Landscaping Olde Del Mar

Last updated: 2026-08-22

Landscape Design and Construction in Olde Del Mar

Arcadian Landscape designs and builds yards in Olde Del Mar, the older village grid west of Camino del Mar between the numbered streets and Coast Boulevard. We handle design, grading, hardscape, planting, irrigation, and lighting on lots that are steep, narrow, and fully exposed to salt air off Seagrove Park.

Last updated: August 2026

The village lots are small and the houses sit close to the street. Most of what we build here happens on a side yard eight to twelve feet wide or on a rear pad that drops hard toward Crest Canyon.

What the ground does west of Camino del Mar

Sandstone shows up shallow on the bluff side. On a job off Stratford Court we hit weathered sandstone at 22 inches while digging footings, which turned a one day excavation into two and a half days with a breaker. The flats closer to 10th Street are sandier and dig easy, but they drain so fast that new planting needs amendment or the water runs straight past the root ball.

Grade is the other constant. A rear yard falling 6 percent toward the canyon reads as flat on a photo and eats a retaining wall in real life. We survey before we draw.

Design review and the view question

Del Mar looks closely at height, bulk, and view corridors, and that shapes what we can put in a yard. Tall hedging on a west property line is usually the first thing to get flagged by a neighbor. We solve screening low instead, with grade changes, seat walls, and a planted berm that gives privacy at seated height without blocking anyone's water view. It works better anyway. A six foot ficus wall in salt air is a maintenance bill, not a design.

Plants that hold up three blocks from the water

Onshore wind carries salt across these lots most afternoons from March into October. What survives without babysitting:

• Agave attenuata and dudleya on the exposed west side
• Coast rosemary, lemonade berry, and toyon for structure
• Westringia and sea lavender where we need something to fill fast
• Coast live oak on the inland side of the block, never on the bluff face

We plant 5 gallon stock over 15 gallon on coastal jobs. Smaller material roots in faster here and catches up inside two seasons, and it costs the homeowner less to get there.

Irrigation and lighting on a village lot

Static pressure on the old village mains often reads high, into the 70s and low 80s PSI. Drip wants 25 to 30 PSI at the emitter, so a pressure regulator at the valve is not optional on these blocks. We have opened boxes in Olde Del Mar with three decades of splices in them and no working common wire. When the wiring is that far gone we rebuild the manifold and pull new wire rather than chase it. See our irrigation repair and install page for how we scope that.

For lighting we run solid brass fixtures on 12 volt line. Aluminum pits and fails within a couple of years this close to the surf. Details on our landscape lighting page.

What it costs in the village

A planting and irrigation refresh on a typical Olde Del Mar front yard usually lands between $12,000 and $30,000. A rear yard with a paver patio, a retaining wall, drainage, planting, and lighting generally runs $60,000 to $175,000 depending on grade and access. Access is the swing factor. When a crew cannot get a machine past the side gate, base rock and soil move by wheelbarrow and the labor line climbs. We say that at the first walk rather than at the change order.

Who does the work

Evan Weisman runs design on every Arcadian Landscape project. He holds a degree in Landscape Design from CSU and California Contractor License #978145 (C-27 Landscape Contractor), bonded and insured, with over a decade of hands on design and construction work in San Diego County. The person who draws your plan is the person walking the site during the build.

If we built something for you in the village, mention the street and the work in your Google review. Homeowners a block away read those and it tells them more than any photo we could post. Nearby work is on our Del Mar landscaping and Del Mar Heights pages, and the full process is laid out under landscape design.