When we moved up to Auburn two years ago, our house and land were in pretty good shape. The house more so than the land. Don’t get me wrong; landscaping had been done at the house but some of it hadn’t been maintained well or wasn’t our style. The land, all 4.6 acres of it had not been well groomed or maintained over the past several years. SO many trees and brush and brambles needed to be cut down or cut back. SO. MUCH. If you utter the words “blackberry bush” in our home it will be 100 years too soon. We despised the unending amount of untamed blackberry bushes we had to handle. We didn’t even know what we didn’t know when we moved into this property. We came from the suburbs of the Bay Area and had been happily existing on our not quite 1/4 acre. Casa Toscana thrust us into a whole new wild world. And when I say wild, I mean there is zero fencing around our property so we have deer, wild turkeys, coyotes, skunk, foxes, jack rabbits and probably other things that would frighten me frequently walking across or living on our property. WILD. And again a reminder from nature that we as humans are just caretakers; the plants and animals were here first.

We slowly acquired the necessary equipment (industrial weed whackers and chainsaws and other industrial stuff they definitely do not sell at Home Depot) as we needed it. Many trees were edited away, especially ones very close to the house. Up here you need to be very diligent about keeping a safe fire perimeter around your home. We had to establish two perimeters; one directly around the house and one further out on our land. We used the canal that runs across about half of our property as one perimeter and the other we slowly cut back and maintained.

For the first year I don’t think I even planted anything. It was more about pulling out what was dead or didn’t work or we didn’t want. We said goodbye to a few trees that were dead and in danger of falling. Sam figured out the irrigation and sprinklers – that took some time. I eventually carved out some areas for mulching. Moved some rocks around, pulled out more bushes that didn’t work. Honestly, I spent A LOT of time standing and looking at our property. What on earth were we going to do with this extraordinary and VERY hilly space? It is important to note that there really isn’t a completely flat area on the whole property except for a very small area of the landscaped backyard. That makes things real challenging.

These photos above are all from the front and front sides of our property. The backyard still needs a lot of vision and work and truthfully, we still aren’t sure what we want to do back there. The kids keep putting in requests for a pool but that won’t be happening :). The views off our back deck are beautiful any time of day, any time of year. When we first moved in we truly did not know how good these views were because so much of it was obstructed by trees and brambles. NOW…now we can really see. From our deck we can see the lights of Sacramento and on a really clear day, all the way to Mount Diablo down in the Bay Area. These views have also provided an up to the moment snapshot of wildfires, always good to have a handle on.

Late last fall after Simon left on his mission I went on a mulching spree. So. Much. Mulch. Endless amounts of mulch. I planted and it did my heart good. 2021 was an unprecedented hard year for our family and I just threw myself into yard work. I can hardly call it gardening because there was no garden. It was a lot of digging and planting and making sure sprinklers and drips worked and hauling rocks around to create borders and more trips to the nursery to sculpt and create. Landscaping is like being an artist but instead of paints on a canvas it is plants in the ground. I quite like it.

Come 2022 I was really raring to go with my planting plans. In the spring I turned my attention to a large swath of our side yard that was mulched in but really only contained a lemon tree. I wanted to get a lot done there.

Sadly, 2022 has been really hard for our family too. I knew that turning some of my worry and sadness and frustration into hard core yard work would be beneficial for both my mental health and our property so that’s what I did. Splitting rocks in the holes I needed for trees and shrubs was hard work and REALLY helped bring me peace. There is something to be said about falling into bed after a day of digging in the earth and working with plants. The sleep that comes after a day of doing that is pretty blissful.

When we went to Utah for almost three weeks this summer most of my plants survived the heat wave. A few didn’t which I took personally. Parts of our lawn died and I took that as a challenge. I am proud to say that everything I worked to bring back to life I saved. Boom. That’s a win. I’ve discovered that time, diligence and water can save just about anything.

The past six months have definitely been fun to work with plants mainly in the front and side of our house. The heat wave didn’t help but planting lambs ear (which neither you nor the elements can kill), carpet roses, a mandarin tree, snapdragons, lots of succulents and grasses, cordyline, iris, lavender and rosemary was such fun. Now that fall and winter temps are upon us and my plants are no longer subject to such intense heat they are making up for lost time with their growth. I’ve tried to be really intentional about planting things that are 1) drought resistant, 2) deer resistant and can handle both heat and occasionally troublesome soil. There has been some trial and error but mostly I’ve had success.

Because I have used our land as both my canvas and my therapy I feel deeply tied to it. I have worked out a lot of problems in my head and my heart while planting, digging, watering, and trimming. A lot. I love to walk around and check on each of the flowers, the grasses and the succulents, see how they are progressing. The kids know to come tell me if they notice a plant looking sickly or just plain weird.

I know that at some point in the next few years we will likely begin work on the backyard and I’m excited for that project. It may take years but it will be worth it. When I say my prayers each day, I almost always thank God for flowers and plants and land and for the opportunity to live here the way that we do. I hope that even as Sam and I get older and have less built in labor (ie: children around!) we will be able to either maintain on our own or hire help to maintain all that we have worked on. We’ve already made so many memories here I can’t really imagine ever leaving permanently. Plants have a funny way of holding onto you like that :).