A client’s request for bold, year-round color is fulfilled here with Salvias including ‘Mystic Spires,’ ‘Lipstick,’ and ‘Chiapensis,’ plus heliotrope, ‘Non-stop’ begonia, and camellias. Dramatic flowering plum trees and Cordyline banksii ‘Electric Pink’ add contrast to the foliage of Helichrysum ‘Limelight’ and Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender,’ with a no-mow, drought-tolerant lawn of a flowering Kurapia (c). Boulders serve as visual elements of this multi-zone landscape with a rock-lined water-catchment feature (a Santa Barbara city mandate for on-site water collection) designed to look like a natural creek bed complete with native grasses and the sound of running water. “I felt the required catch basin was going to be too dominant in the landscape,” says Trace. “By installing a fountain, adding varying sizes of native sandstone rocks and sprawling plants to line the length of the basin, we achieved a natural effect.”