This homeowner wanted to convert the property from water guzzling, high maintenance and boring turf to a combination of plants that would save water, maintenance hours, provide visual beauty and benefit the local fauna of birds, butterflies and bees.
“When we bought our house the front yard was a sea of grass struggling to remain green and 8 shrubs carved into circles. It took a lot of water just to maintain it's boring appearance. We asked Susanne Jett to create a native garden that would attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Turns out it attracts people too, and we love it. Our garden has gotten more beautiful in the eight years since she planted it. After remodeling in 2010, we had Susanne return to do the backyard. Now our entire landscape is environmentally friendly and we couldn’t be happier with how it looks."
The garden refurbish of 2010 now includes a rainwater catchment element (infiltration pit) in the front yard and rain chains on all of the gutters throughout the property. The infiltration pit collects roof rainwater runoff from the front half of the house. Thousands of gallons of seasonal rainwater are diverted from the street gutter and into the ground water table of the site. All walking and driving surfaces on the property have been designed to reduce water runoff.
The front garden is a combination of plantings and permeable walking areas from the original landscape installation of 2004 and the post-remodel refurbish plantings of 2010. The back garden was completely re-landscaped as part of the 2010 remodel refurbish. The entire landscape is a combination of Mediterranean plants including CA native plants. With the exception of fruit trees and edibles in back, all selected plants are low to medium water need plants. There is no turf on this property. Most of the plants provide some type of habitat support and attract beneficial insects to support Integrated Pest Management in the garden environment.
All planting areas on the property are serviced by low-volume, drip irrigation. The delivery of irrigation ranges from once per week to once per fifteen days. A weather-based irrigation controller on this site would enable irrigation delivery of 20 to 30 day periods. A weather-based irrigation controller will be the next landscape upgrade. Transitioning from a turf dominated landscape to one of low and low medium water use plants and low-volume drip irrigation can reduce water use on a residential property by 65% to 85%.
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