Viola Gardens

Viola Gardens is a full-service, boutique landscape design and build firm that has been curating ecologically sustainable and artistically conceived landscapes throughout Los Angeles County for nearly two decades.

Founded and led by Jessica Viola — one of the few fully licensed female landscape designers and contractors in California — the firm is rooted in regenerative design, ecological literacy, and the belief that landscapes are living systems capable of healing land, people, and community. Over the last 18+ years, Jessica has become a recognized leader in ecological landscape resilience work, crafting solutions informed by climate reality and the unique ecological conditions of Southern California. Her work integrates native and fire-resilient plant communities, water harvesting systems, erosion mitigation, habitat restoration, and strategic site planning — all guided by permaculture ethics and whole-systems thinking. Every garden is designed not just to look beautiful the day it’s installed — but to stay beautiful, adaptive, alive, and ecologically functional for decades to come.

Beyond founding Viola Gardens, Jessica is also the creator of The Art & Ecology Studio in Malibu — a botanical showroom, community gathering space, and nonprofit learning hub dedicated to creative ecology, education, art, and regenerative cultural practice. The Studio now hosts workshops, talks, salons, ecology celebrations, biodiversity lectures, and experiential learning programs — weaving nature education, artistry, and community into one shared living classroom.

Jessica is also the author of A Hundred Bells: Understanding Patterns in Nature on the Path to Empowerment — a book that blends ecology, poetry, photography, and philosophy to illuminate how the patterns of the natural world can be used as tools for personal growth, collective evolution, and creative resilience.

At Viola Gardens, every landscape is approached as both art and ecology — a living composition that reflects identity, place, and purpose. Our gardens often include contemplative spaces, yoga platforms, labyrinths, food forests, amphitheaters, artist corners, biodynamic plantings, farm-totable dining spaces, custom stonework, sculptural landforms, and play environments. We paint with plants — layering form, texture, color, scent, movement, and seasonality — creating deep emotional resonance and experiential beauty.

For 20 years, Viola Gardens has helped communities across Los Angeles and the Santa Monica Mountains rebuild, regenerate, and reimagine what is possible. Each landscape we build is a future-legacy — rooted in care,built with intention, and designed for resilience, reciprocity, and belonging.