Planting The Mound

The land at Paradox Ranch has a fairly consistent 5% slope, it is great for building but can be a bit mundane from a landscaping perspective. Thus, the excess soil from digging the barn’s foundation presented an opportunity. To create a more dramatic entry and provide a buffer between the driveway and outdoor living room, we sculpted the soil into a crescent shaped mound.

Most land in California, including ours, is inhabited by invasive plants that disrupt the local ecosystems. Recently, there has been a growing worldwide movement to reclaim our soil for hyper local native plants and the mound presented a great location to find which native plants thrive in our local environment. From annual wildflowers such as Clarkia to perennial shrubs and trees like Western Sycamore and Silk Tassel Bush, we have planted over 50 native plants. Some have thrived and others have perished, but with each failure we learn something new about the wildlife they attract and where they prefer to grow.

We have since taken the lessons learned from this great experiment and started our own nursery of native plants that we will use to propogate plants at a larger scale for planting native meadows all over the property. More on that later!