Natural Talent

Natural Talent

Design Skills Come Naturally For Jessica Elrod of Fresno’s Natural Landscaping

Project Details:

Location: Fresno, California | Build Time 7 weeks, excluding the pool build | Size: Half an acre

Jessica Elrod earned her bachelor’s degree in fine arts and had her sights on a fashion career, but her family roots in landscaping were just too strong.

Her father, Brad Allen, started Natural Landscaping in 1979 in Fresno, California, where she grew up helping the family business. Even while working other jobs and running her own business, Jessica continued to assist her father from time to time. But four years ago, she decided to make a big career change.

Brad Allen

“After having children and seeing my parents ready to slow down, the Lord had a different plan for me,” she says.

Jessica now works full-time for Natural Landscaping as a landscape designer. She puts her trained eye and crisp design skills to use creating beautiful and functional landscapes while attracting a new generation of clients. “When planning their landscapes, younger clients really want a visual, so we do a lot with social media and video as well as using hand drawings and 3D Structure Studios,” she explains.

Natural Landscaping is a licensed California state contractor, handling design through installation. “We work in the entire Central Valley area, which has given us experience in a variety of terrains,” says Jessica.

The company completed a project for the Freeman family in November. The couple had recently built a home on a vacant lot in a brand-new subdivision with very few trees.

Jessica saw the property as a blank canvas with lots of opportunities for creativity.

“Before I begin a project, I give my clients a quiz,” says Jessica. “A lot of times they don’t know what they want—modern or traditional, straight lines or curved edges, formal or informal. So I show them a lot of images and they point out what they like.”

The Freemans love spending time outdoors and wanted a seating area, an outdoor fireplace, a swimming pool and room for plenty of plants. Mr. Freeman collects bonsai plants, so outside the garden shed Natural Landscaping created a special place to display them. Mrs. Freeman enjoys gardening, so the team created a raised bed, complete with a custom trellis, for her tomatoes. Behind the shed are fruit trees, including lime, orange and kumquat.

“The biggest challenge is that the lot is on solid rock,” says Jessica. “We had to use a jackhammer for every single plant.”

But despite the hard work, the finished product looks effortless. Mature, fruitless olive trees grace the property. Lomandra grasses, flowering purple coral bells and variegated Pittosporum soften the hardscapes and the home’s stucco exterior.

“Drought is always an issue here,” Jessica says. “Every job I go to, we need droughtresistant plants, but that doesn’t have to mean only cacti.”

Natural Landscaping uses TigerTurf synthetic grass, which adds lush green spaces without the maintenance or need to water. For the patio, oversized, square concrete pavers were formed on-site. A Duralum patio cover provides shade over one section of the outdoor space on hot days. In the dry beds, Jessica designed a rock garden with smaller two- to four-inch rocks as well as larger Noiya river rock. Beds also contain mini pebble mulch. blossoms in our climate, I like to incorporate lots of different textures and points of interest,” she says.

Before

Before

After

The side of the property slopes, so the team built a retaining wall with precast bullnose that helps prevent erosion as well as creates seating. The wall is finished in an El Dorado stone veneer in orchard cypress ridge. Natural Landscaping built an additional rock wall to create a courtyard as well as an outdoor fireplace in the same stone veneer. “With the fires here in California, you can’t have anything woodburning, so the fireplace is natural gas that ignites with an easy key turn,” says Jessica.

Just steps away from the fireplace, the swimming pool was nearing completion at the time of publication. Jessica’s design includes Spanish tile along with a raised spa and spillway.

The property is exquisite at night thanks to the lighting design. “California nights are beautiful all the time,” says Jessica. “Outdoor spaces are a big extension of living rooms here.”

Natural Landscaping installed uplighting from FX Luminaire to showcase every tree on the property. Cap lights accentuate the stone wall while providing an ambient glow. Downlighting illuminates the pathways throughout the garden and at the front entrance of the home.

After navigating the company through the pandemic as well as area wildfires, Jessica has come out with more confidence that she’s exactly where she needs to be.

“It was a little daunting at first,” she says. “Growing up, I thought landscaping was a man’s world, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Many of our clients are female, and I make them feel comfortable—we relate to one another.”

I’ve found my place as a woman in this industry and have felt very accepted

Get In Touch With...

Jessica Elrod

Landscape Designer

Email: jessica@naturallandscaping.com

Phone: (559) 868–3511

www.naturallandscaping.com