Wild by Design

Though Eric Cortina has worked at Roger’s Gardens in Corona del Mar for 14 years, it wasn’t until five years ago that the gardening bug bit him. Hard.

Since developing a green thumb, Cortina and David Canzoneri bought a home in Aliso Viejo and transformed the backyard’s two trees, grass and a concrete slab into an oasis.

The yard is impressive enough to be selected a winner of Metropolitan Home Magazine’s annual Met Home of the Year competition for the best use of outdoor space.

Cortina said he knew immediately when he saw the garden it was for him.

“The house is in a cul-de-sac and backs up to the hillside, so the garden is in its own little world,” he said.

With the help of a landscape contractor and designer, Cortina created the garden out of a small, wedge-shaped yard.

Rather than having small, unassuming plants and structures on the property, he chose to add a giant ivy-covered pergola and big, bold plants such as Phormium tenax (New Zealand flax), Pittosporum crassifolium and Cestrum elegans.

“Using the pergola and big plants in the garden makes the space look larger and fools the eye into thinking that the yard continues on into the foothills,” he said.

The pergola is also lighted with low-wattage lighting, as is the hillside, which has the effect of becoming part of the garden at night.

Cortina and Canzoneri do a lot of entertaining in the garden, so they also installed lighting on dimmers over the patio.

Cortina may not have been gardening for long, but he has been collecting pictures of gardens he likes, which helped him create his dream garden.

“I like things to be relaxed and a little bit wild, but at the same time, semi-planned,” he said. “Many gardeners and landscape designers put contrasting plants together, but I find that very harsh and unsettling. I wanted my garden to blend well, so I created groups of plants with similar colors and textures.”

Though he likes flowers and uses them extensively indoors for decorating, he prefers foliage as the center of display outdoors.

“I love the contrast in leaf shapes, sizes and textures and the various colored foliage,” he said. “It makes for a very interesting and pleasing gardening experience.”