Well, the summer of 2025 was pretty much a wrap, and I left the garden after the end of spring. It’s a pretty ridiculous asset at this point. We know how lucky we are. And when at least 6-10 kids are running around, it feels like the house we’ve always dreamed of (when we lived in New York and LA), four men playing cornholes and looking at a bunch of women. It’s not completed, but I check so many boxes, which are large structures, and the rest of the rehabilitation can be done over time. These photos were taken during the summer at different times (we took different areas in different months), so plants grow and so on.
I found it fun to show the entire property layout from above. Because knowing how it flows can be confusing. It has about 2.75 acres, most are usable, with extreme overgrown pockets, a bit untouched.
Private road/entrance
Walking down the driveway felt like magic five years ago, but we still love it. It’s full of invasive things (wherever I am, Hawthorn trees lined up on both sides, Ivy and Blackberry), but I can’t take myself to get rid of it all. Money isn’t an object, and just snapping your fingers remove it all and plant a big, beautiful, non-invasive tree and clover? of course! But for now it’s pretty amazing.
Interesting, when people in Oregon visit with our California friends, the driveway is hardly appealing (they say nothing, you can just say). Everyone in other states reacts consistently like us – it’s very green, rustic, very charming, but if you’ve lived here for decades, I think it’s just an old Oregon driveway 🙂
You can get the house open to by going around the driveway. This always strikes me as a “adult” in a house that is far more than I owned. Like chronically 27 years old I feel inside, this still feels that it’s ours. I really, really love her so much.
I love seeing the covered corridor at the edge of the driveway, even one of my favorite features. You must slide before/after the slider below. It’s very satisfying and quite wild to see where I came from over four years ago.
To the left of the driveway is a sadly shaped, happening fruit tree groves on grass full of weeds (and now it’s brown as there is no irrigation).
This part of the property is very frontal and central, so this could be a place to tackle next spring. We will bring in the right arborists to mow and heal these trees (they are badly overgrown, crowded, and do not endure the best fruit). There are plums, pears and apples. Then I think we’ll demonstrate unfortunate lawns and seeds for Clover. Simple, but better, and make everything healthier. It actually looks good in winter/spring, but by the end of summer it appears to be on fire.
This is the view that you see the most in your home – and I still want to remake the plants here – the grass is huge and unruly, but there’s nothing else to really grow here! Since then we have trimmed Japanese maple that looked quite dunwild along the house. Dennis 7 Dees We had some great ideas about what they would do, but we’re pausing the execution for a bit (we also think/know that building a guest cottage might be difficult with surrounding plants).
I love the atmosphere on my back. All the hydrangeas make me so happy, so I want to bring some of them here. Those with more structures and lose those wild grass (it’s great, but just large).
This is the view that most people have when they enter (as most neighbors/friends pass through the backgate). Doing all the garage means people aren’t staring at all our trash, recycling, compost bins. Seriously, those things are such eyesore, which is a big win.
The guesthouse will rise to the next – I’m limping a bit now (mostly financially tense – that’s such a beast!), but it’s moving forward, I promise!
Four cute garages (full of props). You need to know that all of these plants were there for the shoot, but without irrigation I knew they wouldn’t last (too far from home for the hose to reach). As a content creator with our partner, it is our job to create the most beautiful photos to use, and thus add a considerable amount of hydrangeas and benches. But for those of you who are worried about whether all the plants are still alive, they are! Just on the front pouch (I don’t think two of them actually made it – sorry).
Round the front of the sunroom and enter what feels like a backyard. This is a big grass patch that plays a lot from the cornhole with kids and is an interesting hub.
Many games of Garden Ghost were played after it got dark here (I don’t know what it is or how it will be played, but the group of 16 kids playing certainly seems to enjoy it).
Maybe someday I’ll paint and install a wooden post cap at the entrance to the mudroom 🙂
Over the long weekend we spent all three nights in the pool. The first night was very hot (water was 75 degrees), and the next two nights we changed it to a 95 degrees hot tub. Sometimes we can recognize that kids are likely to play in a larger pool for a long time, but we still love that it becomes a hot tub and is used all year round.
We usually have two umbrellas covering the pool (stones can get very hot), but we tasted them because they don’t stand straight for these photos (the stands of sturdy umbrellas at Castors Market have real holes – they’re all rusty!).
She’s a small pool, but we love her so much. Soaking the pool If you weren’t here when I was documenting it, it’s the company. Check out this post here!
This year I really failed in the garden. What’s more, the harvest really didn’t taste that good! Ballerina Farm, I’m not, ha ha. Next year I will work hard and probably turn at least one of my beds into a clean cutting garden. Furthermore, the truth is that some of the best organic produce comes from a few miles away in Oregon, and we simply prefer their lettuce and tomatoes.
We moved Those chairs On the pickleball court for people to see close. I love that they are all weather and we can keep them out all year round (not a real wicker, it’s an all weather wicker).
One of the changes we are making is to turn at least one of the picnic tables into a seating area. We all three large parties realized that people didn’t want to sit in these. So I knocked down my seats from the back pouch and boom. People sit and are much more comfortable.
So next spring, they will add a more conversational seating area with bottom picnic tables. I’m so happy to be there right now.
They believe they will soon re-immerse the clover on the left side of the pass. It didn’t take because we didn’t water that much, and the guy in the pickleball cover put everything in a big tarp over there, killing the growing clover. There are no big ones, but I’ll add more.
Incidentally, the rest of the clover is thriving. Hopefully it won’t take over in a way that we regret 🙂
Remember when this was a broken asphalt tennis court?
trampoline…
So this photo really took Caitlyn, but I wanted to show you how we actually use the garden. That trampoline This summer I was the MVP (I don’t need to tell all of your parents there). We’re still happy that we didn’t attach it to the ground (moving it for filming, it’s great). It’s a massive eyelash, but they really love to jump – solo and with friends.
Tumble Truck It can also be used by cheering crews in many ways. This sideyard is the place (and sports court) where all kids strive for, and you can easily look at it from both the kitchen and the backyard.
This part of the garden was the first we finished and perhaps we could use the edits, but I love all the wild tall perennials here – Studio Campo and Jarzen Both were part of this side yard. The kitchen patio looks a little happier than when we filmed, so maybe we’ll put it on with more plants this spring. We don’t sit much, but it’s a great vibe to say hello to you (Brian says he wants a ping pong table here for the flip cup. Also, yes, the dog pees on the grass and leaves a yellow spot! Excuse me!
I still want to plant more climbers on covered passages. I planted more mature clematis last year, but when I caught the “scales” that I had to eradicate, they began to take off.
I’m back here. It’s a lot of property and of course there’s a lot to maintain (this has help from Dennis’ 7 Deads). I’m sure it will change over time and we add more when they soften things when they’re a bit overgrown or when they see something truly thriving. We love it so much and are very grateful to live here. We worked with many local experts to get there. Studio Campo and Native Northwest landscape (Phase 1), and recently Dennis 7 Dees For such an incredible execution. My hope is to take photos of each season so that I can see the changes in the seasons, but don’t hug it. Filming in January is quite cruel and uncomfortable (although it’s very lush and green). However, autumn is round the corner so we try to show how it looks when the leaves change and things start to be reduced or dying. That’s a wrap 🙂
Here are all the published individual posts and some of the process posts (just in case you want to dive deeper!):
*photograph Caitlyn Green
Source: Emily Henderson – stylebyemilyhenderson.com
