Aptos
The Plan
In 1997, the dotcom days, we left Boston for a new life in California. Our kids were grown and moved away. What we wanted was a dog and a place big enough for it to run around in, and Aptos was what we could afford. In the Santa Cruz redwoods, five minutes from the beach, we got that and more: 22 acres along a half mile of Valencia Creek.
We got our puppy Cody first thing. Now we needed a plan.
I wanted to create a special place in the country like my grandparents’ in upstate New York, where I spent most summers in my youth, a place with trails and gardens, where kids would have lots of things to explore and do.
We hired a landscape architect to create a master plan we would build over five years. It would have a large redwood deck, a pool, paths down to the creek and redwood forest, and acres of gardens.
The house we moved into had none of that. It looked like it had been just plopped into a clearing in the forest.
But we followed the plan and built that special place. Here is that story.
The Pink Garden
The front yard had an existing garden of sorts, a sad assortment of scraggly trees and shrubs.
The Blue Garden
On the left side we created the “blue garden”. We tried to find plants called out in the English design books, but even though practically anything grows in the Santa Cruz climate, you just can’t find those plants here! In the end we created our own garden style, with wisteria, geraniums, roses, redbud, and Japanese maples.
The Deck
At the back of the house was a tiny deck on stilts. We wanted to create a large deck as an outdoor room where we could eat in the shade and look at the redwoods. Local craftsmen milled and joined giant 12×12 redwood beams for an arbor, with grape vines growing up through the columns to provide shade. The deck would lead down to the pool and firepit.
The Pool
We excavated the pool out of a scrubby hillside across from the garage. An undulating retaining wall cost more than the pool! We planted Mediterranean gardens around the pool and roses and clematis over the pool gate. A stamped concrete pool deck and firepit connected to the redwood deck and paths to the forest below.
The Woodland Garden
When we moved in, the forest was so close to the house that our insurance was cancelled first thing. We hired people to cut down the trees in back and gave away 14 cords of firewood. Then we made paths down to the creek through a new redwood forest garden, with rubus, flowering currant, redwood sorrel, forget-me-nots, Douglas iris, and dogwood.
Along Valencia Creek
In the 1890s they logged the old growth redwoods and sent them down a flume along the creek to the sawmill. Today the second growth redwoods, now 8-10 feet in diameter and 150 feet high, create a magical space for kids and dogs, whether walking on the paths or splashing through the creek.
The Meadow
With soil excavated from the pool, we graded a rocky clearing to create The Meadow, a lawn surrounded by Japanese maples, hydrangea, azaleas, fuchsia, and viburnum.
