Sustainable Living

2018 sitework after flooding

Site restoration

My ecological work here is in restoring the harmonic balance of this habitation with its land and its community of living creatures.  The house was built gradually by successive generations of people who worked the fields long ago.  It is part of a hamlet that retains its graceful organic quality, as if it grew from the land.  In the modern era when the inhabitants were no longer farmers, there was a half-century of degradation of the site’s ecological balance.  This was followed by several abortive development projects where benign house modernization was paired with continued negligence of the land. In the early 21st century new owners used the house for a vacation home and for almost 2 more decades the serious problems causing soil depletion persisted.

2025 restored prairie bordered with native plant beds

2018 the site eroded and soil degraded

Exhuberance - 2025  xeriscape with native plants, restored prairie grasses, and erosion control

As an architect and artist, my experience is that the love of beauty is inseparable from the pursuit of well-being.  My methods of working follow both a practical ecology and an aesthetic intuition. 

2018

House surrounded by gravel parking and planting dominated by several typical nursery species

6 YEARS LATER:

Micro-climates created with landscape elements, fostering variety of species and landscape stories; great diversity of native trees and shrubs create natural hedging and habitat for insects & critters.

Healthy Indoors

2018 Future kitchen : Old tiles unfinished, chalky, not maintainable

2019 Floors stripped and waxed, stone wall stripped of plaster, reclaimed hardwood beams installed for new opening.

Clean Air Quality

  • Natural finishes such as wax-finished terra cotta floor

  • Plaster and natural stone walls

  • Wood furnishings and cabinets

  • Natural fiber house linens (cotton and linen)

  • Natural fiber rugs

  • The house breathes – good air circulation

  • Mold & mildew free - proper drainage around the house

Renovated with reclaimed, noble building materials

  • Floors in terra cotta

  • Exterior patios in reclaimed terra cotta ceiling tiles called “parefeuilles”

  • Reclaimed hardwood beams

  • Reuse of all stones found on site or removed during renovations

  •  Furnished with antique or classic furniture rather than new

2018 Just after purchase the house flooded 2 times during November rains

Solutions implemented:

  • Ditch across site at base of steepest part of slope.

  • Swales and berms sculpted in landscape to direct water away from house.

  • “French drain” installed where slope meets the building footprint.

  • Basement waterproofed to 6’ below grade.

  • Terracing surrounding house redesigned or built new with proper drainage.

Mold and Mildew Free House

Waterproofing of basement, and proper grading for good drainage are essential for a healthy environment.  This also creates pleasant pathways and circulation for all creatures and helps plants to thrive.

2020 Site drainage work complete and plantings begun

Outdoor space is designed integrally with the living space to foster awareness and contact with natural elements. 

For the body’s natural acclimation to the seasons there are transition zones from outdoors to indoors: covered, open-air porches and patios. 

Shade trees create passive air conditioning for outdoor spaces.

The ensemble of house and garden nurtures with beauty. 

Practices and Strategies for a Sustainable Garden

  • 100% organic gardening: no use of pesticides or herbicides; for housekeeping, use of only benign, organic household cleaning products

  • Composting practiced methodically and thoroughly

  • Drip irrigation exclusively, for all beds and vegetable plot

  • Mulch cover of 5 cm minimum for all planting beds

  •  Selection of local, endemic, and well-adapted plants with low- or no-irrigation requirements. 

Most of my plants are wild-found in this region, and not exotic or hothouse nursery varieties.  Those that are not local in origin are selected for their similar climatic adaptation.  I have extensively researched & implemented xeriscape plantings for 30 years

  • Plant selections ensure melliferous blooms during all seasons.  Great variety of plants means great variety of insects, animals, and micro-organisms.

  • Creation of diverse micro-climates (using walls, shade plants, and berms) is aesthetically pleasing and promotes greater biological diversity on site. 

Manual maintenance with hand tools

  • One woman maintains an acre of beautiful landscaping. 

  • No leaf blowers allowed on site.

  • Leaves and cut grass are composted or used for mulch.

  • Edging and weeding are maintained using a spade and a trowel. 

  • Chipper-shredder is used minimally because the collective solid waste service recycles green garbage, turning it into mulch.  On site clippings that can’t go in the compost pile are taken to the dump, where mulch from the collective is loaded to be spread here.

A variety of aromatics, medicinals, food plants and fruit trees are integrated into the landscape and into all planting beds.

There is a small vegetable plot.  When growing vegetables in a private garden there is often more production than can be eaten. Vegetable plants have high water requirements and exhaust the soil.  I support the organic farm next door to supplement my modest vegetable production.

Prairie Grassland Advantages over Lawn or Mono-turf

  • Grass cutting is kept to a minimum

  • No irrigation of open spaces

  • Significantly less machine mowing = peace and quiet

  • Greater plant diversity and health

  • Greater diversity of insects and animals

  • Controls erosion through perennial grasses with large root systems

  • Beautiful variety of seasonal colors

Conventional Hedge

across the street – a  landscape professional uses a motorized hedger to trim every few weeks - noisy and labor intensive.

Natural or Wild Plant Hedge - 6 years after first plantings

Wild Plant Hedge advantages over Conventional Hedge

  • Design of native plant, “wild” hedge avoids clipped hedges.  Pruning is done with hand-operated pruners, not motorized hedgers. 

  • Low water usage

  • No machine hedging-trimming

  • Greater plant diversity and health

  • Year-round flowers and berries due to variety of plants

  • Greater diversity of insects and animals

  • Comestible and medicinal plants (human-uses) are incorporated

  • Allows greater porosity of branches and leaves where animals and birds can shelter

  • Allows contact with neighbors while also providing privacy screening

Conventional Hedge

Wild Hedge

  • Erosion prevention: retaining edges, drainage swales and terracing

  • Clump-grasses planted in prairie

  • Mulching of bare earth

  • Spreading on-site compost and local horse manure

  • Hand-tool use exclusively to work the earth

  • Returning cuttings to the cycle through composting

  • Plant diversity creates bio-control and vitality through complimentary organic life.

Soil-building practices

Garden Rooms

A garden room is a beautiful place to sit.  With a special view, the leisure of a good book, a cup of tea, birdsong, flowers, fragrance…

Sitting in a shaded garden is relaxing and soothing.  It is a way to acclimate to what is - the season and the geo-location.

It fosters consciousness of the environment with its seasonal and diurnal rhythms.

There are lovely, natural pools for swimming in the river nearby.  There are many recreational offerings within 200m of this garden – tennis courts, a climbing wall, a playground, a pétanque court, and hiking trails.

View of the township of Vabres

Vabres is part of the Parc National des Cevennes.  The park has a mission to foster a balance of human activities that are complementary with the historical patterns that created this “agripastoral” landscape.  Eco-tourism here helps support local farmers and producers, while stimulating cultural exchanges and awareness of the environment. 

View of the Salendrinque River basin from its headwaters above Soudorgues