The Dry Garden

Help!

 
 

The Gardener's Drawing Showing the Front Yard Before Any Work Is Done

We ask our friends and neighbors for recommendations for a landscape designer/ contractor to help us install a dry garden in place of the lawn.  Finally we find someone and tell him of our ideas: these include a dry wash and a path running diagonally from the areaoutside the front door to the mailbox.  He says these can both be incorporated, and tells us that a dry wash is, in fact, essential to take away heavy winter rain that would otherwise have been absorbed by the lawn.  A week or two later he delivers a plan.  We feel enthusiastic about it, like the landscaper and look forward to dealing with him. 

He suggests the following plants:

Nandina 

Buddleia

Festuca

Silene

Penisetum Orientale

Thyme 'Pink Chintz'

Ajuga

Acorus Gramineus

Sisyrinchium Bellum (Blue eye grass)

 

Back yard lessons

 
 The Back Yard

Although our back yard appears lush and includes a productive vegetable garden, and a small lawn, it takes relatively little water and is almost entirely irrigated using a drip system.

The decision

It’s April and we, the gardener and I, have a decision to make.   

After two low-rainfall winters, the Santa Rosa City Council has declared a Stage 1 Water Shortage, asking the community for a 15% reduction in water usage.   

The gardener and I must make a choice and we decide not to turn on the sprinklers on our thirsty front lawn.

Over the weeks the grass turns from brilliant green to the mellow gold of the California hillsides and we find to our satisfaction that our water usage drops more than 30% per month.  The front lawn covers less than a tenth of the irrigated ground in our front, back and side yards.