Verna Jigour Associates

Description of Work: Having just purchase this home, I wanted a landscape that better reflected my own tastes -- more in harmony with our natural California beauty that I love, and I also wanted to cut landscape water use on the existing lawns. Verna took measurements of my approximately 1/4-acre lot and prepared a base plan showing pertinent existing features, like sidewalk, porch, windows, doors, hose bibs, existing trees and other plants, etc. Meanwhile, I showed her design elements I liked in various books and other sources and we discussed my visions and fantasies, and what's most important to me in my home. We reviewed potential plant choices using photos in books and online sources, and also toured the grounds of a local community college with many thriving, mature native and drought-tolerant plants. Verna introduced me to some wonderful native and water-conserving plants I would not have likely found on my own and she incorporated plants I had been attracted to on my own. She is a botanist and certified arborist; she earned a master of landscape architecture with highest honors and it shows in her plans. She's also a conservation ecologist with a knack for natural harmony, as well as a gardener into edible landscapes herself. While I was deliberating on plant choices, fence and gate ideas, etc., Verna developed a site analysis sheet showing site lines to less favorable views, glare from night lights, noise sources, city zoning fence setback, and other features she considered in developing design options. The contractors who saw that had never seen anything like it. With my input as she worked through the process, Verna developed a beautiful complete design for the front yard that I was ready to install, including some phased elements for possible future installation. She designed the dry "streams" I wanted to lead from roof downspouts, as well as new permeable front walkways that are much more graceful than the former squared-off, narrow concrete walk. She provided guidance for using broken concrete from the demolition that could be stained to mimic flagstone in the new walkways, but I went with real flagstone. She worked the position of new plantings around existing mature plants, which can be cut back and/or removed as the new plantings mature. The new plants are still young, but along with the beautiful bamboo fence and gate I settled on, the front yard has been completely transformed, providing me with wonderful new outdoor spaces to enjoy, and with favorable reviews from my neighbors and other community memebers. Most of all, I am happy to already be getting a lot of enjoyment from it, with more to come as the landscape matures. I'm also happy to be conserving water, both for my own expense and the environment. Verna's phase 1 planting plan, that is itself beautiful, covered the front and side yards, and since I'm still considering design options for the backyard, for that she emphasized trees, shrubs and vines to plant as soon as feasible, to begin establishing shade and screening, considering them in the context of potential future design alternatives. Altogether, she provided me with 8 final plan sheets as pdfs that I can have printed as needed: A. Existing Landscape (including useful house outline that I didn't have before), B. Site Analysis, C. Phase 1 Planting Plan, D. Site Preparation & Planting Notes (specifications for the contractor), E. Irrigation Concept, F. & G. Preliminary Phases 2-3 Design Alternatives 1 & 2, and H. Phase 1 plants & potential future walls, compared with the site analysis. She also provided interim plan pdfs for my review during the process. I'm extremely happy with how my front yard reflects my personality and worldview and I know it will only improve over time.