Shrink Your Lawn or Ditch it All Together

Spring Equinox ushers in longer days and with  the recent arrival of the first day of spring and Daylight Saving Time just kicking in this means more time to devote to our outdoor spaces and gardens. We need to be sure to take time to enjoy our roses’ first flush of blooms, the most glorious of the whole year.

Assess Your Garden
Take a look at your yard. Do you really need that plot of water-guzzling lawn? Across California, lawns are the leading consumer of outdoor residential water use. Let’s be honest, with very little to offer in the way of habitat value, thirsty traditional lawns could be smaller in favor of providing habitat for butterflies, birds, and bees.

In our mild climate, consider the many relaxing benefits of a water feature in your turf-free zone. Many no-turf options combine the use of local native plants, inviting paths, seating areas, perhaps a small meadow of flowering perennials, and water features.

Thoughtful Design
Think about your outdoor activity needs and limiting turf to places where you really need it (like a kids’ play areas). Some types of grassy lawns require less water than others so consider this when combining drought tolerant plantings alongside a lawn. Or, try eliminating it altogether—it’s the most effective way to reduce your outdoor water use (plus it gets you out of the mowing grind).

So if you don’t use it, why not ditch it? Beautiful landscapes that replace turf with easy care, drought-tolerant plants will make you wonder why it took you so long to make the change.  Eye of the Day has over two acres brimming with pots converted to fountains, multi-tiered fountains, beautiful statuary, antique wrought iron, birdbaths, patio furniture and staff who will happily guide you through making the switch to ditch your lawn, and to create a beautiful, peaceful outdoor space.

 

Photo Credit: Bee, Creative Commons, Pollen covered Bee by Bill Damon is licensed under CC by 2.0 

One of my favorite gardens that I designed a few years ago is a great example of how you can replace a water-thirsty lawn with lush looking, and less thirsty, plants.  One of the most successful strategies we used was to swap out the turf lawn and install a drought-tolerant Dymondia margaratea ‘lawn’ in its place.  But first, a little background and a few before & afters:

My client’s home is located on a busy corner within a stone’s throw of two nearby schools, has giant picture windows throughout the house and has a 4-foot high wall that surrounds most of the garden (a Lookiloo’s fantasy!)  What this translates into is the homeowners were on constant display to traffic and pedestrians alike and felt like they were living in a fishbowl, for all to see.

The lack of privacy would tempt many to build a fortress-like wall to surround the garden, but staying true to their welcoming personalities, they decided to create a garden that others might equally enjoy (after all, if they’re going to peek over the wall they might as well have something nice to look at, right?)

Tired of their threadbare, un-used, water-thirsty lawn and random mishmash of plantings, they wished for a more responsible, fun, and ‘livable’ garden that used less water and incorporated plenty of native plants to encourage wildlife to visit.  Our first step was to rip out the lawn and reinterpret a newer, smaller version using Dymondia.  I chose Dymondia because it’s extremely tough, drought-tolerant, evergreen and can withstand a fair amount of foot traffic. Plus, it’s just so darnned pretty.

Their concern, however, was that using such an expansive amount of the color gray in the garden would have a blinding, bright and parched effect.  This is a perfectly valid concern, and one that I’ve often heard from other clients who have experienced the unintended ‘glare’ in their gardens as a result of an overuse of gray plants.   To help avoid this common pitfall of using gray in the garden, here are a few tricks I’ve used to help tone down the brightness while still enjoying this beautiful color.

Shades of Gray

First, it’s important to realize that there are different shades of gray ranging from light & bright, to mid-level gray all the way to dark, charcoal-like foliage. And because of this range, it’s important to understand that not all grays are alike.  It’s perfectly okay to use plenty of gray plants in the garden, as long as you vary the shading.  No one wants to look at one bright gray plant after another without a place for the eye to rest, so remember to use plenty of mid-level and dark gray plants sprinkled throughout.

Keeping it Lush

In order to prevent gray colors from creating a ‘pass the sunglasses’ effect in your garden, it’s also important to include plenty of nearby plants that have deep, rich colors, such as burgundy, green and purple. In this garden, the plants chosen included the brilliant blue flowers of our native ‘Blue Springs’ Penstemon, vibrant purple Lavender and the deep burgundy Stonecrop that creeps throughout the edges of the Dymondia lawn.

