2023
Year of permitting, waiting, and nature’s renewal…
January – February 2023
The heavy winter rains boosted the regeneration of the vegetation in the canyon and helped the plants we put in to establish.
March 2023
Matthias collaborated with an overseas architect to make the first rough rendering of our new house.
April – May 2025
Spring has been spectacular. The burned branches have receded into the background, the scorched earth becoming a distant memory that has given way to nature’s renewal.
Permitting continues to be challenging. For more on this, refer to our permitting timeline.
Meeting with our Architect Terry McNamara
The three week estimate on the property wide irrigation installation has also extended to beyond a year and a half. But we slowly are getting there on having a viable system.
Diane watches the meter, hoping it the pressure holds this time.
Our irrigation is finally stable enough to select Coastal Live Oaks. Many are coming back on their own throughout our property, but we want to help fill in some blank spots and control erosion by adding a few dozen that we’ve grown from acorns and seedlings, as well as that we are sourcing from Boething and San Antonio nurseries.
One of the greatest pleasures of our landscape restoration is working with Bob at Matilija Nursery, who carries a great selection of native plants and plants that play well with natives, is deeply knowledgeable, and one of the world’s most delightful humans.
We tried out desert mallows, which were spectacular in the first season, but later spindled out for the most part on our property. But what a show we had while it lasted! We still have about 10% that have made it over the long haul. They are really more for cultivated gardens and deserts than our sandy, rocky, rugged environment.
The toyons and moonglow aloes have been highly successful, although the aloes tend to be reddish in their sunny location. But they bloom beautifully and seem happy.
Most of the salvias we’ve planted, some of which are shown here, have done great.
This is the beginning of our attempt at a carex pansa, low water, low maintenance native grass lawn. It looks great at the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden. In our location, it is fussy and fails to thrive. We’ve been letting the weedy grass grow and allowed it to be a funky meadow for now.
