ViolaGardens

06/23/2023

06/01/2023

Come join our team! We are a small, boutique design-build firm looking for a junior design associate with creative impetus, a solid work ethos, a collaborative spirit, a passion for ecology, plants and design, an eagerness to learn and base design skills and experience to build upon 🔥��DM for more information on details of position or email resume and portfolios to [email protected]�🙌🏾 🎨🙌🏾��“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it.” - Martha Graham��

01/19/2023

Being brave enough to try something new can open the door to personal growth. We know that there are at least 60,000 distinct species of tree. Isn’t that amazing? This is because, over many thousands of years, they’ve adapted to the different situations they’ve found themselves in. Clever sycamores, for example, learned to turn their seeds into mini helicopters, so the wind carries the large seeds away from the shade of the parent tree without it needing to produce a fruit to be munched by birds and animals. Just remember, someone has to be brave enough to be the first to branch out.
-“How to be more Tree: Essential Life Lessons for Perennial Happiness” by Liz Marvin

This book, a gift from my closest gal on my birthday last year, now upon me yet again and just days away. Getting older is a great teacher. Learning to accept and be with the changes we go through, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Accepting the passage of time and watching our loved ones grow older alongside us is humbling. Knowing everything will follow it’s natural path and inherent design and that in the end, every day is precious. Not to be wasted. Ever more grateful for the practices that keep me in alignment with my highest and wisest self - my yoga practice, writing, community, gardening, designing, drawing - mothering, showing up for my (soon-to-be) husband, my parents, my sisters. I moved to California 25 years ago, like the little seedling helicopters, blowing in from NY and by the grace of god, found earth to grow roots, sky to rise high, courage to branch out and listen to the quiet voice in my heart that led me down the permaculture path to pursue a career as a garden artist and builder. Single mom, musician, poet and earth steward. Cheers to the brave hearted, cheers to the edge-thinkers, the out-of-the-box believers, the passionate and purposeful! To all my fellow aquarian odd balls.

Photo by my friend

01/18/2023

Blue Notes 🎵 Texture, form and composition create an elegant and graceful winter garden while we await spring’s soon to follow blossoms and blooms. 💙🦋💙

01/10/2023

Taking a moment to marvel at the majesty and power of the various ecological worlds that inhabit our one shared world. Last night the wind ripped in topanga canyon, in the mountains by the sea. 10 inches of rain and some mother trees fell, homes flooded and boulders, mud and debris slid. Made me think about something I was asked years ago— “where are you in the water shed?”
What flows to you and what flows on from you? Where do you get your water? What can you store and reuse, what can you direct onward and to where? How can you support your patch of earth and capture what you need while maintaining balance?

Water, like energy, flows from one place to the next always creating conditions for the next thing to happen. Reflecting on the many ways water moves, in the deserts held as stored potential energy in cacti, as volcanic geysers creating alchemical beauty and moving from deep within molten cores and shooting high into atmosphere, in redwood forests creating conditions for towering growth and ecosystems hundreds of feet above our heads.

Still one of the most marvelous currents of energy is human life. Powered by water, our bodies are made up of 78% water. Add to this our ability to love and empathize and help /be a part of and build relationships.

What a world we live in.
Here’s to being a part of the solution and never losing our sense of wonder in a world of constant change.

01/06/2023

One of my first projects I designed and built I. My early years in LA was this lovely hillside home for a friend of mine. She is an artist and the home, designed by the deeply talented Simon Storey from .architects , is an impeccable work of art itself. The impetus for the project came about because there was a mudslide from the house above this one that had slid into the property and demolished the home and landscape. I was young and green but had about a decade of planting and restoration experience under my belt. I knew that while some structural retaining was imperative that we could repair and regenerate the landscape with native plants, many of which have roots three times the size of the upper body. “Erosion control” is part of our natural landscape here in the west. The oak woodland habitat and coastal sage brush communities have kept the hillsides in place along the west coast for thousands of years, and do so because of the ecological balance that they share with the oak trees and the vast and diverse habitat of birds, pollinators, insects and mycelium. Together they create conditions for regeneration beneath the ground, in the soil, where the roots gow deep and strong and balanced.

