Going
California green…a work in process
This
is a corner house, so the front yard is large. The owners are transforming it,
one section at a time, doing all the designing, digging and planting
themselves. They are using primarily California native plants from nurseries at
Theodore
Payne Foundation and the Santa Barbara
Botanical Gardens.
The
project began in 2009 with the parkway strip on Kingsland Street. The owners
removed the grass and planted a variety of low-growing California native shrubs
as well as California poppy seeds. This was their test area. It is a beautiful
success, and a lesson in what can be done on a parkway.
Several
of the low-growing manzanita shrubs grew more robustly than predicted and are
happily blooming. Ashyleaf buckwheat reseeds itself and blooms in a range of
beige to rosy pink flowerettes on long stems. Monkeyflower and blue penstemon
add color in the spring and summer. The plant mix includes a few milkweeds and the
owners now enjoying seeing Monarch butterflies throughout much of the year.
The
owners are now redoing the Kingsland side garden, working on hardscaping with
stepping stones and planting more California natives. Their goal is to have a
beautiful flowering California native garden on the south side of the property
requiring little water, low maintenance and no chemical herbicides.
They’ve
installed a composter, purchased inexpensively at a City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation composting workshop. And they have some home-grown
mulch from a tree that had to be removed.
Once
the south side is done, the owners will begin work on the larger garden area on
Corinth Avenue. Lots of digging ahead! Come and see how far they’ve gotten.
