A new landscape by Peggy De La Garza complements a contemporary home.

When it was founded in 1983, Desert Highlands was one of the first North Scottsdale golf communities that celebrated the Southwestern lifestyle and the natural beauty of the Sonoran landscape. 

Practically since day one, landscape designer and Phoenix Home & Garden Master of the Southwest Peggy De La Garza has been on site, shaping gardens for dozens of the community’s residences, reflecting the popular adobe, territorial and Southwest architectural styles.

But, just like when Dylan went electric, the times they are a-changin’. A new generation of Desert Highlands homeowners is updating homes with cleaner, modern lines, and De La Garza has met the challenge with landscapes featuring bold shapes, sculptural forms and fresh colors. 

A recently completed garden exemplifies her modernist shift. “You have to follow the lines of the house,” De La Garza says. “I use fewer varieties of plants and go for a more manicured look.” 

The property was in the midst of a remodel and expansion when it was purchased by an out-of-state couple looking for their place in the sun. Smitten by the backyard views of Pinnacle Peak, the couple brought in De La Garza virtually before the ink dried on the closing documents. “We got the house during the tear-down phase,” recalls the wife. “The yard looked terrible. We know that Peggy is very talented, so we just let her do whatever she thought was best.”

De La Garza’s best was starting with some grading to ensure that rainwater flowed away from the house and contouring to add interest to the front yard. She also salvaged a few trees, cactus and shrubs from the property, establishing a mini-nursery to one side of the property, maintaining the boxed plants during construction. “We do native plant salvage for the City of Scottsdale,” says De La Garza, “so we know how to properly care for these plants.”

As with all of her landscapes, De La Garza trusts her instinct and unerring eye to create her designs. Working with her CAD tech for the basic layout, she’s on site for installation, directing the placement of everything from boulders and craned-in saguaros to rows of seasonal flowers in raised planters. “If I didn’t have these,” she says, wiggling her index fingers, “I’d be in trouble.”

In the front yard, the landscape designer created a “shelf” of boulders that surrounds an ironwood tree and vignette of Argentine giants, variegated agaves and Moroccan mounds. A row of strategically placed armless saguaros provides privacy for a street-facing window, while a vibrant array of Alexandra bougainvillea adds brilliance to a low garden wall. “This variety of bougainvillea looks like hydrangeas,” says De La Garza, “and the color looks great against the neutral wall.”

Working with the backyard’s zero-entry pool, spa and fountain, De La Garza further layered the area with a linear fire feature, raised flower beds and a curving fireplace and rain wall, echoing the rain wall already in place near the home’s entrance. She used a scrim of espaliered pyracantha along a back wall to screen views of a nearby golf course utility building and planted desert natives beyond the wall to further divert the eye from the structure without losing Pinnacle Peak views. 

Within the garden walls, more saguaros, Mexican fencepost cactus, twisted blue cereus, candelilla (Euphorbia antisyphilitica) and agaves provide form and structure, while natal plum, white iceberg roses and Japanese blueberry (Elaeocarpus decipiens) add glossy green sophistication closer to the home’s walls. “Because this is a modern garden, like most of the plants that we keep trimmed here, we keep the Japanese blueberry columnar,” says De La Garza. “It’s a beautiful plant that we use on the east side of a house because it will burn in western exposure.”

For seasonal color to coincide with the homeowners’ winter visits, De La Garza chose different hues of African daisies and rows of red geraniums to fill various beds. The color scheme? “The owners told me to do what I wanted,” De La Garza says with a laugh. “I like red, purple and white.”

Further touches include spots of turf for bare feet and the owners’ dogs, as well as landscape lighting that provides just enough illumination without blasting out the high-desert view of stars and moon. “When you look around here, this garden has clean lines,” says De La Garza. “Plants are more in rows, and the wild look happens outside of the walls.”

The owners were thrilled with the results. “We use the yard all the time when we’re here,” says the wife. “We have parties outside. We set up tables everywhere and have singers by the pool. We’ve done barbecues, too, and, if it’s just us, there’s happy hour each night in the garden.”

And, if there’s ever a question or a droopy plant, De La Garza is on the spot, as she continues to transform or tend the landscapes within Desert Highlands. “I’m here all the time,” she says. 

“I design one area at a time. Somehow, it all comes together.”

-Peggy De La Garza, landscape designer