A native garden path between rosemary and boulders, looking over golden canyon hills

A garden should belong to its hill.

Stonecrop is a design-build studio in the Los Gatos hills. We terrace slopes, keep old oaks, move water quietly, and plant for the decade, not the photo. Drawn by hand, built by our own crew.

Start a project (408) 354-8100

Rosemary bank over the canyon — a client's hillside above Lexington Reservoir, year four.

Most of our work is within twenty minutes of our yard in Los Gatos.

Hillsides are the specialty because hillsides are what's here: grade, drainage, oaks you should never take out, and evening light worth building for.

Everett walks every property himself before we take it on.

Los Gatos · Saratoga · Monte Sereno · Los Altos Hills · Woodside

The Amaro property · Saratoga

Terraces under the oaks

Valley oaks standing over the lawn the owners had been mowing for years — As found, March — nine years of mowing, three valley oaks, and runoff headed for the house.

The Amaros called about a slope they'd mowed for nine years because nobody could tell them what else to do with it. On the first walk the problems introduced themselves: winter runoff cutting a channel toward the house footing, and afternoon shade moving under three oaks far too good to touch. The slope was never the problem. It was the design brief.

What we drew, and why

We drew three low terraces that follow the hill's own contours instead of fighting them, and a swale that takes the winter water the long way around — soaking it into the ground instead of sending it downhill in a hurry. The oaks stay, all three. You don't buy shade like that, you inherit it, and then you owe it a garden that won't drown its roots with summer watering. So everything below the walls drinks winter rain and mostly ignores the hose.

Dry-stone coursework in detail — river rounds pinned with slate, a vertical coping course on top — Choosing the face. Every stone has one good side; the wall is the job of finding it.

Dry-laid stone coursework on the middle terrace wall — Coursework, middle terrace. The batter — the wall's slight lean into the hill — does the holding.

Eleven weeks of stone, set by hand. A dry-laid wall drains through its own joints, which on a hillside is not a style choice. Done right, the hill and the wall stop being separate things.

Everett spent two years as a mason's tender before he drew his first plan. He still picks the first stone of every wall.

The top terrace planting glowing against golden hills in evening light — Second October. The butterfly bush was the Amaros' one non-negotiable; the hills got the rest.

The lower dry-stone wall softened by lichen and ferns — The lower wall at year five. Lichen keeps its own schedule; the ferns moved in on their own.

A bare valley oak standing in golden January fog — January, fog in the oaks. A garden that only works in June isn't finished.

Your hillside has its own version of this.Start the conversation →

Sheet L-1 · The Amaro property, drawn

The plan thinks in decades.

This is the working drawing for the hillside you just walked. Tap around it — every mark is a decision. Then let it grow: the difference between year one and year five is the part of the work you can't judge at the ribbon-cutting, and it's the part we design for.

Canopies touch, the understory closes, the walls half-disappear. This is the garden we actually drew.

Key to the drawing

The three oaks came first — the whole composition works around their shade lines and their dislike of summer water.
The quiet hero. It takes roof and hill runoff the long way around and soaks it into the meadow instead of the crawlspace.
Each under thigh height. On this grade, low walls with the right batter hold as well as tall ones — and never read as fortifications.
Faces west on purpose. The evening light was the best material on the property; we gave it somewhere to land.
Deergrass and fescue, mown once a year — the fire-smart, no-lawn answer for the rest of the acreage.

The Wexler property · Los Gatos

An evening garden above the town

A gravel path curving through a planted meadow of grasses — The meadow walk, third summer — deergrass, fescue, yarrow. Mown once a year, watered almost never.

The Wexlers' place faces due west, which in these hills means the best hour of the property shows up around seven on a July evening and leaves twenty minutes later. Their whole brief fit in one sentence: they wanted to be outside when the light comes in low.

What we drew, and why

A west garden is a bet on the evening, so we planted for backlight — grasses that go gold, seedheads that hold through fall — and kept the hardscape simple enough to stay quiet at dusk. Water in a garden like this is sound, not spectacle: one basin, sized to bury the road noise and nothing else.

Hands settling a young plant into the soil — Planting day, October. Always fall here — winter does the irrigating.

Water threading down a mossy stone runnel — The runnel. Enough sound to cover the road, not the conversation.

Everything went in small and young — one-gallon stock roots deeper and catches up inside two seasons — and the budget went to soil and stone, the two things you can't add later.

Grass seedheads glowing gold in low backlight — Deergrass going gold in September, against the hour they bought the place for.

Stone steps lit low in the evening, ivy on the wall — Steps lit for the walk back up. The stone holds the day's heat past dark.

There's an hour like that on your property too.Start a project →

Three people sign this work.

No sales staff, no rotating crews. The person who draws your garden, the person who builds it, and the person who plants it are the three below.

Everett Kohl in the studio workshop — Everett Kohl
Founder · designer
I walk a property three times before I draw a line. The land has opinions. My job is writing them down.
C-27 #1083377 · 24 years in the trade

Mateo Ibarra at work on a stone course, back to the camera — Mateo Ibarra
Build lead
A wall you set by hand is a promise with your name in it. I don't rush stone and stone doesn't rush me.
Photographed mid-course, as usual — he doesn't stop for cameras.

Saskia Lund working through a planting bed with pruners — Saskia Lund
Horticulturist
I plant for year five, not for the photo on planting day. If it looks sparse in June, come back — it's busy underground.
Runs the fall planting calendar and the first-spring returns.

How it goes.

The walk

Everett meets you on the property and you walk it — water, light, grade, what you actually want to do out there. No drawings yet, and no charge for the first walk.

The drawings

Weeks, not days. You get a plan you can hold — the same sheet the crew builds from, drawn for the garden at year five, not the day the trucks leave.

The build

Our own crew, not subs-of-subs. Mateo runs one project at a time, which is why the calendar, not the price, is usually the honest constraint.

After

We come back — first fall, first spring. Planting is the start of a garden, not the end of a job.

Sheet W-0 · The first walk

Start a project.

The first walk is a conversation on your property — no charge, no drawings yet, no pitch. Leave a name and a number and Everett takes it from there.