TVG -- Home Photo Challenge -- Nov 20

One of our on-going home improvement projects involves landscaping our 1/3 acre, extremely steep and shady lot. We want to integrate it with our home and patios and decks, yet leave it integrated with the surroundings. While we aspire to leave it as a natural and open space, we also endeavor to make it a usable space, to be enjoyed by the whole family. I often say that we are trying to "tame" it, but only in the way one tames a cat -- you can get him to eat from a bowl and poop in a box and even curl up on a bed and sleep with you, but deep in his soul, he is still wild. That is what we want for our "gardens". Our foci have been three-fold: clear the dead, the fire hazards, the ugly (ivy); make paths and walls and terraces; and plant native plants that once established, will not require irrigation. Here you can see a variety of areas, some still under "construction", others near completion. All the beds are on drip irrigation that will be set on timers for minimal water use. I don't know the names of all the plants but I know there are manzanitas, coffee berries, red buds, live oaks, redwoods (all three kinds -- Dawn - which are decidious!, Sequoia, Coastal). Gregg has a Rhododendron glen with a water feature planned for the lowest area. I would also like to build a deck there, with a yurt to be used as guest quarters -- I'm thinking of an incinerating toilet and a hose for a shower/sink. I'd love to put in a treadmill pool but that's another post...