For The Union-Tribune
When Tom and Patti Watson moved into the corner house on their cul-de-sac street in Oceanside 14 years ago, it came with a traditional lawn, a plum tree and several palm trees, including looming queen palms. For years, they were fine with the watering and the mowing, even the expense of maintaining the palm trees, which mostly involved removing the dead fronds. Until they weren’t.
“In 2021, I started thinking about making a change,” Tom Watson said. “I’d be walking the dog and seeing other examples of things people had done and getting emails from the WaterSmart people.”
At first, he thought he could handle “it” — remove the approximately 1,000 square feet of lawn and some of the palm trees.
“And then I quickly realized, ‘Oh no, I can’t do that.’ The soil and the rocks and the planting, the water management.”
The Watson front yard before the landscape makeover was mostly lawn and palm trees. (Tom Watson)
Watson, who spent 40 years in the laser industry as a principal manufacturing engineer, did research to find help, not just with the manual labor but also a design that would work for their yard and aesthetics. With research, he also learned that the couple was eligible for a $3,000 rebate for removing their lawn, something that would help with the cost of the renovation.
The couple hired residential landscape designer Lisa Bellora of Ornamental Gardens by Lisa in March 2022. It took her a day to develop a design. From there, the Watsons research and found contractor Kevin Nguyen of Four Seasons Landscape, who did the heavy lifting — and within a week, the project was completed.
As time went on, there were some life changes. Patti died in 2025, and Watson lives at their home with their adult son Eric. Earlier this year, Watson got an email from the Oceanside Water District announcing the 2026 WaterSmart Landscape Contest. He applied.
“My wife had passed away,” he explained. “I was retiring. I had more time. I said, ‘Oh, OK. I could actually think about this,’ and then, you know, I put it on my list of things to think about, and then I did it.”
And he won. And with that win he also got a prize; he chose to get a $250 gift certificate to Green Thumb Nursery in San Marcos.
“I told them I often go there just because they have a lot of stuff and it’s convenient,” he said.
“I enjoy just daily just walking in the yard,” said Oceanside homeowner Tom Watson. He and his late wife, Patti, began the yard transformation together. (Brandon Pollard / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The inspiration
While removing the lawn and the effort and expenses it entailed was a big motivator in having a new look for the yard, Watson said they were guided in the new design by his wife’s desire for pollinators, especially butterflies.
“My wife really loved the butterflies,” he said. “That’s why we have this butterfly wind chime,” he added, pointing to a wind chime filled with white glass butterflies swinging in the breeze.
The couple looked around their neighborhood for examples of landscaping they liked — or just plants they were drawn to.
“We were looking for color. We like color, and we wanted water-efficient native plants and pollinators,” Watson said.
They had no particular style in mind, he said, but with that directive, Bellora came up with a Mediterranean palette.
To entice the pollinators, including butterflies, Bellora selected a mixture of Southern California natives, Australian plants from the Mediterranean parts of the country, along with plants from South Africa and Europe.
“These are plants that play well together,” she said. “They have similar water needs.”
Purplish blooms of false heather with a stand of Leucadendron ‘Safari Sunset’ behind bring splashes of color to the yard. (Brandon Pollard / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The details
One of the criteria for getting the turf replacement rebate is to have a plan to capture rainwater. So Bellora designed a swale for the main part of the yard, along with a small one for a strip of yard on the other side of the driveway. For both, she suggested extending the downspouts on both sides of the house.
“I also suggested adding organic matter to the soil to make it more spongy,” she noted, advising the use of worm castings and mulch, adding that would help bank rainwater for plants.
Once Bellora provided them with a plan, Watson — who led the project for the couple — sought help, and after a month, he found and hired Four Seasons Landscape. The first task was to remove the lawn and some of the palms.
There are several ways to remove turf. Nguyen, said Watson, dug it up in sections and pulled it out. After the first year, with the endless winter rains, Watson said they had tons of weeds. But over the years, there have been fewer. The queen palms were also removed.
The contractor dug both swales; the question was how to connect them with the downspouts. While one option to connect them to the swales was to use gravel, Watson opted to run a link underground to send the water to the smaller swale.
Water is routed under the driveway to a mini-swale on the side. (Brandon Pollard / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
“To get the water out of the drain spout, which is on the side of the house, and into the side yard, you have to go under a sidewalk,” Watson explained. “So the contractor did that. They drilled out a section. I don’t know how they did it exactly, but basically they took out the concrete, dug under it, put the water under it, and then put it back.”
For the main swale, the team elongated the downspout, sending the end into the ground under a rock bed.
Irrigation was also addressed. The Watsons’ yard had long had sprinklers but was modified to a drip system, which Watson likes but finds hard to diagnose potential problems.
“I have to do periodic maintenance and check all the water, and make sure that I can turn on the valve and see water is coming out and not blowing up 10 feet in the air, or not dripping,” he said. “But since the drip’s underground, I can’t see it to see if there’s a leak or blockage.”
