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Yvette Ensign has been in the landscape design business for more than 35 years and can attest to the evolution of what landscape design now involves — creating more of a lifestyle than simply creating a nice yard — due to the demands of today’s homeowner.

“It’s not just having a backyard anymore. It’s having an extension of their home where they can have an outdoor kitchen, a seating area, and just extend their living area,” said Ensign, who grew up in Tucson and has been a sole proprietor as well as a part of large design firms in Tucson and Southern California. A graduate of Salpointe Catholic High School and the University of Arizona landscape architecture school, she has been operating Ensign Design for the last 20 years.

While Ensign’s primary business has been in prominent, large-scale projects such as Rancho Sahuarita south of Tucson, the Hilton El Conquistador in Oro Valley, and a number of large residential developments, she has done enough private residential business over the years to have seen the changing landscape—no pun intended—in landscape design.

It was through her thriving commercial business that Ensign developed a solid residential client base entirely through personal referrals. Her residential portfolio covers a broad spectrum from homes in the Catalina Foothills “where there can be a lot of challenges” to cabins on Mount Lemmon where refurbishing, expanding and rebuilding has been going on since the devastating Aspen Fire in 2003.

When Ensign begins working with a customer, the process begins with getting answers to a lot of questions that go beyond what types of plants a customer wants and how much grass — if any.

“You want to know what they want to use the space for,” Ensign said. “Form follows function so you want to find out what kind of needs they’re going to have. Do they want a swimming pool? Do they want a kitchen? Do they want a xeriscape or are they looking for more of an oasis? Do they have a dog?

“Another really important item that sometimes gets overlooked is making sure the landscape is going to fit their maintenance capabilities,” she said. “That’s really important − not getting too much to handle. Are they going to have a gardener or are they doing it themselves? We want to make sure they understand how much it’s going to cost to maintain this. How much water is it going to use?”

Steve Spagnucco had all those answers ready and written down when he and his wife, Sally, hired Ensign to landscape the home they were building in Stone Canyon, a high-end golf and residential development in Oro Valley. Before they met with Ensign, Steve committed his five goals and requirements for the project to paper as any detail-oriented individual with an engineering background might do. His list:

“Meet the homeowners association requirements”

“Overall goal — blend into the desert”

“Reasonable water needed and minimal maintenance”

“Lot requirements — blend pool/patio into desert and mountain focal points”

“Plant requirements — add bougainvillea for color, find spot (to) blend Arizona and Florida”

“Functional requirements”

“She has her process and I’m kind of a hands-on guy and so I had my process, and when we went through it, it was very similar,” Spagnucco said of working with Ensign. “It was about what our priorities were. She wanted to understand lifestyle and priorities, and that was entertaining. And I didn’t want to spend my whole life out working in the yard.

“I despise yardwork. There was going to be no cutting grass, and I didn’t want to spend my limited free time doing yardwork.”

While there was an architect and a designer for the triangular, infinity-edge pool and spa, Spagnucco said Ensign was given the responsibility to blend everything into the landscape, much of which he didn’t want disturbed. The home was actually designed to feature a beautiful rock outcropping at the back end of the property that comes into full view through a large back window when a visitor steps through the front door of the home.

“She’s the one who worked with me in how to lay it out, shape it, size it,” Spagnucco said of the landscape. “I wanted something that would fit and blend in, and she was involved in the whole concept. We told her, ‘Here’s the house on the lot, how do we do everything around it?’

“It was a custom build, and started with a blank piece of paper and she helped us figure out how to do it.”

Among the “lot requirements” on the Spagnucco’s list was a bocce ball court on the side of the house where, if the couple’s now grown child was still living at home otherwise could have been a spot of grass. Since there are no kids at home, there is no grass.

“If I’m on grass, I better be carrying a golf club,” Spagnucco scribbled as a note on his goals and requirements list.

The “blend Arizona and Florida” reference was a small palm that was planted outside a large bathroom window where it is prominent and reminds them of their former home. They lived in Florida before moving to Tucson.

Two large bougainvillea spray color on either of the front entryway. Spagnucco jokes that was the only plant he could name when the landscape design process began.

“I couldn’t even spell that, and it was the only one I knew by name,” he quipped. Ensign “was really good about providing suggestions (for plants) with all the reference material making sure we had pictures and photos and the descriptions so we could understand what she was recommending.”

As for the “entertaining” part, the back patio is spacious with a barbecue grill at one end, a flat-screen TV in a corner, plenty of relaxing chairs with tables, and space to roam during a party yet cozy enough for a small group.

And the maintenance is low, Spagnucco says with a smile.

Therein lies more of that evolution that Ensign said has come into play with more of her work in the last 10 to 15 years.

“I think people are trying to keep things simpler,” she said. “They’re thinking about their water bills. They’re thinking about maintenance. It depends a little bit on the age of the client. I think people that have children may want a little more of an extended yard because they want a place for their kids to play in and they want it to be a safe environment.

“I think what you’ve seen it in the last 10 to 15 years is that people are just understanding that we’ve got some beautiful weather here that we have to take advantage of.”

Which circles back to the premise that landscape design is as much or more about living than just plants and dirt.

“It’s broader than that,” Spagnucco said. “It’s really about how you’re going to use your yard, what views are important to you, how it fits into your lifestyle. It was way more than just picking plants. We plan to be here for a long time and the process was how do you plan to use this space and let’s find something that works.”