The Front Yard

Public, Private. It's said that it's not good feng shui to have your driveway run straight from the street to your front door, so the energy is diverted here with a slight bend. The land is quite open here in the front yard but the buildings separate the private, back space from prying eyes. The tall trees in back only hint at what that space might offer. The ditch that runs across the head of the land was built by the City and it runs full of water from the first rains late in the year into April and May. All that water breeds weeds so bring your weed whacker.  But under those weeds is a bed of river stones which we brought in from Mark West Creek ten years ago.

Roses & Zin to the West. The front yard, the southern side of the land, is still pretty much wide open. We planted 3 clones of Zinfandel (Primitivo, Foppiano and Deaver), 156 vines in six rows, three years ago and they should provide at least a barrel of wine (25 cases) next year (and possibly this year). We put roses at the street side of each row, a mixture of bushes and climbers. (That's Merik and Carol Lee's winery and vineyard -- Cab -- and guest cottage beyond the berm.)

Olive Berm. When Merik and Carol Lee dug their backyard pool, they needed somewhere to put their excavated dirt (a lot of dirt). We arranged a solution whereby they could build this berm with their dirt on our side of their driveway ... and they planted the olive trees on the berm.

Why Zin? The clay soil that has washed down and piled up over the eons from the hills to the east is super sloppy in wet winter months and super porous and rock hard in the summer heat. Sauvignon Blanc is probably best for this clay but, before we put the vines in, the winemaker at Satori asked me if that's what we want to drink. "Plant what you want to drink," he advised. Zin it is. And Zin is hardy enough for anything. It also prefers head-pruning to limit its leaf and cluster production, which requires less hardware. Merik grows good Cab to the west. And there's more Cab across the street.

Un-tamed and ready for vision. We had originally contracted with an amazing landscaper from New Zealand, who specialized in waterscapes, to build a large fresh-water pond that would take up most of the land to the east of the driveway here. It would have created a 4-season ecoscape with a wondrous mix of trees, water plants, fish and fowl. One of the Patterns suggests creating destinations such as these ... and this would have been a delightful destination year round but especially in the summer for cooling dips. The designer, as fate would have it, developed a fatal disease and the project fell through. but the land is still perfect for a pond. The clay soil minimizes the difficulty and cost of creating a proper bed, and there's plenty of water underground to keep it filled -- even in the hottest, driest months of the year (August-October) the fresh water table is less than 20 feet below the surface. Merik, next door, dug the well by hand for his vineyard in August. There's always plenty of water here, which is not always the case with many parts of Calistoga.