Landscaping across Folsom, neighborhood by neighborhood

Old Town Folsom, around Sutter Street, has the oldest yards in the city and the most idiosyncratic ground. Lots are irregular, mature trees are established and often protected, and the soil frequently contains cobble left over from the gold era, when dredging worked the American River floodplain here right up until the Natomas No. 6 dredge shut down in February 1962. Planting in that ground is a different exercise from planting in a subdivision lot: holes are dug rather than augered, and the planting plan works around what is already there instead of starting from a blank grade.

Natoma Station, Prairie Oaks, Willow Springs, and the neighborhoods along Blue Ravine were built out mostly through the 1980s and 1990s. Yards there are now a generation past their original landscaping, which means the irrigation is at the end of its life, the lawn is at its most expensive to keep, and the shrub layer has usually outgrown the beds it was planted in. The most common project in this part of the city is a front yard conversion from turf to low-water planting, paired with a drip retrofit, running most often between $10,000 and $20,000.

Empire Ranch, Briggs Ranch, Lexington Hills, and The Parkway sit on the newer side of the city, with larger lots and more slope. Slope is what drives cost here: a back yard that steps down toward a greenbelt often needs a retaining wall before it needs anything else, and once a wall passes four feet from the bottom of the footing it moves into engineered, permitted territory. Full back yard builds in these neighborhoods commonly run $40,000 to $90,000 once walls, a patio, and a shade structure are in the scope.

Folsom Ranch, the newer development south of Highway 50, is a different job again. These are new-construction lots, usually handed over with a rough graded pad, compacted builder fill, and nothing else. That soil needs real amendment before anything goes in it, drainage has to be established rather than corrected, and the front yard is normally subject to both HOA architectural review and, at 500 square feet of new landscape or more with a permit trigger, the state water efficiency ordinance. Budget more time on paperwork here than anywhere else in the city.