Side yard plan — Marin

The clients described the side yard as "a place we walk past but never stop in." It was a narrow strip between the house and the fence — roughly 8 feet wide and about 50 feet long — that had been filled with bark chips and nothing else for as long as they'd lived there. They wanted it to feel like something, but weren't sure what.

Mill Valley sits in high fire risk territory. Cal Fire designations matter here, and any design has to account for what's planted within 30 feet of the structure. That's a constraint that rules out a lot of popular choices and forces creative thinking about what actually belongs in this landscape: plants that evolved here, that are adapted to summer drought, and that don't carry significant ignition risk.

The design we produced is a dry California meadow in a narrow format. The backbone is Festuca californica (California fescue) planted in drifts, interspersed with Achillea millefolium, Salvia clevelandii 'Winifred Gilman', and Erigeron glaucus along the fence line. The surface between groupings is decomposed granite, which drains fast and doesn't carry fire the way organic mulch can.

We submitted the design to the county for fire review and it was approved without revision. The clients installed it themselves over two weekends and check in with us occasionally when they have questions about care. It's now a space they actually walk through on purpose.