At some point someone made a decision many years to impose landscape design solutions in garden design and move away from what nature has shown us for millennia - works! The rains we are experiencing in the west are intense, couple with years of drought, increases Santa Anna winds and fire, we can heed the guidance of natural systems and consider what’s possible in our own small patch of earth. This garden is entirely drought tolerant, pollinator friendly and still growing roots, 15 years later. 🌦️🌈🌳

Native and regenerative landscaping is revolution disguised as gardening.
Ringing in the new year with blessings for rain and gratitude to earth’s wisdom. Looking forward to making some amazing new gardens this year 🙏🏽

01/02/2023

Stay close to anything that makes you feel alive- Hafiz

Happy new year ✨

Photo

is a

Grateful for these blessed rains, and for my daughter, my partner, my beloveds and the gift of life.
Wishing all my friends a peaceful start to a prosperous, healthy and inspired year ahead. X. Jessica

12/21/2022

Let the light in ✨

Happy solstice and blessings in the new year!

Door design by the talented at the beautiful Fryman Canyon project featured on our site. Link in bio 🎄

12/19/2022

Tessellation and shapes and textures I discovered on a quick trip to Valle de Guadalupe.



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12/15/2022

"Can you speak Bocce?"
"Of course I can, sir. It's like a second language to me…"
"Yeah, all right. Shut up."
"Shutting up, sir."
―Owen Lars and C-3PO[1]

In addition to being the interplanetary trade language in Star Wars, Bocce, originally documented in Egypt in 5200 B.C , spread throughout the Middle East and Asia, eventually adopted by the Greeks and found it’s way to Rome where it became what we know it to be today, the worlds 3rd most popular sport.

So much to learn about Bocce!

I remember loving to play this game with my Italian American family and now, love building these playful courts for our clients, surrounded by plants and garden spaces that inspire.

This one lives in Pasadena! Photographer

A place to gather and enjoy in a garden is a treasure. ♥️

12/13/2022

Piano stairs 🎶 outdoor kitchens and hand prints over time. Post-Woolsey re-envisioned. 🌱 More time is needed for this freshly-planted garden to grow in but with these blessed rains, spring is nearly guaranteed to blossom and bloom with wild discovery.

Funny side note on this project, this house also sat squarely in the line of the Woolsey fire in 2018 however there was a random boulder in a sea of apple sedum outside the former entrance that is where a large and flying ember landed, saving the structure. While there was still much to replace and revive, this house remained. Built in the 50s when point dune was a quieter place. The planting of this garden with over 3000 plants and ancient olives was an epic experience. The symphony of birds and dragonflies and butterflies and hummingbirds that came to the party when these plants went in the earth was truly spectacular. So excited to see this one unfurl.

Thanks to for saving these hand prints and to for helping me bring these musical stairs to life.

Hope your holidays are off to a lifted tune!

12/08/2022

Grateful for our inspired team of creatives, designers and project managers, not to mention the stellar craftsmanship of our artisan builders in the field. One of our lovely designers drew portraits of some of our keys staff members recently in lieu of taking photos. We each shared a few things about ourselves that perhaps the others didn’t know and Kianh brought them to life in this wonderfully creative sketch.

One thing I have found to be true over the 15 years of growing Viola Gardens is that nothing can be created from a place of fear. Fear blocks the creative impulse and stifles possibility. The more personal allowance there is for each person to discover and express their creative purpose and edge, and the more trust we build both in how we work together and the work we create for our clients together, the more dynamic and unique the ideas we can forge and bring to life. Just like an ecosystem, any collective, and especially small businesses, thrive in relationship - which is the essence and heart of permaculture design. Understanding the intrinsic characteristics of what makes each person unique, what inspires and lifts them in their own lives, illuminates how we can optimize relationships within our collective. It illuminates the strength in our shared alliances and principles and the courage in the places where we are different but overlap. We look forward to the cultivated and new collaborations over this next year ahead!

