Landscape + Garden Design
Gardens for Central Texas homes and shared spaces, planted with natives that hold up to the heat and drawn by hand so you can see exactly what you’re getting.
Residential gardens, a community plaza and a children’s playscape, all around Austin. Plans are shown where a project is still being installed or was a design study.
The entry landing to the house was redesigned, and a wet creek was installed to control the drainage coming off the street — turning a runoff problem into a planted feature that carries water away from the front door.
The neighbor’s Italian cypresses were dying, and with them the property’s privacy. A 15-foot steel trellis went in, planted with native crossvine for quick evergreen cover and a seasonal pop of color. Six months on, it had filled in.
A proposal to turn the plaza into a space for community events, with a shade structure, ADA-compliant access and a low-maintenance planting palette suited to a downtown site.
A front yard barrier of planting and low structure, designed to keep young children safely away from busy street traffic without walling off the house.
A front yard brought in line with the house: a cleaner approach to the porch, planting that reads from the street, and shade kept where it mattered.
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A dated tile courtyard reworked into a shaded, planted outdoor room, with seating and lighting arranged for evening use.
A low-maintenance, low-budget transformation: gravel, a single stone bench and the existing live oaks doing most of the work.
An outdoor dining and entertaining space with a firepit for an active family. Modeled in SketchUp as the final class project in the landscape design program at Austin Community College.
A new children’s play area with an ADA-compliant playscape, a trike track, a shade structure, a vegetable and herb garden, stand-alone activity panels and a secure play area for young toddlers.
A backyard redesign built around Central Texas native and adaptive plants for water conservation, and a complete front-and-back design to be installed in stages: privacy screens, a limestone entry walkway, a chicken coop, and seasonal color from natives.
Plans start as sketches and watercolor. Clients see the garden before it exists, and the drawing stays a record of what was intended.
Three things every project shares, whether it’s a front walk or a whole yard.
Central Texas natives and well-adapted plants come first. They use less water, shrug off August, and bring the bees, which is the point of a garden.
Hand sketches and watercolor for the feel of a space; AutoCAD and SketchUp when a contractor needs dimensions. You see the garden before anyone digs.
Designs are planned so they can be installed over time, the most useful parts first. A good garden doesn’t have to happen all at once, or all at one price.
Staci Osburn is a landscape and garden designer in Austin, trained in the landscape design program at Austin Community College. Her work ranges from small courtyards and front yards to a downtown community plaza and a children’s playscape.
She draws by hand, plants for the climate, and designs with installation in mind, so the plan on paper becomes the garden outside.
Landscape + Garden Design
Have a yard, a courtyard or a shared space that needs a plan? Send a note or call.