2025 Contest Winner

Homeowner	Yannick
Location	Escondido
Yard	Front and Back

Project

Yannick’s landscape transformation process included research on drought-tolerant plants, plant groupings, soil types, and how to use compost and mulch to enhance water efficiency. Visits to local demonstration gardens provided him with a little extra inspiration as he began curating a selection of manzanitas, native irises, yarrows, monkeyflower, and multiple varieties of sages. Even one patch of lawn that was left aesthetically unchanged has had its own incognito transformation: Yannick replaced this section of grass with 250 Dwarf Carpet of Stars plants – a succulent with a close-growing pattern that not only supports foot traffic, but also leaves no room for weeds to grow up in between. The plants are now slowly growing in, and once they do, it will look as if the lawn never left!

Although Yannick and his wife decided against removing the existing mature palm trees and added a variety of fruit trees and other edible plants alongside the drought-tolerant backdrop, Yannick still found ways to keep the use of potable water to a minimum. By capturing rain and gray water, and installing a 2650-gallon rain water tank for storage, the garden makes the most of reclaimed water from roof runoff. Water collected in the tank, along with a simple graywater system that reclaims the household’s shower water, is used to irrigate the east side of the garden. Yannick installed a separate graywater system for the laundry machine, which irrigates the garden in the front yard.

Yannick feels rewarded not only by the beauty of the garden, but also by the knowledge that his work to craft a resilient home landscape will contribute to broader efforts by gardeners everywhere to make a more sustainable future.

Plants Used

– A variety of sages
– Manzanitas
– Monkeyflower
– Native Iris
– Ceanothus
– Deer grass
– Toyon
– Laurel Sumac
– Kalanchoe
– Penstemon
– Yarrows
– California Fuchsia
– And so many more