Every S'Estepa project starts from the same place: the ground itself. Founder Pedro Campaner, a Mallorca-born Agricultural Technician specialised in landscaping, has spent over 30 years working the island's soil, wind and native flora directly — knowledge that shapes every project the studio undertakes, from a single terrace to a multi-hectare estate.
Mallorca's Soil: Calcareous Ground and Call Vermell Clay
Designing in the Balearics means negotiating with the geology itself. Much of the island sits on predominantly calcareous, high-pH soil — alkaline ground that can lock away essential nutrients like iron in non-native species, causing chlorosis (yellowing leaves) if the wrong plants are chosen.
Many estates across the central and southern plains, including around Campos, sit on Call Vermell, the island's characteristic iron-rich red clay. Visually striking but prone to compacting hard during dry spells, it can become impenetrable to roots if left untreated. Rather than replacing it, S'Estepa regenerates it — incorporating organic matter and permeable aggregates to aerate the clay and turn it into a moisture-retaining base that supports deep root systems. At our Crestatx project, this soil-first approach replaced the lawn entirely with a mineral layer over regenerated ground, cutting irrigation demand while increasing biodiversity across the garden.
Designing for the Tramuntana Wind
Water is only half the equation — wind is the other. The Tramuntana can dehydrate a garden faster than the sun, and near the coast it carries salt that stresses delicate foliage. S'Estepa uses structural, wind-tolerant planting — dense hedging of Pistacia lentiscus (mastic) and Cupressus sempervirens — to build living windbreaks that create sheltered microclimates for the more delicate species growing behind them, reducing evaporation without any artificial intervention.
Water: Xeriscaping, Hydro-Zoning and Smart Irrigation
Our Ecological Care approach groups plants by water need (hydro-zoning) and favours sub-surface drip lines over surface sprinklers, delivering water directly to the root zone instead of losing it to evaporation off gravel and stone. At Sant Llorenç, sub-surface drip combined with a Mediterranean palette of Lavandula dentata, Rosmarinus officinalis 'Prostratus' and the estate's preserved centenary olive trees keeps the garden lush on a fraction of the water a conventional Mallorcan garden would demand.
The Palette: Native and Mediterranean-Adapted Flora
We work almost exclusively with species that already belong to this island, chosen for structure, texture and resilience in Mallorca's specific climate:
- Structure & shade — Olea europaea (olive, including centenary specimens), Ceratonia siliqua (carob), Cupressus sempervirens
- Windbreaks & screening — Pistacia lentiscus (mastic), Chamaerops humilis
- Texture & movement — Stipa tenuissima, Perovskia atriplicifolia, Gaura lindheimeri
- Aromatics & ground cover — Rosmarinus officinalis, Lavandula dentata, Teucrium fruticans
Lavandula dentata — French lavender, native to Mediterranean limestone rather than the English variety more commonly sold — blooms nearly year-round on the island and demands the excellent drainage our soil preparation is built to provide.
Where This Knowledge Shows Up
This isn't theory — it's the working method behind projects across the island:
- Crestatx — soil regeneration and mineral-layer lawn replacement
- Sant Llorenç — preserved wild olive trees (ullastres) and sub-surface drip irrigation
- Finca Garden Campos — large-scale planting across calcareous ground in the south of the island
- Hotel Cabot Las Velas, Puerto Pollença — drought-tolerant aromatic palette replacing a thirsty lawn across a full hotel garden
Further reading on the studio's Journal: regenerative dry-garden design, smart irrigation for historic fincas, and engineering microclimates with bioclimatic pergolas.
