WaterSmart makeover: Escondido couple living large in the yard

For The Union-Tribune

Yannick Claerman and his wife Erlinde Cornelis created a found family with the purchase in 2021 of their midcentury-modern home on half an acre in Escondido. The couple, who are from Belgium and moved here about 13 years ago, are now U.S. citizens and have led a pretty eclectic life — one that in no way incorporated gardening.

Claerman is co-founder of Yūgen Kombucha, in Belgium, a fermented tea company that he helps operate remotely. He’s also an award-winning boomerang maker. Cornelis is associate professor of marketing at San Diego State University’s Fowler College of Business, where she teaches sustainable marketing strategy and the undergrad sustainable business consulting program.

The couple had lived in urban and suburban settings without gardens in Belgium and in San Diego. But after doing a six-month road trip that took them to eco villages and B corporations (for-profit organizations certified by the nonprofit B Lab Global for meeting verified performance, accountability and transparency in social and environmental areas), they got the idea of creating a garden that would incorporate the concepts they encountered and that met their specific needs.

Having long lived comfortably in small spaces, they bought the Escondido property with the idea of building a studio to live in where a former carport had already been enclosed, and renting out the house. As it happened, a couple whom it turns out they knew through vegan friends and events, Tracy Childs and Steve Sarnoff, applied on Zillow and moved in. Claerman and Cornelis befriended their next-door neighbors and, by extension, the husband’s dad, Rudy Gallegos. The vegan group has become a close-knit clan that includes Chamise, an outgoing cat that belongs to Claerman and Cornelis.

Once Claerman completed work on the studio, he set to work — with the help of Gallegos — on the very challenging hilly landscape. A lot of bulldozing was involved before they could start the various “rooms,” let alone plant. Once they finished the first, major phase in time for a friend’s wedding party in 2024, Claerman randomly saw on Instagram that Escondido’s water district was taking entries for its 2025 WaterSmart Landscape Contest. He entered and won, receiving a $250 gift card to the nursery of his choice, which was El Plantio Nursery & Landscaping in Escondido.

The inspiration

Claerman not only didn’t grow up gardening, but he also wasn’t a builder. However, he likes working with his hands and, with a master’s degree in geography, he had a well-developed interest in the world around him.

“I’ve always had a fascination for plants and animals and the whole planet,” he explained. “I taught for eight years high school geography, so working with soil and plants and designing a space just is something that I’ve always wanted to do but never had time to do before in my previous life.”

He may have been untrained and inexperienced, but he and his wife had a master plan. For a time they lived in a rented bedroom in a Santee house on 5 acres. They bought an RV and renovated it. It was his first hands-on project.

“I did the plumbing. We built furniture, put in a solar system,” he said.

“And we learned how to design clever stuff in small space,” Cornelis added.

Basically, he did all the work a house would require but on a very small scale — a house on wheels. YouTube videos helped, as did a three-month course he took in furniture making — which is also how the boomerang making started. The project, he said, gave him confidence to take what would be a much bigger endeavor.

Then they set out on their road trip.

“We saw a lot of cool, cool stuff out there,” Claerman said. “We saw how people paid attention to garden design, permaculture design. And from our travels through Europe and Asia, I think we got something of an idea to have a garden for the first time. We put all those ideas on paper.

“We asked ourselves, what do we want from a garden? And it was a place to sit and eat and entertain, but also a place to grow vegetables, to have a fire and then a pond and an outdoor bathroom and an herb garden. On and on. So we made a whole list and slowly we’re developing those spaces. It’s like a lot of outdoor rooms in a larger garden setting.”

“We wanted to see the garden as an extension of our living space, and what functionality could a garden have for us to be an extension of our small space,” Cornelis noted. “Because we live small, obviously, we asked, what do we want? It’s not like we have a living room with couches. So we wanted to have an outdoor living room. That’s why we created those spaces. But it started from a master plan, in the sense that we more or less had the perimeter of the space, and then we just literally started sketching, not even the size exactly, but just sketching like roughly, working with the topography of the land. Where can we do this? Where can we fit in this? And how can we fit in all these elements and still make it look like really cool?”

The couple wasn’t interested in the typical house, lawn and some plants set up. They wanted to incorporate sustainability elements into it, like a greywater system, which could allow them to have more lush tropical plants in their side garden, which would be watered with water from the house and indoor bathrooms, as well as a rainwater catchment from the roof.

The details

Before the couple could move in, Claerman had to renovate the studio that’s below the house. Completed in 2022, it’s now a clean, simple yet cozily elegant white space filled with light, thanks to rounded solarium-style windows with a southern exposure. There’s a built-in couch against the long wall below the window across from their bed and bathroom. Next to that space is the kitchen, highlighted by the vines of two pothos plants spread across the top of the walls on both sides of the room. To the west, the studio looks out onto the tropical side garden shaded by a pergola covered in passion fruit vines.

A path of large round stepping stones leads to a vegetable garden with tomatoes and other vegetables planted in tidy raised beds, and beyond is a path leading to a fire pit and seating area on flagstone that Claerman installed and an outdoor shower beyond that he also installed, with a nearby meditation spot looking out to Mt. Woodson and Potato Chip Rock. He’s got plans to build a pond/soaking tub topped by lilies.

“The shallow end is where the plants will be to filter the water,” Claerman explained. “The deep end is where we can lounge. It’s good for the wildlife, the birds, the animals in the canyon, the plants. It’ll cool down the whole area.”

“Big Sister” — the large, 2,650-gallon cistern they installed to provide water for the shower and irrigation — is nearby. It’s part of a greywater system from Catching H20 in San Diego.