12/04/2022

“A Hundred Bells: Understanding Patterns in Nature on the Path to Empowerment” is a richly illustrated exploration of patterns in nature and principles of Permaculture as tools for personal growth and community alliance. This book explores ecology, landscape design, poetry, science and art with the intent to illuminate how and why nature does what it does- and our place within it.

Consider it among your holiday gifts this season! 🎄🥰🙏🏽

Photography by and Illustration and layout by

I appreciate your support and am grateful for the many allies I have found over the years. From the bottom of my heart ♥️ Jessica

BUY this book HERE >>>www.ahundredbells.com

Topanga locals can find us
And

12/02/2022

I love playing with color, like a drop of paint that will grow and change and spread and drip or drop.
I grew up and spent many years playing piano and singing songs. You have only so many notes and keys to play with and yet every song tells its own story through sound.
Creating gardens are the same. I don’t ever exactly know exactly where each plant will take root until the plants show up, day of. I work with palettes and zones but the specific grouping and placement is an art that is felt and inspired and thought through onsite, in the landscape. Taking in contours and shapes, sunlight and shade, insects, butterflies, bird and animal habitat, sight lines, water and its movement, function and form.

What color combinations inspire you?

Photos from a beautiful and freshly planted landscape in Pr Dune. Taken by my friend

12/02/2022

This perfect marble bowl from our new friends at made all the sweeter with these perfect local lemons. Thank you .interiors and for the touching gift! You are such talented women and designers and I love collaborating. You made my day 🍋♥️

Lemon as

11/27/2022

Thank you to once again to our dear friends for all your support! We are so delighted to be included in the Icons and Innovators feature in the Nov/Dec 2022 issue, now out in print!

11/24/2022

We can starve together or feast together.” “I close my eyes and listen to the voices of the rain.” “Never take the first plant you find, as it might be the last—and you want that first one to speak well of you to the others of her kind.” “Each person, human or no, is bound to every other in a reciprocal relationship.-Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Moments of quiet gratitude over these past days. 🙏🏽 From mountain to desert . Happy Thanksgiving and blessings to all ✨

11/20/2022

I want to give a big shout out and a full expression of gratitude to our incredible design and project management team. From conceptual designs through design development right into installation, I am so grateful to work with this talented, kind, flexible and inspired group of humans. Today and over the years. This business has grown significantly over the past several years which is no small feat. I am humbled by all the effort that has gone in and goes in behind the scenes and across the board. Check out some of our recent portfolio work ✨

11/20/2022

Working in residential homes at large, close to people’s most intimate lives, there is a vulnerable humility that is shared between clients, myself, my crew and staff. I have never taken this for granted as a designer or builder. Trust, integrity and respect are part of the conscious fabric of this business. Through the pandemic, knowing so many were going through so much and yet, we could still dream a garden together, we could plant a garden together and actualize possibilities in the landscape. We fostered connection.

I planted gardens in homes with families whose loved ones were dying of Covid 19. 
I planted gardens in homes with families who were giving birth and beginning the magic carpet ride of parenthood, or adventuring out to the ‘country’ to fulfill a dream and homestead.
I planted gardens in homes after wildfires and through extreme heat waves, in deep, heavy rains and on the look out for murder bees.

As far as I can tell, we are strengthened not in spite of our humanity but because of it.
Life systems are regenerative because there is a humble reciprocity that extends energy and resources out, in support of the whole. There are values that are innately shared in regenerative systems like trust, respect, acceptance and understanding.
Simply, natural systems thrive because of the good relationships that are formed in diverse settings.