Lambs Ear is used sparingly throughout the garden, as it’s a really bright shade of gray, almost bordering on white, and could easily cause the Dymondia to appear brighter than it actually is.

In fact, each Dymondia leaf consists of two colors – green on the bottom and silvery gray on top.  And once the Dymondia begins to grow and fill out (forming a soft and inviting 3-inch spongy mat), its slender leaves will begin to twist gently, revealing its different colors.

To further emphasize the green in the bi-colored foliage, I’ve included plenty of other surrounding plants with green colors to help strengthen the color echo.

For example, I’ve interspersed our native Carex divulsa (Berkeley Sedge) and Calamagrostis foliosa (Feather Reed Grass) throughout the lawn, as well as lots of perennials with green foliage.

It’s not just Dymondia that has hefty amounts of green in its coloring – take a look at a lot of other gray plants and you’ll notice green beneath the gray ‘fuzz’ (ie: many lavenders, senecios and hostas).  To emphasize the blue tones of the gray Dymondia colors, I also included plenty of blue plants in the garden, as well – like this ‘Beyond Blue’ fescue, various succulents, and many blue-flowered perennials.

My goal was to emphasize the tones and colors that I want while minimizing the tones that I don’t want.  Can you imagine how bright the garden would be if I had used an overabundance of white flowers and foliage?

Hardscaping

Hardscaping (such as nearby flagstones, patios and sidewalks) plays an important role when placed near gray plants as it, too, can serve to either tone down the brightness or amp it up to blinding proportions.

For this garden, we chose flagstones with slightly creamy-pink tones to them.  Again, the reason was to de-emphasize the bright gray colors by introducing softer muted shades to tone things down.

I’ve seen plenty of instances where a drift of bright gray plants, such as Lamb’s Ear or Artemesia, have been placed directly adjacent to a bright white cement walkway. And 9 times out of 10, that’s the area the homeowner is referring to when they say they don’t like the color gray.

To eliminate this blinding effect, just remember to use hardscaping ( as well as plants) with softer tones and/or darker colors.

A year after this garden was installed, we compared water bills – the result was amazing!   Compared to the wall-to-wall ‘carpeting’ of lawn from before, the new garden uses 40% less water, even though there is a ton of plants in this garden!  This shows that with creative and careful plant selection, and water-efficient drip irrigation, the result can be breathtaking while using much less water.

When Jane Abascal and her husband Manny moved into their home on a quiet, tree-lined street in Altadena, California, they noticed the garden across the street had a lovely, welcoming feel they wanted for their new space. After a reasonable amount of time, Jane approached her neighbor to ask if she would share the name of their landscape architect. Lucky for Jane, she was speaking with exactly that landscape architect, Sally Farnum of the eponymous SE Farnum Associates. Who could ask for more than a designer in the neighborhood? Sally and Jane hit it off as neighbors while their professional relationship flourished. As it happened, Sally had worked with the previous homeowners to renovate the back of their property, but the front was due for a serious update and overhaul.

Jane had some specific wishes and Sally, no shrinking violet, had some strong ideas as well.  At first, Jane wanted to keep the lovely lawn that the previous homeowners had so carefully tended.

Sally’s plan called for moving an existing, water impermeable asphalt driveway and removing the lawn. When she discussed this idea with Jane and described a courtyard plan using gravel, decomposed granite with brick accents, Jane was intrigued. Sally envisioned an allee of white crepe myrtles lining a long, narrow, shallow fountain, creating perspective. When the plans were finalized, they agreed that Sally’s vision would be excellent for water conservation, would accent the “French” feel of the Abascal home and would have a completely new look.

Ms. Farnum designed a low plastered wall and wrought iron gate to enclose the courtyard and the fountain constructed with poured concrete walls and a bluestone cap. French Anduze Vases at the gate on the courtyard side and a mature olive tree from Eye of the Day planted on the street side of the wall along with sage, lavender, and other Mediterranean plants create a water-efficient design that is a great fit with the French look of Jane and Manny’s home.

“Jane was a great client,” Farnum says, “she was open to new ideas while having plenty of her own.  We worked so well together to achieve what has become one of my favorite projects and I’m so happy to have been able to design a beautiful garden setting–without a lawn!–for my neighbors.”