Claerman also installed 11 zones of drip irrigation throughout the property from Rich Leonard SoCal Irrigation Inc. Big Sister sits close to a dramatic rock river that starts above, close to the main house. It’s lined by towering palms, a thick lemongrass bush and banana plants at the top, and a variety of drought tolerant plants like jades in a planting area that abuts a set of stairs leading up to the main house. The boulders that were placed down the center of the bed — and elsewhere on the property — were dug up on site, Claerman said. When it rains, the water soaks the palms, along with the massive oak trees and other plants.

Between the east side of the studio and a tall curvaceous retaining wall is a spacious outdoor dining patio with a composite deck that Claerman installed. He had Coastal Concrete install the wall and other concrete on the property.

While the front of the main house is planted with fruit trees, behind the main house is a spacious lawn of cushy dwarf carpet of stars — all 700 plugs of them.

“It’s fantasylike and it uses a fraction of the water that grass requires,” Claerman said. “You don’t need to mow it, and it flowers twice a year — pink, purple flowers about an inch wide.”

You can see faded jacaranda flowers on the lawn from the nearby tree. There’s another dining area at the far end. Concrete planters filled with even more plants are connected to the house, and on the side of the house is a wood and metal bench that Claerman restored.

The property is thick with dozens upon dozens of plants that Claerman purchased from places including Clausen Nursery, El Plantio Nursery & Landscaping (where he bought plants for the outdoor shower using the gift card for winning from Escondido), Briggs Nursery & Tree (all of the couple’s fruit trees), Moosa Creek Nursery (their native plants), Dos Amigos Nursery and SunSol Nursery.

Consequently, the property attracts loads of wildlife, from butterflies and bees to skunks and possums. The couple installed a bat house, but they’ve had no takers so far.

“I’m happy with the design,” said Claerman, “and I think I want twice as many, three times as many plants. I think that will be good.”

Costs

Claerman and Cornelis estimate that they spent about $55,000 total on everything from hardscaping and plants to gutters and cisterns, decking materials and lighting. They got rebates for the cistern (“Big Sister”), gutters and rock river of $1,573. Claerman and his friend Rudy Gallegos did almost all of the work.

Water saved

The property’s landscape consisted primarily of mature trees when the couple bought it in September 2021. The first phase of the landscaping was finished in May 2024 and Claerman said he had no idea if any water was saved.

A closer look: Yannick Claerman

Plants used: Chinese lantern (Abutilon ‘Tiger Eye’), yarrow (Achillea x ‘Moonshine’), lemon verbena (Aloysia triphylla), sweet almond bush (Aloysia virgata), Texas primrose (Calylophus drumomndii ‘Texas Sundrops’), Ceanothus (Ceanothus griseus horizontalis ‘Yankee Point’), strawflower (Chrysocephalum apiculatum ‘Flambe Yellow’), mirror plant (Coprosma ‘Evening Glow’), red-edged pig’s ear (Cotyledon orbiculata), crassula (Crassula ‘Campfire’), cigar plant (Cuphea ignea), ‘Pink Breath of Heaven’ (Diosma Coleonema pulchellem), heliotrope (Heliotrope ‘Fragrant Delight’), lantana (Lantana montevidensis ‘New Gold’), lavender (Lavandula multifida), lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus), passion fruit vine (Passiflora edulis), stellar geranium (Pelargonium ‘Vancouver Centennial’), peppermint geranium (Pelargonium tomentosum), purple salvia (Salvia greggii ‘Ultra Violet’), blue salvia (Salvia ‘Mystic Spires’), scaevola (Scaevola ‘Blue Fan’), senecio (Senecio ‘Skyscraper’), marmalade bush (Streptosolen jamesonii), honeysuckle (Tecomaria ‘Cape Town Red’), blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum ‘Hello Darlin’), Cedros Island verbena (Verbena lilacina ‘De la Mina’), strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum Sabine), ‘Gold Nugget’ loquat (Eriobotrya japonica), Anna’s apple (Malus domestica ‘Anna’)

Estimated costs and any rebates you got: The total costs so far total about $55,000, with the breakdown being: hardscaping: $30,000, plants: $5,000, gutters and cisterns: $4,000, decking: $15,000, and lighting: $1,000. Claerman got rebates for the cistern, gutters and rock river totaling $1,573.

Who did the work: Claerman hired Coastal Concrete to install all concrete. He and his next door neighbor’s father Rudy Gallegos did the rest of the work themselves with some help from Claerman’s wife Erlinde Cornelis (under the supervision of their cat Chamise).

How long it took, including when you started the project: Claerman started in October 2023 and is still working on it.

Water savings: That’s unknown, since there was little landscape when the couple moved in.

Advice:

• Start by listing what you want from your garden. What functions does it need to have? For us that was: space to eat and sit outside (entertain), grow food, have a fire, take a shower and bath (outdoor bathroom), connect, ground, meditate, read and grow flowers (meadow).

• Make a plan/sketch it out.

• Visualize it by walking in the space and marking the different areas/rooms.

• Work with nature, not against it (we worked around existing trees, obstacles and contours).

• Put all utilities in place before you start planting (irrigation, electric, drainage).

• Plan for resilience (climate is getting hotter and drier so harvest the rain, pick water smart plants, keep water on the property (greywater, swales, drains) and provide shade.

• Invest in soil health (mulch and compost). Your plants will thank you for it and you will thank them later when you have shade, food and beauty.

About the series

This is the third this year in an occasional series on 2025 winners of the annual WaterSmart Landscape Contest, conducted in partnership with the San Diego County Water Authority. To learn about entering the next contest, visit landscapecontest.com.

For details on classes and resources through the WaterSmart Landscape Makeover Program, visit watersmartsd.org. Landscape rebates are available through the Socal WaterSmart Turf Replacement Program at socalwatersmart.com.