Fountaingrove couple transforms their fire-stricken landscape into a southwest retreat

On one hand, Damon and Lisa Mattson were among the lucky ones. Firefighters were able to save their Fountaingrove home during the catastrophic Tubbs fire of 2017, although it suffered significant smoke, water and fire damage.

But the couple lost their garage and the wildfire left scorched earth around their tree-studded property, destroying the California contemporary backyard retreat they had meticulously created with a lot of sweat equity. Just a few months before the fire, they had been a featured stop on the Sonoma County Medical Association Alliance Foundation Garden Tour. Many of the landscapes featured on the 25th anniversary tour that May would be lost to the fire that ripped through Fountaingrove on a wind-fueled path of destruction that jumped the freeway into Coffey Park.

When it came time to restore their landscape — the front, back and side yards — the Mattsons decided to go for a radically different look, reminiscent of their favorite vacation spots.

Now a stunning, high-desert landscape of cacti and succulents blooms from beds of finely ground decomposed granite.

It’s a look that makes them feel like they’re on vacation without a plane ticket. Both are Midwesterners. She is from Kansas; he is from Michigan. And at this point in their lives, they’re done with the cold and are confirmed heat-seekers.

“We like to go to Vegas for vacations. We like to go to Mexico, anywhere that is a tropical or desert climate,” said Lisa, who is the marketing director for Jordan Vineyard and Winery.

In a sense, the fire made the project an easy call. They lost 50 trees, some large heritage oaks and bays. Only three trees survived. Their once-shady enclave tucked below grade near the top of Fountaingrove is now completely exposed to the sun, creating a very different environment than before.

Replacing their Mediterranean-style landscape with aeoniums, agaves, yucca, Euphorbias, fuzzy-looking pincushion cacti and other succulents with intriguing forms and fruity colors was a bold change. It also made sense in drought- and wildfire-susceptible Sonoma County. Comprised of up to 80% water, succulents, once established, need less irrigation and are more fire-resistant than most of the plants that graced the Mattson property three years ago.

After buying their contemporary home in 2011, the Mattsons went for a modern, shady plantscape with native grasses, New Zealand flax and Euphorbias.

None of that survived the fire. What did make it were three of 10 cordylines, a woody flowering plant native to New Zealand, eastern Australia, southeast Asia and Polynesia. Also riding out the firestorm were the chalksticks, small, low-growing finger-like succulents that thrive on warm sunny hillsides such as those in Fountaingrove and can take extreme heat and sun exposure.

Santa Barbara inspiration

Starting virtually from scratch wasn’t easy.

It was painful for Damon, who had constructed some of the main landscape features himself, over the years carefully building a firepit, a gazebo and even an outdoor bed. They were underinsured for the house, so to afford the most pressing repairs to the structure, they opted to do most of the landscaping themselves.

Lisa, with her creative aesthetic and longtime love of plants, never had designed a landscape before. But they dug in at the end of 2018, determined to get as much done as possible before they moved back into the house last June.

Lisa started by drawing a layout for both front and back yards and deciding where the important focal points would be.

In choosing plants, she knew she wanted succulents after walking through an old mission garden in Santa Barbara five years ago and seeing aeoniums as big as a human head.

“I fell in love with the plants in Santa Barbara on that trip and that is what inspired me, that and knowing I was going to have a full-sun yard,” she said. “I just had this hope and vision that it could work.”

She researched plants online, choosing not just for appearance but whether they would do well in the North Bay climate where temperatures can dip below freezing.

The couple brought in a truckload of soil especially mixed for cacti, which demand well-drained soil. And rather than the woodchip mulch they had used before, which proved so flammable during the Tubbs fire, they opted for a fine, almost sand-like decomposed granite.

Lisa said one of the nine firefighters who saved her house told them the mulch was like lighter fluid and still burning in the yard after the fire.

Their house survived the first night. But smoldering embers aided by the mulch ignited the garage and part of the house the following afternoon.

The Mattsons were in Spain at the time so were spared the terror of fleeing for their lives.

Containing costs

Before the fire, their walkways were flagstone. To save costs the second time around, they opted for open, preformed cement blocks that cost only a few dollars apiece. They planted a hardy turf grass between the blocks, which provide a soft resting place for the eye.

It was a lot of work, squeezed into their off hours. Damon installed an underground drip system with multiple zones to deliver just the right amount of water to diverse plants, from the succulent beds and fruit trees to the grasses and the line of African fern pines planted along one side of the property to eventually provide some privacy from the neighbors.

“It was ridiculous,” Lisa laughed when asked about working at high speed during every spare moment for six months.

“We would come and work here before work, lunch hours, after work, weekends,” Damon said.

At one point Lisa hurt her shoulder digging out a walkway. But they persisted.

For the birds, who lost so much for their habitat, they put in a birdbath. And the crows, yellow warblers and white-throated swifts are back in the area.

After researching online, Lisa bought most of her plants from Kings Nursery Urban Tree Farm and PlantsExpress.com, an online retailer specializing in plants for California gardens. She also bought succulents from growers in Arizona through Etsy.

The couple was always looking for ways to shave costs without cutting quality. They had their hearts set on using Cor-Ten, a weathered steel, for a feature on either side of their hot tub. But it would have cost $2,000 to custom order a Cor-Ten planter box. Instead, Lisa found a far less expensive alternative, 30-inch rustic Sunnydaze firewood log racks, which they cut and dug into the ground in tiers. They were only $150 to $200 online.

Meanwhile, Lisa has been stockpiling plants, buying them small and bringing them up to size in her own little “nursery.” She also takes cuttings and propagates additional plants, which is easy to do with succulents. So when the couple is ready to tackle the second half of their front yard — only one half is completed — the plants will be ready and more mature.

Lisa has orchestrated her palette of plants so there is something in bloom all through spring and summer. From February through April there are the coral and blue elf aloe, Echeveria and kangaroo paws, and in May and June come the lady slippers, cannas and red yucca.

The new yard, for all its seeming aridity, is a bird magnet and is particularly popular with hummingbirds.

The one thing she found that didn’t seem to do well in her microclimate were the firesticks, which prefer ponds, wetlands and dry river beds.

In rebuilding, the Mattsons took the opportunity to change up the color of their house, from yellow tones to darker blues, which has a cooling effect when the summer sun beats down.

“We like the colors we have better and we like the yard design better,” Lisa said.

Now that most of the hardest tasks are behind him, Damon can relax a bit more.

“It’s turned out great considering what we were given. It’s not something I ever wanted to do but now that it’s done, it’s really nice. It turned out way better than I thought.”

Lisa said their idea was always to have a “staycation yard.” Now that the coronavirus has grounded them from traveling to their usual sun spots, a yard that reminds them of their happy places is a much appreciated oasis.

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 707-521-5204 or meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com. OnTwitter @megmcconahey.