In the foothills of the Santa Rosa range, where granite scree gives way to the scruffy, burnt-red washes of Deep Canyon, drifts of desert smoke trees (Psorodendron spinosum) thrive. These feathery trees, spectrally grey in dormancy and vividly purple in bloom, are quintessential to the Colorado Desert, their delicacy disguising a hardiness found in all plants that take root here.

Desert Arroyo celebrates this vibrancy and diversity found in the desert’s extensive plant life. The design makes use of an exclusively native palette, featuring flowers, herbaceous shrubs, and trees endemic to the Coachella Valley and the broader Colorado Desert. Fragrant sages and wild buckwheat spring from beds of Blackfoot Daisies; silvery Leucophyllums mix with yellow Brittlebush blooms to beckon pollinators; the elusive roadrunner scurries from a low-hanging Palo Brea.

The dramatic stillness of the desert is made visible in careful design moves meant to accentuate the gifts of the site. Large boulders work to carve pathways, seating, and a firepit at the mountains’ edge; closer to the house they interrupt stone paving, as if the canyon itself were coming through. Desert colors carry through a series of board form concrete walls, where a custom bronze water feature – forged in collaboration with Blue Barn Arts – illustrates a smoke tree in abstraction. Working closely with architects EYRC, the landscape design situates a central living pavilion in an intimate planted courtyard. In the back garden, this pavilion is inset with a square pool placed slightly off-axis, directing views across the arroyo to the foothills beyond.