With all that in place, in came the plants, which Bellora chose from several wholesale nurseries, including Devil Mountain Wholesale Nursery and Everde Growers. These all needed to work well with the western exposure.
One of the more dramatic choices is a stand of tall Leucadendron ‘Safari Sunset’ with its deep pink brachts. They provide some privacy from the main road side of the corner. Nearby are yellow lantana, which is also down by the sidewalk along with elephant’s food and ‘Pozo Blue’ sage, and small cape rush on either side of the large swale. There’s manzanita below the swale and on the driveway side of the yard, mingling with ‘Paprika’ yarrow and Agave attenuata. False heather is at the top of the swale, along with Cleveland sage.
Even amid the intense heat during this visit in August, the low-water and California native plants tolerate the conditions and continue to thrive. (Brandon Pollard / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Up by the front door is a large, thriving Mexican sage bush, accompanied by Dianella ‘Clarity Blue’ and Mahonia ‘Soft Caress.’ And under the front window is a grouping of Peruvian lillies.
Then there’s the little side yard with the petite swale. It’s filled with manzanita, Agave attenuata, ‘Paprika’ yarrow, small cape rush and more yellow lantana.
In the middle of August, not to mention a heat wave, most of the plants were not in bloom but they were tolerating the weather. Watson acknowledged that some of the original plants had succumbed, so he’s purchased and had his gardener plant new ones. He also removed the plum tree after a while.
“Initially we left it in, but then we decided it just didn’t look right,” Watson said.
Watson is enjoying the garden, especially the fact that plant maintenance is a lot less and, compared with the old lawn, they use less water. And his wife Patti loved that she got her butterflies.
The neighbors are enjoying it, too.
“We got a lot of a lot of nice comments from the neighbors and walkers-by, dog walkers and things like that,” he said.
Watson also enjoys the maintenance part of adding back plants.
“Oh, I’m going to get to look for something a little bit new in this corner, you know,” he said. “But then I enjoy just daily just walking in the yard.”
Costs
The Watsons had initially intended to budget $10,000 for the project.
“It ended up being closer to $15,000, but my hope was not based on any knowledge,” Watson admitted. “There were much more expensive quotes that we got for doing this, and so once I got the quotes, I realized that my hope was not realistic. So, you know, between the contractor work and Lisa’s work, it was closer to 15K than to 10K. But then there was the rebate from the water people. That was $3,000.”
So, he split the difference.
Hardy, low-water plants in the front yard. (Brandon Pollard / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
A closer look: Tom Watson
Plants used: Dianella ‘Clarity Blue’ (Dianella hybrid ‘DP401’), Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’ (Mahonia eurybracteata ‘Soft Caress’), Mexican sage (Salvia leucantha), ‘Howard McMinn’ manzanita (Arctostaphylos densiflora ‘Howard McMinn’), foxtail agave (Agave attenuata), ‘Paprika’ yarrow (Achillea millefolium ‘Paprika’), small cape rush (Chondropetalum tectorum ‘El Campo’), yellow lantana (Lantana camara), Peruvian lily (Alstromeria), ‘Platinum Beauty’ lomandra (Lomandra longifolia ‘Roma 13’), false heather (Cuphea hyssopifolia), Leucadendron ‘Safari Sunset’ (Leucadendron salignum × laureolum), ‘Austin Griffiths’ manzanita (Arctostaphylos ‘Austin Griffiths’), ‘Winnifred Gilman’ Cleveland sage (Salvia clevelandii ‘Winnifred Gilman’), ‘Marian Sampson’ coyote mint (Monardella macrantha ‘Marian Sampson’), ‘Pozo Blue’ sage (Salvia ‘Pozo Blue’), elephant’s food (Portulacaria afra), pentas (Pentas lanceolata)
Estimated costs and any rebates: The project cost $15,000. The homeowner received $3,000 from the SoCal WaterSmart Turf Replacement Program for removing the existing turf.
Who did the work: Lisa Bellora of Ornamental Gardens by Lisa did the design and Kevin Nguyen of Four Seasons Landscape was the landscape contractor.
How long it took: The project was done during 2022. It took the Watsons three months to identify a landscape designer, and Bellora did the drawing at the end of March 2022. Then it took a month to find Four Seasons Landscape and schedule the work, which took only one week.
Water savings: Watson said that he’s saved about 30% on water bills based on a review of water usage on the utility’s website.
Advice:
• Look around at examples to give ideas of what you really like.
• Interview landscape architects prior to selection.
• Insist that the garden design is something that you love.
• Interview landscape contractors prior to selection.
About the series
This is the first this year in an occasional series on 2026 winners of the annual WaterSmart Landscape Contest, conducted in partnership with the San Diego County Water Authority. To learn about entering the next contest, visit landscapecontest.com.
For details on classes and resources through the WaterSmart Landscape Makeover Program, visit watersmartsd.org. Landscape rebates are available through the Socal WaterSmart Turf Replacement Program at socalwatersmart.com.