If you are a busy person with a lawn and worry about water shortages — and the size of your water bill — this article is for you.
Lawns consume a lot of water and time, and the chemicals often used to “treat” them can be bad for the environment. Lawns themselves are also known as “green deserts,” as they do nothing to support wildlife.
But there is a better, and easier, way to landscape your yard: Replace your lawn with drought-tolerant natives and other Mediterranean zone plants that are adapted to summer-dry climates like ours. You might even qualify for a water district rebate. (Visit montereywaterinfo.org for details.)
But, you might ask, isn’t it difficult to remove a lawn? Won’t drought-tolerant plants be higher maintenance — and also brown and ugly in summer? And will I have to become a native plant geek to figure out what to plant?
Happily, it’s pretty easy to replace a lawn, and with a little planning, your drought-tolerant garden will offer year-round color and interest. You don’t have to become a native plant expert, and your new yard will take much less maintenance than a lawn.
Does this sound too good to be true? The city of Santa Monica’s Garden/Garden Project put it to the test. In 2004 (and again in 2013), the city installed landscaping in two similar gardens — a traditional lawn-based landscape and a sustainable, drought-tolerant native landscape. Then they tracked the costs and benefits over the years. In round figures, compared to the traditional garden, the sustainable garden uses about one-fifth of the water, takes a quarter of the maintenance and creates about three-fifths of the green waste.
How to lose your lawn
The easiest way to rid yourself of your pesky lawn is called sheet mulching. You can do it in a weekend. You lay double layers of overlapping newspaper, cardboard or builder’s paper over the entire lawn, wet it down to ensure good contact, and add three to four inches of mulch on top of that. Builder’s paper is a good choice. Available at large hardware stores, it is heavy kraft construction paper and comes in long, 3-foot-wide rolls. You can plant through the mulch immediately. For this method to succeed, you must deprive the lawn of all light so that it decomposes. To make sure that no light seeps in, you must remove a little bit of the lawn — cut back the sod six to eight inches from all walkways, and sheet-mulch this area, too.
Another way is to cut the turf to a depth of about six inches using a rented sod cutter and turn it root side up. You can pile the sod up to create one or more planting mounds, which add visual interest to a garden. Mounds are generally around a foot and a half to three feet high and can be (for example) oval, kidney, or teardrop shaped. Compact the mounds and add soil as needed to grade the sides to a smooth slope. Then add three to four inches of mulch, such as small sized redwood bark, over the entire area (including the mounds), and add plants.
For larger lawns, you can use a combination of these two methods. For Bermuda grass, however, you may have to resort to more drastic methods such as solarization, covering the lawn with black plastic sheeting until grass and seeds “cook.”
If you plan to replace your lawn with a patio, you’ll have to remove the sod and prepare the ground as you would for any patio project. In her Soquel garden, Lynda Haworth used widely spaced field stones with tough ground cover between, using Dymondia and creeping thyme. She piled up the sod to decompose. Sod is mostly soil and can’t be recycled at the county landfills, so it’s best if you can use it on-site.
What to plant
What to replace your lawn with can be a daunting question, but fortunately many local landscape designers and even some nurseries can provide a drought-tolerant planting plan for your garden at a reasonable cost. The most eco-friendly gardens use local native plants in the mix, so if that’s appealing to you, be sure to let the designer know. Plan in hand, you can then buy and install the plants with confidence, or pay for those services, too, depending on your budget.
When planting through the mulch, dig holes not much wider or deeper than the root ball. Loosen up the roots and plant so that the root crown (where root turns into stem) is at or slightly above grade (ground level) for good drainage. Fill around the plant thoroughly and firmly to ensure you don’t leave air holes. Keep the mulch a few inches away from the root crown to avoid problems with fungus. Water the plants in well, so the entire root area gets a good soaking.
If you have an interest in gardening, you can create your own planting plan. There are a lot of great books to help you, such as “California Native Plants for the Garden,” “Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates,” “The Western Garden Book” and (most pertinently!) “Reimagining the American Lawn.”
Group plants with similar needs for water and sun. Allow room for them to grow to their mature size. In their first year or two, drought-tolerant shrubs may stay quite small (while underground they are growing extensive roots). In the third and fourth years you’ll generally see more rapid growth. You can fill the spaces between young shrubs temporarily with faster-growing plants.
To mitigate the summer brown phase of many lovely spring bloomers and summer-deciduous shrubs, select some plants that bloom in summer and fall, as well as some evergreen shrubs.
Local nursery staffers as well as volunteers in groups such as the California Native Plant Society and Friends of the Arboretum can offer informed advice. Both organizations are holding their spring plant sales Saturday.
How to care for it
A well-designed drought-tolerant landscape will last years without a lot of attention. Avoid fertilizing and overwatering. Now and then, add more mulch, and pull weeds. You can leave seed heads on for interest and bird food, or deadhead to encourage more blooms. An annual pruning will keep the plants more attractive and healthy. Water infrequently but deeply. Avoid watering in the heat of day, to avoid problems with fungus.
A newly installed drought-tolerant landscape needs more frequent watering than a mature one. As a general rule, during the first year, water once a week in dry weather, and in the second year, once a month. By the third year your landscape may need no supplemental watering, depending on the plants you choose.
Before you know it, your garden will be alive with the sights and sounds of nature. You’ll be delighted — and all you wanted to do was save on your water bill.
Summer-blooming natives
Here are some planting ideas. These plant families feature summer bloomers that shine while your garden’s early bloomers slumber through summer.
Salvias: Ground cover (such as ‘Bee’s Bliss’) to mid-sized shrubs (such as Salvia clevelandii). Lavender to blue flowers from spring through summer, and wonderful scented foliage.
Monkeyflowers (Mimulus): Shrubby mid-sized perennials. Many cultivars with blooms from orange and salmon to rose-pink and maroon. Can bloom almost year-round in coastal gardens.
Buckwheats (Eriogonum): Very low to medium sized perennials. Rosy-red, pink, white, and yellow blooms are attractive into fall.
Penstemons: Small to medium sized perennials. Red, blue and lavender blooms.
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium): Medium-size perennials. White to salmon pink blooms.
Dudleyas and Sedums: Low growing succulents. Mainly yellow, some pink blooms.
California fuchsia (Epilobium canum): Llow to mid size mounding perennial. Scarlet blooms into October.
Saturday plant sales
What: Side-by-side plant sales held by the Santa Cruz County chapter of the California Native Plant Society, and the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum
What’s for sale: California native plants, as well as ones adapted to the Mediterranean climate
When: Saturday. Society members and members of Friends of the Arboretum have access 10 a.m. to noon. Public access noon to 4 p.m.
Where: The Eucalyptus Grove at the UCSC Arboretum, access near Empire Grade Road and Western Drive
Payment: Cash and checks accepted. Arboretum sale also accepts cards.
Details: For the CNPS sale, visit cruzcnps.org. For Arboretum sale, visit arboretum.ucsc.edu.
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