Dear friends (and curious strangers),

This evening, I'm writing from our back deck, where we're sitting with a glass of wine, admiring our handiwork, and taking in the sunset.

For the last couple months, we’ve been completely transforming our back yard.

When we first purchased the house back in 2021, the small garden area was overgrown and forgotten, as no one had lived in the house for years.

On one side, the old stone wall was falling down, and the elk, deer, fox and wild pigs just came in whenever they felt like it.

Along the back edge of the garden was a ten-foot drop to the level below, where a rusted, vintage propane tank sat.

The old stone staircase that leads down to the lower level was a mess as well.

We had our work cut out for us…

We spent the next several months rebuilding stone walls, repairing old garden beds, and clearing years of overgrowth. We planted grass seed thinking we wanted a small “lawn,” and we built a deck that extends out over the drop-off behind the house.

It gave us a place to sit with a glass of wine and enjoy the view, while also solving the problem of anyone accidentally stepping off the edge.

Then the fun began…

We went plant hunting. Everyone sells plants here. You’ll find them in nurseries, grocery stores, home stores, and the local markets.

The locals here love their flowers and plants.  As you walk through the village, you’ll see doorways and steps lined with pots of beautiful, colorful plants. Look up and you’ll see geraniums, succulents, or flowering plants trailing over the balconies.

It’s a sight to behold.

We decided to shop at a nearby nursery that I had seen many times while driving by and always wanted to stop.

I was shocked at the prices. I kept looking at the price tags because I thought I was reading them wrong. Back in the States, a cart full of plants like this would have cost a small fortune.

Here, I was loading the car with flowers, herbs, and terra cotta pots and still spending way less than I expected.

I paid between one and four euros for large, beautiful pots of flowers. These weren't the tiny starter plants I usually bought back home, but large, healthy plants in full bloom.

Then there was the selection...so many plants I'd never even heard of.

The nursery also had rows and rows of terra cotta pots and planters in every shape and size imaginable, all much less expensive than what I was used to.

I was like a kid in a candy store. I bought so many plants and pots, my car couldn’t hold any more.

I planted flowers and herbs of every color in the beds along the stone stairway, mounted wall planters along the stone wall with beautiful geraniums and trailing ivy, and placed terra cotta pots full of various plants here and there.

Slowly, the neglected spaces began to come back to life.

We loved our new outdoor space. The woman we bought our house from is Ms. Anna. She’s 92 years old and lives just around the corner. This was her family’s home for generations, where she and her siblings were born. She’s the last one left.

She’s become a dear friend to us. We often have coffee together either at her house or ours. We were excited to show her what we’d done. I thought she would be pleased to see all the years of neglect brought back to life.

While standing on the upper terrace, she looked down at the green lawn quietly for a moment. Then she smiled, nodded her head a few times, and said, “It’s very American.”

At the time, I wasn't entirely sure how to take that. Only later did I realize she wasn't criticizing it. She was simply observing that it was different.

It wasn’t long, though, before we started having issues with it…

Having a “lawn” meant having to buy a lawnmower and mow the grass. Because we travel a lot and can be gone for several months at a time, each time we returned home, the grass was knee deep.

Which in turn made the perfect habitat for feral cats who were digging holes in the yard and flower beds, and even the pots, using them as their litter-box.

That explains why I've often seen wooden skewers sticking out of my neighbors' flowerpots. The cats don't like them and won't dig there…the village cats are a story unto themselves, and one I'll save for another newsletter.

There are literally thousands of snails here. In the summer after a rain, they come out of their hiding places to forage. They live within the stone walls and come out to feed on all the  plants. It wasn’t long before they had eaten most of my plants down to the roots.

Which reminds me of a funny story…

Speaking of foraging…one night, around midnight, I was headed to bed and going around the house turning off lights. I stopped at the window that overlooks our parking area below and saw some guy creeping around in the shadows with a small flashlight. He was holding a plastic bag and seemed to be rummaging through an old flowerbed full of shrubs and greenery. I couldn’t possibly imagine what he was up to.

The next day, I mentioned it to our neighbor and he laughed and said, “He was snail hunting.”

Not exactly what I would have guessed. Whether he was collecting them for dinner or something else, I've since learned that eating snails is a long-standing tradition here in Abruzzo.

I know of one restaurant that serves them…in fact, we tried them when we first moved here. I’ll pass, thanks.

So, we needed a better solution for our yard…

After much time spent researching, we decided the best option for us and to fit in with our surroundings, was to put in a rock garden.

So for the last several months, we’ve been removing the “American” yard and replacing it with garden beds lined with rocks.

We made several more trips to the nursery looking for plants that both cats and snails tend to avoid.

We learned that herbs like basil, rosemary, mint, and thyme make great additions to the garden that neither cats nor snails will bother. Also lavender, eucalyptus, succulents, various shrubs, asparagus ferns, and of course, geraniums.

Slowly, the garden began to take on a completely different look. The yard was replaced with stone, herbs, and plants that seemed perfectly at home on an Italian hillside.

I’m actually loving version 2.0 of the garden area and so is Ms. Anna. She came over again to see what we’ve been working so hard on. She said, “Ah, bellissimo! It’s more Italian now.”

I have to admit, it’s much easier to take care of, as the plants require little-to-no maintenance, and no more mowing. We can be gone now for periods of time and not have to worry about it. We even planted an olive tree.

It turns out there’s a reason the locals do things the way they do them here…and have for generations. A grass yard seemed like a good idea at the time, and I guess even made it feel a little more like home to us. It just wasn't meant for a hillside village in Abruzzo.

Lesson learned…

We’ll see how this version holds up to the cats and snails. At least now, according to Ms. Anna, it finally looks like it belongs here, and maybe we do too.

Until next time —

With love from Italy,

Jamie

I usually write every other week — and sometimes more when there’s a good story to tell.