The oak supplies what classical design depends on: a single dominant form, strong proportion and a sense of permanence. The organic layer answers it with low, textured planting and natural limestone arranged in curves that follow the spread of the limbs and the drip line, and the colours come from the bark and the native stone.

Remove the existing crepe myrtles. They need heavy seasonal pruning and drop litter, and their stiff, upright habit fights the organic lines of the oak.

Replace them with softer, more atmospheric textures: sweet almond verbena for its airy, fragrant white plumes, and Texas mountain laurel for glossy evergreen structure and dramatic purple spring blooms. Both are native-adapted, need less maintenance and add more drama through the seasons.

Root zone

Beneath the drip line. No grade change or excavation, only mulch and shallow groundcover.

Rock bed

A culinary rock-bed garden along the fence. Natural limestone set into the soil like a native outcrop, with lavender, rosemary and thyme growing between the stones for cooking, fragrance and easy harvest close to the deck.

Resting

Limestone boulders set as informal seating under the dappled canopy.

Patio

An open, sunlit gathering space with a curved edge that blends into the lawn.

• No soil cut or fill within the drip line
• Boulders set on grade, with no footings
• Patio resurfaced in place, with no new footprint
• Irrigation kept clear of the trunk flare

Lavender

Lavandula angustifolia

Prostrate rosemary

Rosmarinus officinalis

Creeping thyme

Thymus serpyllum

Sweet almond verbena

Aloysia virgata

Texas mountain laurel

Dermatophyllum secundiflorum

The front is a xeriscape rain garden: a planted swale that takes runoff from the roofline and the drive, slows it, and lets it soak rather than sheet to the street. The strip already falls toward the walk, so the creek follows that grade instead of fighting it.

This is not a mass planting. Twenty-eight to fifty-one plants across the three areas, every shrub and grass at 5 gal, set with room to reach size. The stone carries the composition and the plants punctuate it. Cenizo and prickly pear for structure, muhly for movement, herbs where they can be reached from the walk.

Small, street-facing, and hemmed by hard edges. If the rock band holds its line there, the same detailing holds across the front.

Channel

Rounded river rock at 3 to 6 in., armouring the line where water moves fastest. 33 yd³ in four loads.

Margin

Five cubic yards of pea gravel between the stone, feathering into soil so the edge reads as deposition.

Bed

Xeric planting set back from the channel, all 5 gal, spaced to reach mature size.

Edge

Steel edge flush to the turf line. Bermuda stripped to the edge and hauled off.

• No decomposed granite. It migrates in rain, stains the walk and tracks indoors.
• No crushed aggregate in the channel. Rounded stone only.
• No plastic or aluminum edging.
• No grade change within the oak drip line.

Fall is the window for native planting here. Roots establish through a mild winter and the bed enters its first summer already anchored.

Nectar

Cenizo and skullcap carry bloom for native bees and hummingbirds through the warm months.

Seed

Muhly and inland sea oats hold seed into winter for sparrows and finches.

Shelter

Boulders set partly buried, and grass left unmown, give lizards and beneficial insects cover a lawn never offered.

Hand-water for 90 days. After that, run the drip deeply and rarely. Cut the grasses back once in late winter and top the rock only where it has thinned. No mowing in these beds and no seasonal colour to replace.