Planting a Drought Resistant Lawn Part 2 – Hello New Plants
A few weeks ago we shared Part 1 of our plans to replace our grass lawn with drought resistant plants. We recently moved into a new house and discovered that the sprinkler system used to water the grass was a huge waste of water. So Adam spearheaded the effort to redo our landscaping. Let's catch up and see where we are at now.
The first step was to tear up the grass in the front of the lawn. After cleaning up all the debris, Adam got some crushed rock from the hardware store to mix into the dirt. The sandy material will help the soil drain better. Now that the yard is clean and smooth with fresh dirt and gravel, it's time to start planting.
We started by laying out the plants roughly where we wanted them. At some point we'd like to add a little split rail fence along the sidewalk, but that's for another day. For now we have Mexican feather grass and blue chalk sticks along the sidewalk. After we laid them out, we dug the holes to plant them and spread them out evenly across the lawn. Next we added a row of purple and orange iceplants behind the blue chalk sticks.
Adam did all the prep work and most of the planting, but I got my hands dirty too. I helped with planting the new plants.
I love a good before and after. The new plantings are looking nice! What do you think?
We also added some jasmine along the front wall. Jasmine blooms in the summer and it smells so good. Once these fill in they will smelly heavenly. Cue the music, "Summer breeze, makes me feel fine. Blowing through the jasmine in my mind..."
Oh by the way, we made some updates to the yellow sign that is intended to deter random dogs from pooping on our lawn. The original sign says, "Smile. You're on camera." I thought it was a little tacky and aggressive, and I'm happy to report Adam changed the messaging to something a little more classy and friendly. It's just a bootleg update (we printed the new message on paper and taped it over the original sign), but I think it's much more neighborly, don't you? KINDLY keep dogs off our lawn, emphasis on kindly.
Are you ready for some good old before and after shots? Check out the next few images which show the progression of the lawn from beginning until now. We started with full grass lawn. Next we tore up the grass. Then we cleaned it up and added fresh gravel to the soil. Finally we planted the new drought resistant plants. You can see the transformation on both sides of the lawn.
It will take awhile (maybe six months to a year) for the plants to fill in and create the luscious, full-coverage look we have in mind. But we've already started saving money on our water bill, and we look forward to transforming the rest of the lawn in the future. Stay tuned for more updates!