We have all lost loved ones over these past several years and know the precious gift of life that only death can teach.
Life and death are just points in a cycle in time and nothing in nature is dead for long.
Everything always coming from one place and moving towards another with the constant motion of energy.
In the end, the journey - life, evolution, death, acceptance - is paramount to the stories we carry in our blood and bones.
At the coming close of another year and the advent of a new one, may we plant seeds of truth, understanding, acceptance, transcendence, forgiveness, peace and always, Love.

11/15/2022

Happened upon the full-length online (and deeply gracious) feature on me and our work in this years’ past Jan/Feb 2022 national issue of , written by the lovely Grace Huntley.

Like most things noble, change happens one small step at a time. Small repeatable patterns that become how we embody our lives. In this case, we can heal and regenerate the landscape one home, one family, one garden at a time. Soul to soil! So grateful for the opportunity to do this work 🙏🏽

You can read the article here!

https://luxesource.com/jessica-viola-landscape-architect/ #.Y3QZrRaIYWN

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11/15/2022

This beautiful landscape, once filled with an acre of grass and apple sedum, survived the Woolsey and has undergone a soulful transformation. While it will need some time to grow to size and show it’s true colors, for today I’m so happy to see how this garden is transforming the landscape, just a few months in.

With over an acre now of drought tolerant and deeply beneficial CA native plants, ancient olives, fruit trees and vegetable beds, the dragonflies and butterflies and bumblebees and hummingbirds aren’t the only ones who came to celebrate the regeneration!

The pergola and piano decks are made with garapa wood, the twisty timber steps made w pressure treated landscape timbers. The tile which invites you in at the front of the house is tea ceremony in sea green from .

8 months of installation and years of musing with these clients and friends. Grateful for the contribution to all who helped bring this to life, including and our in house team of artisans, including Rico, Antonio, Juan Garcia and myself.
Behind the scenes all of our house designers, drafters and project managers touched this project and helped steam line efforts in a deeply appreciated and coordinated production.

I look forward to sharing more as the roots deepen and blossoms reach towards the sky in spring.

Photos by the lovely

11/08/2022

From pen to paper to larger than life. We had such a fun and creative time building this grand entrance. Playing with angles and lines and discovering new creative ways of using geometry to make sense of angles and steep grades and mixed materials. Thanks to for working with me on this one and for your fine, artistic carpentry!



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11/08/2022

Returning from a short, much needed and blessed yoga retreat with my community from . 5 days aside to unplug and reset body mind and soul.

I have practiced yoga for over 20 years and I am eternally humbled by the re-membered lessons which inspire, open and enchant my perspective. My work, my life, my passions and purpose.

Learning how to work with my own nature, my body my mind and my resistance reminds me to make space for what’s new and fresh and possible. Twists remind me to revolve around myself and see things from a new angle. Heart openers like back bends help me soften so I can be a medicine in my relationships. Hip openers remind me to have faith in my own stability and resource from the abundance that exists within. Practicing to use my breathe and my clear focus strengthens my body and builds stamina, teaching me to tolerate discomfort which is inevitable.

I’m so grateful for the practice of this spirited craft, for the new friendships, the lifted discoveries, the reminders and the strong community Over the years.

11/03/2022

Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost. -Erol Ozan

Every garden finds its soulful narrative by mapping out destinations and keystone moments from which one can discover points of connection with ourselves, our loved ones and the natural world.

And just as every garden is unique, so is the land, the contours and ultimately, the pathways which connect the relationships between these various moments within the landscape.

Making sense of natural shapes and contours while trying to use precast or poured pavers with right angles can illuminate a creative geometric challenge sometimes. And often times leading us to innovative discovery, surprise and flow!

Here are a few of the paths we have created which helped us get around some twisty turns not by avoiding the distinctive angles but leaning in to them!

Thanks for the beautiful photos!

10/27/2022

There was a time 15 years ago when I lived in a 200SF tiny house at the top of a ridge, above the clouds, in the Santa Monica Mountains. Life was simple. I planted gardens, I was in a band and played music weekly, I practiced yoga, I didn’t own a lot or need a lot. I could fit my life into my 1996 Saab convertible (with the top down) which doubled as a “truck” that I used to carry my gardening tools, my amps, my keyboard and maybe a few plants.

