Actual Art brings fresh expression to landscape design for Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. Offering sustainable landscapes of distinctive style, Actual Art features Rock Gardens, California Native Meadows, Edible Landscapes, Japanese Courtyards and the Classic Mediterranean Style. Every design by Actual Art Landscape is an original composition, custom-made for your home.
Services
I show you my Portfolio and describe different styles of landscape, plant palettes and choices in hardscape construction. I ask your budget for the project so I can design a landscape that you can afford to install and maintain. A landscape is more than a collection of plants. A landscape is an artifact, an intentional construction designed to create emotional impact.
A successful landscape begins with a vision. When I consult with you, we create that vision together. We find out how you want your landscape to look and the purposes it should serve. Do you prefer a traditional or contemporary style? Would you like to see formal flower beds bordering a patio or winding trails through California sages and Ceanothus?
I'm an artist. I've been drawing since childhood, making pictures in all sorts of media: pencils, pen, paint, crayon and collage. I've also built scale models, designed clothes and quilts, made greeting cards and illustrations, and grown lots and lots of gorgeous gardens. Every day, I wake with fresh ideas.
Reviews (4)
Leslie Ekker
Dec 11, 2018
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We’ve been working with Actual Art Landscape Design for a few weeks now, and we have to say, we are glad we are.
Carol is an artist. We are an artist/designer couple, now living in our new modular prefabricated sustainable home (by the wonderful folks at Method Homes) in the Westside of Santa Barbara. We appreciate her knowledgeable thoughtful, considered advice, and we also appreciate her flexibility when we have requests or differences in design. Her fun quirky ways are still so professional. She’s the real thing, hands-on with a healthy dose of art. Actual art! She can handle our creative
Carol is an artist. We are an artist/designer couple, now living in our new modular prefabricated sustainable home (by the wonderful folks at Method Homes) in the Westside of Santa Barbara. We appreciate her knowledgeable thoughtful, considered advice, and we also appreciate her flexibility when we have requests or differences in design. Her fun quirky ways are still so professional. She’s the real thing, hands-on with a healthy dose of art. Actual art! She can handle our creative
J. Scott
Sep 11, 2018
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Actual Art’s proprietor, Carol, stresses the artistic nature of her landscape designs. I can’t know her thoughts, but my impression is that Carol “sees” completed gardens while viewing a blank slate of dirt and weeds, perhaps as a sculptor sees his creation before he picks up the chisel.
Harmony, proportion, cohesiveness, I get the relevance of all that in a somewhat abstract way, from a firmly rational perspective. But this art comes with something that speaks to my left-brained personality — a healthy dose of engineering.
A garden is a living thing. Plants grow, seasons change
Harmony, proportion, cohesiveness, I get the relevance of all that in a somewhat abstract way, from a firmly rational perspective. But this art comes with something that speaks to my left-brained personality — a healthy dose of engineering.
A garden is a living thing. Plants grow, seasons change
Gregory Hyman
May 20, 2018
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Leslie E.
Apr 28, 2018
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We've been working with AALD for a few weeks now and we are loving it. Carol is an artist and also very knowledgeable, with great ideas and connections to some AWESOME trades people. Stone work, earth forming, irrigation, her team is top drawer! We are designers, very capable ones, and my wife is an artist with very high aesthetic standards. Carol is up to our challenges, and she's helping us create a varied, and appropriate sustainable environment that jibes with our house-of-the-future approach. Very professional, but loads of personality, we appreciate her unique yet professional way
