sits in the landscape surrounded by a mass planting of sea lavender and accented with agave and deer grass.

Vendor List:
Creekside Construction, Inc. – blue fescue garden sculpture walls, boulder/cobble retaining walls, fountains, flagstone patios and steps, labyrinth cobble walls, layout of paths and sculpture bases.

Integrity Golf – drainage, irrigation, planting installation, site grading/shaping.

Mark Beebe, Private Contractor – wood trellis structure, cobblestone wall structure.

Pinnacle Design Company – landscape architecture designs, site observation/field direction during construction.

Scott Spencer Garden Design – Irrigation installation for the labyrinth and blue fescue garden, designer of cacti/succulent garden on site.

In another corner of the estate sits a shade structure, cobble wall art sculpture and bench. This is a great place to sit and view the bottle palm garden that established by the homeowners in recent years. The accent pots of sedum and echevaria and other succulents add warmth and texture to this garden.

Plant Palette:
Botanical Name / Common Name

Trees
Acacia Baileyana / Bailey Acacia
Melaleuca Linariifolia / Flaxleaf Paperbark Multi-Trunk
Melaleuca Nesophila / Pink Melaleuca Multi-Trunk
Melaleuca Quinquenervia / Cajeput Tree Multi-Trunk
Olea Europaea / Olive Multi-Trunk (Field Grown)

Shrubs
Agave Attenuata / Agave
Anigozanthos X `Yellow Gem` / Yellow Gem Kangaroo Paw
Bougainvillea X `San Diego Red` / Bougainvillea
Calandrinia Grandiflora / Rock Purslane - Cistanthe
Ceanothus X `Dark Star` / California Lilac
Cortaderia Selloana `Pumila` / Dwarf Sterile Pampas Grass
Echium Candicans / Pride Of Madeira
Limonium Perezii / Statice
Russelia Equisetiformis / Firecracker Plant

Ground Covers
Gaura Lindheimeri `Siskiyou Pink` / Siskiyou Pink Gaura
Nassella Tenuissima / Texas Needle Grass
Pelargonium Peltatum / Ivy Geranium

The estate's succulent garden, designed by Scott Spencer, features agave, gopher plant, yuccas and red-hot poker plants.