Privacy is hard to come by in Beverly Hills. At Serenity it was the entire design brief, and the wall we built to solve it turned into one of the best in our portfolio. Serenity is a luxury residence in Beverly Hills, developed by Ramtin Ray Nosrati of Huntington Estates and designed by Whipple Russell Architects. The problem it needed to solve was simple to state: screen the neighbors from a high-end outdoor space without cheapening the look of everything around it. A fence would do the first job and ruin the second. The answer was 45 feet of living wall, 8 feet tall and 1,120 plants, that works as a privacy screen and reads as the centerpiece of the garden.
The main goal was privacy: screening the neighbors from a carefully designed garden without breaking the luxury character of the space. A fence would have solved the first problem and created a second. Huntington Estates needed something that worked as hard as it looked.
The garden set a high bar on its own. Water features, specimen trees, manicured paths, the kind of layered detail that takes years to get right. Whatever screened the neighbors had to belong in that setting, not just sit in it. The wall needed to be the thing everything else pointed toward.
The second challenge was climate. Southern California summers are brutal, with sustained heat, hard sun, and dry air that rules out most of the plant palettes that look good in a temperate climate. Whatever went on this wall had to be genuinely outdoor-hardy. Not "tolerates sun." Thrives in it.
At 45' × 8' (360 square feet), the Serenity wall is one of the larger residential installations in GrowUp's portfolio.
We picked the plant palette for the Southern California outdoors. Four species, chosen for heat tolerance, drought resilience, and a softness that holds up through an LA summer:
Schefflera (Umbrella Plant) — bold, architectural foliage with a tropical density that anchors the wall without overwhelming it.
Asparagus densiflorus 'Sprengeri' (Sprengeri Fern) — trailing, fine fronds that add movement and pick up the softness of the wider garden.
Dianella Tasmanica (Tasman Flax Lily) — a tough, strap-leafed perennial that takes full sun and heat and adds a contrasting linear texture.
Asparagus densiflorus 'Myersii' (Foxtail Fern) — bright, feathery plumes that lighten the composition and hold up in warm, dry conditions.
Together they make a wall that looks lush without being fragile. Each species earns its spot on what it can handle, not just how it looks, because a living wall in Los Angeles has to survive the climate, not just look good on install day.
The intent was to blend with the garden, not stand apart from it. The frame is treated wood, the same material as the railings and other details around the property, so the wall looks like part of the design rather than something bolted on afterward. It gives the space a continuous green backdrop that everything else can sit against.
Installation took two days. The plants are potted off-site, so the on-site work is fast and clean: the wall go up full, looking grown-in from day one.
GrowUp builds every living wall from real plants in real soil, watered by an automated irrigation line that runs across the top of the wall. The timing is set by season, since the plants need more water through a Southern California summer than they do in winter.
The one real decision on this job was sequencing. We worked with the project manager to schedule the wall toward the end of the build, after most of the landscaping was already in. That kept it clear of construction traffic and heavy landscaping work and let it settle in without any risk of damage. There were no site challenges to speak of, which usually means the coordination was done right up front.
The finished Serenity wall does exactly what the brief asked: it works as a backdrop first and a feature second. Stand in the garden and your eye travels through the space, past the water features, the paths, the planting, and the wall holds it all together without fighting for attention. Then you look straight at it, and the density and texture become their own thing.
The garden lands the manicured LA luxury look that the best residential projects here are after. The living wall is what pushes it past anything hardscaping and conventional planting could do on their own.
Outdoor living walls in Southern California solve a problem most residential landscapers can't: how do you build a living vertical surface in a climate that's hostile to most plants?
The answer is plant science. The Serenity wall works because every species on it was chosen to thrive here, not just survive. The heat doesn't wear it down. It doesn't look stressed in August. It was full and lush from day one and has only looked better since, kept that way by a GrowUp maintenance visit every two weeks.
This is what custom design produces. Not a template. Not a catalog wall adapted to the space. A wall built from the ground up for this climate, this garden, and this level of finish.
Download the GrowUp Living Wall Specification Packet: design guide, specification cheat sheet, and CSI 3-part specs, everything you need to write a wall like Serenity into your drawings.
| Project | Serenity Residence |
| Location | Beverly Hills, CA |
| Developer | Ramtin Ray Nosrati / Huntington Estates |
| Architect | Whipple Russell Architects |
| Wall dimensions | 45' wide × 8' tall (360 sq ft) |
| Plant count | ~1,120 plants |
| System type | Soil-based living wall |
| Environment | Outdoor, full Southern California exposure |
| Completion | 2025 |
| Services | Design · Fabrication · Installation · Maintenance |