But even in a small 200 SF space, I felt a sense of home and belonging because I would weave ritual into my daily practice. Every day I would observe the ground squirrels, the hawks, the jays sit on their perch or a rock at the top of the ridge and watch the sunset and sunrise. Every day there was the ritual honoring by this wild nature of the coming and going of the day. As the sun rose and set, there was shared silence and for a moment, (it seemed) a pervasive peace and stillness. Having built my life stone by stone over time with very little resources, I lived for many years very simply, efficiently and humbly.

The cornerstone of my design practice (and personal practice), as well as my felt sense of “home”, has always been oriented on our human sense of place, of relationship within a space. Regardless of how big or small, how open or confined, the rituals and practice that we carry into our lives is what make a house a home, turns a landscape into a garden.

There are rituals I still practice every day. Lighting a candle and a little incense in the morning to welcome the dawn, making my coffee with attention and love, reading something inspiring before I check texts or emails, writing something from my heart while the quiet of the night is still present, singing a little song to awaken my voice and setting my intentions.

What is the narrative of your home and what are the rituals that connect you to your space with heart and soul?



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10/20/2022

Perspective - we use it or we lose it. Design is a practice for me, often, of turning things upside down and inside out. Of exploring perspectives I may have missed, seeing a space and the flow from different angles. Understanding how to create movement with edge. Breaking up hard lines and right angles to create movement- Like music- creates softness and nuance. In this way, the transitions and thresholds direct pathways and access points as we move towards our destinations. If a garden is a place to discover more deeply who we are and how we live in a space, how we come together with each other and ourselves within the cradle of nature to observe and listen and feel, discovering new perspectives and letting go long enough to see things a new way is a foil perhaps, for discovering parts of ourselves we never knew were there.



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10/20/2022

Spirals, screens, vines and views. Custom fencing and artistic touches on this special property in topanga canyon.



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10/17/2022

As a women led and women owned company, we understand how much of an honor and a privilege it is to not only get to practice an art and a craft that what we love but to regenerate the earth and inspire people to do the same through beauty.

Sadly, we still live in a world where in many places women are having to fight for basic human rights with their very lives, not to mention living in community and not feeling empowered to choose their own path and direction in this life.

I love women. I love being a woman, I love empowering women, I love working with women. I believe in women and feel truly honored to be able to mentor, inspire, teach and steward other women, including my own daughter, on her search to find and follow her own spark.

My heart goes out to the women in Iran today. And to all the women, including those in our own country here in the US, who have ever felt disempowered, belittled or abused.

My prayer is that like a garden, we learn to find ways to forge relationships in a diverse landscape, fostering strength with respect and lifting each other, all people, up in ways that leads to a more regenerative, engaged, creative, healthy and magnanimous world.

10/12/2022

Amidst one of the worst droughts on record on the west coast with planting season here, in the spirit of wanting to help regenerate landscapes with site appropriate, native/drought tolerant and architecturally relevant plants, as well as help facilitate the gift of a garden to more people, we are excited to begin offering simple planting plans with curated plant lists and layouts at an affordable flat rate.

The planting plans are designed to give anyone looking to remove their lawn a personalized road map that can carry them through visioning to actualizing. Alongside this, we will be hosting a composting workshop and sheet mulching tutorial over the next few weeks to support the removal of lawns and rehabilitation of gardens.
Keep an ear and eye out and we will share more information here over the next days ahead!! For more information you can also email [email protected]🍀🌿

The wonders of watching a garden grow are endless and available to all! The chain reaction of called in pollinators, birds, butterflies, dragonflies, frogs, butterflies, bumblebees- LIFE- not to mention the curious splendor of witnessing and nurturing life as it unfurls and transforms inspires so much hope and belief. Hope and belief that can heal a weary world.

These sketches were drawn by our incredibly talented in-house designer 🙏🏽

Plant photos by our beloved