Andy Cao in SF Chronicle

With chicken wire, cut crystal and an affinity for improvisation, landscape architects Andy Cao and Xavier Perrot are blurring the line between landscape design and art.

This month, Cao and Perrot unveiled two new installations at Cornerstone Gardens in Sonoma.

Modeled after an international garden festival held in France’s Loire Valley, Cornerstone Gardens features rotating garden installations by landscape architects from all over the world. Visitors can walk freely through the collection of more than 20 distinct and often eccentric gardens.

Surrounded by rolling California hills and expansive vineyards, Cornerstone hosts a wide range of artistic styles: a tranquil Japanese installation grows next to a lush garden featuring a wide metal tunnel formed by an old water main, leading visitors toward the long, rectangular lily pond that borders the gardens.

Cao and Perrot’s new work fits right into the garden’s whimsical and inventive vibe. “White Cloud” features a cloud made of sculpted chicken wire while “Red Lantern” is dominated by a 12-foot-tall ornamental lantern on a path of railroad tracks.

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Red Lantern and Bai Yun Gardens, designed by cao | perrot studios, were made possible through Cornerstone’s annual artist-in-residence program. The Artist-in-Residence Program provides each year’s invited artist, designer, or landscape architect with resources, equipment, and a featured site in which to create a unique environmental installation.