Into the Wild

On the top of a hill in California’s Napa Valley, landscape architect Andrea Cochran has added the latest layer to a naturalistic garden using grasses and other plants, which blend into the scenery and thrive in the challenging climate

- TIM RICHARDSON

it is easy to get lost in the wooded hills above the old town of St Helena in California’s Napa Valley. But there are worse places to lose your bearings – the meandering roads on these steep slopes climb through thick forests of native coastal and evergreen oaks, revealing countless secret valleys with boulders and sprouting native grasses.

A rather special house can be discovered at the end of one such road, where the landscape architect Andrea Cochran has enhanced an existing garden with a series of subtle tweaks to the landscape. This approach is becoming popular with designers, with the emphasis on using native or adaptive plants for a sense of continuity with wider nature. The word ‘adaptive’ is used for non-natives that can cope with the dry summers and wet winters.

As Andrea herself puts it, ‘Our work draws boundaries with a controlled palette of materials, creating permeable edges that blur the line between the natural and built environment. This exercise in restraint heightens a sense of the elements – texture, light and movement.’ That can be said about this project, where the design subtly draws attention to aspects of the landscape without it feeling like an ornamental addition.