Santa Cruz Professionals Take Top Award

 

Barbara Jackel Landscape Design and Christiansen Associates Gardens and Design of Santa Cruz, Calif. have taken a top award for work on a home in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

A garden along a ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains near San Jose, Calif. has been honored in the design/build category of the 2005 California Landscape Contractors Association Beautification Awards. The elaborate organic garden took first place.

The design, at the home of Martin and Barbara Fishman, has views of the ocean and the mountains. The landscape was designed to integrate the home with its natural habitat; a highlight is a series of streams culminating in a waterfall next to a bluestone patio.

The garden ``rooms’’ include an inner garden for growing flowers for cutting, fruit, herbs and vegetables, and a front garden with a dry streambed. The entire landscape is unified by extensive use of California native plants and other drought-tolerant specimens.

The design was a collaboration between Barbara Jackel Landscape Design and Christiansen Associates Gardens and Design, both of Santa Cruz. Jackel, a landscape designer, and Kurt Christiansen, a landscape contractor, have worked together on many projects over the past 14 years.