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This weedy lawn had been bothering the homeowners for a long time. It was a nice lawn when it was first put in, but needed to be maintained often. As busy professionals, they really did not have the time. On the other hand, they wanted to be friendly for the environment and have a small footprint. The lawn, they felt, used too much water.

After a long dry winter rains finally came! For three days the rains just came down heavily. This garden was completed right before the rains. During the rain, raindrops can be seen coming down from the two down spouts, going right into the the soil of the garden. The plants waved gently in the rain, as if saying: “Thank you!”

When this garden was transformed from a weedy turf to a water efficient garden, not only would it save water, but a seed of a purple dream was also planted. When the garden was being planned, the idea was to have this dream place with the purple splendor. Lavenders lined two complete sides of the garden, as well as the parking strip. When the garden was finished, everyone was eager to find out: when will the purple walk come into life?

When a garden is installed, naturally, everyone hope all the plants will establish and grow. Specifically, everyone wonder: how long will it take to bloom? Last fall, in the blog post “From Brown to California Native Charm” we talked about how a brown lawn was transformed into a charming garden with many California native plants. It looked great when finished, but when will it become a garden full of flowers?

After experiencing one of the worst droughts in the state’s history from water year 2011-2016, California went to another extreme since the start of water year 2017, receiving so much rains that it became one of the wettest for the time period so far. We know generally plants like rain, but how about the drought tolerant plants and native plants that were planted in water efficient gardens last year? Did they survive? How do they do after all the rains? Recently I went back and checked on those gardens, what I saw totally blew me away. A floral dream is blooming!

Against a full wall of Camilla trees, Lucy (not her real name)’s lawn used to be green and lush. With the drought, however, parts of the turf just went bare, with the remaining thin and weedy. Then rains – lots of them- came, the turf just turned into this big bed of wild weeds. Lucy had been wanting to replace it with a much nicer “dream garden”

I want to get rid of the brown lawn, like yesterday! and I want a garden of flowers! ” declared Sheena (not the real name), the owner of the house and a mom of young girls.

The brown lawn has been an eye sore to the owner of the house for quite a while. He had been wanting to replace it with something more beautiful, but did not know where to start. Since California’s drought five years ago, he put in his effort to conserve water, turning off the sprinklers. Sure enough, the lawn went brown. He heard about Landscape Conversion Rebate Program, but did not know how it worked.