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Gravel-scape

When I pulled into the driveway after a long days work, I just sat and looked at my new gravel garden.  The turf had been cleared, landscape fabric laid and gravel raked  - the coarse stones washed clean in evening rain, glistening under twinkling xmas lights.  The heavy soil underneath is ready for new roots - they will breathe life in its rigid back, much like healing needles puncturing away the pain.

We have to wait a few days more to make our much awaited trip to the native plant nursery.  The looming xmas season has broken our bank.  Our little party was a success however.  Surprisingly, no one commented on the gravel front-yard - perhaps they were too polite?  Right now, without the plants, it seems like an experiment gone wrong to an untutored eye.  But to me, everytime I see it - I get a little thrill of pleasure of things to be.  Gardening grounds us in the present as we sit down and weed, get mud in our fingernails, pluck off snails from delicate leaves, sigh over scratches made by petulant branches - yet, all the time, our hearts are warmed by visions of things to be and of little pleasures that we'll gather in our gardens. 

The little pots that are sitting in the middle of the photograph right now are Muhlenbergia capillaris "Regal Mist" - destined for the park-way.  We have decided on a row of floating, whispering grasses for the parkway - they should provide a nice contrast to the sturdy, aromatic native plants such as Ceanothus 'Joyce Coulter', Salvia apiana and Artemisia californica.  I have long coveted Fallugia paradoxa, Rhus ovata, Rhamnus californica - but decided since I couldn't have these for the front yard (too large), they are to go against my back-yard wall and screen us from the neighbors.  And I long ago lost my heart to Cercocarpus betuloides, growing out from the mountainside in twilight, it's thousand furry flowers aflame in the sepia light of the setting sun.  Again, it may prove to be too much for the front yard - so it shall go in the back-yard as well.  I'll make sure that it's positioned to catch the setting sun's rays too.

Cercocarpus betuloides' fuzzy flower

Turf - gone!

Since we have a 5-month old baby, and both work full-time jobs - we do not have much spare time.  We are not rolling in spare cash either - so instead of hiring a landscape design company, we had to do everything ourselves.  We asked around and did online research on how to kill our lawn, what kind of mulch to use, best native plants for small site like ours, irrigation for the native plants....  Every front yard is different, because the direction of the house (ours is North facing), trees and structures around, neighborhood you live in, all combine to create a unique micro-climate. Even within a few miles the soil may change dramatically.  For years my parents (living in Torrance a few miles north from us) struggled planting even tiny plugs of plants in their soil - it was so compacted that to plant even a 1-gallon annual, they had to both whack at the soil with heavy-duty pick-axes (keeping a sharp eye out for toes and other soft parts).  They have three pick-axes in their garage just to help them plant pansies and other Home Depot offerings.  Recently they found out that their sub-division was part of an old airport that was cleared to make even more tract housing.  Mystery of why their tomatoes keep failing - cleared.  You can now stop pouring gallons of fertilizer on your plants wearing knee high Yorkshire-farmer boots, Dad.  The soil is to blame.

Not so Long beach.  Our soil is lovely - sandy, soft, humusy - you could almost eat it!  And the climate is temparate - not extreme like Encino.  And we also get to avoid the cold mist that rolls in every evening in Torrance without fail. 

The decision to supplant the grass with the natives was an easy one.  The question was - how to get the grass wiped off efficiently and cheaply.  In the end, we found a gardener who could do it for a price that we both agreed on was fair (it wasn't cheap).  He rented a sod-cutter at the local Home Depot.  See results below. 

We also did research online for landscape fabric, landscape pins and gravel  (ok, I'll be honest - my husband did the research and the contacting - but I did do the research on the plants, the fun part).  The landscape fabric quality we found online was better quality than most local home improvement stores, but it did cost a bit to ship.  But, splurging on landscape fabric is important to prevent an army of weeds coming up when the plants are not fully established yet.  Gravel delivery also cost more than the gravel itself, but it was worth getting it all in one shot rather than ferrying it back and forth many times from the store. 


See the delivery in our drive-way below:

Today, the gardener has come to install the fabric and the gravel...

I feel that the hardest part - prepping for our wonderful palette of plants - is done.  If only I had unlimited funds to buy all the plants I want at the nursery, and a few thousand feet more for the extra space  :-)

Before - Lovely Green Turf ?

Here is a picture of before...

Our neighbors are 'on the fence' about our kill-the-lawn project.  We feel that we have to make this garden extra special so that more people can turn their 'dead lawns' into little habitat oases, save gallons of water, and prevent run-off. 

Step 1 - How it began

We moved to Long Beach from the lovely city of Encino (San Fernando Valley) in March 2010.  We bought our not-so-charming-at-first-look, fixer-upper ranch style, built-in-1950's-tract house to be closer to our families.  Sitting for two hours on the 405 traffic to pop over from Encino to Long Beach for dinner with family and friends was getting to be exhausting.  We still miss Encino - the awesome Sepulveda Dam Basin Recreation Center (with its Lake Balboa and recently restored Bull Creek), weekly sojourns at our favorite Taiwanese food (Mandarin deli), our favorite Salsa and Beer... Long Beach - where are your good restaurants, ye of corporate chain food joints? 

But, Long Beach has a wonderful upside of being gritty and lovely at the same time.  We love driving around for errands and coming upon old Arts and Crafts homes and bungalows.  I was pleased to find out that this is another area where India has had a direct influence on architecture.  Bungalows are from the Bengali word bangla, a dwelling for the bourgeois Indians, the style of which was copied extensively for the Arts and Crafts style bungalows here in the United States. 

Me and my husband covet the Arts and Crafts style for our unassuming ranch style house, which was placed like most homes in California en masse and very cheaply post WWII.  Coming from India, where the houses are made of solid brick and have 20' ceilings, we were initially perplexed by the tiny rooms, lack of electrical outlets, ceilings which we could reach up and touch and slip-shod aluminium frame windows, which leaked in outside elements.  In fact, I had come to America ten years ago to study architecture, but soon changed my mind.  What can the Americans possibly teach me about architecture, I thought?  I chose to study finance instead - a game that Americans excel at (but perhaps not so much even that - looking at the past few years Wall Street debacle).

I slaved 60-plus hours a week at a Beverly Hills Hedge Fund for four years, but hated it so much that I decided to change my career path entirely (thanks to my ex-boss who unintentionally made me quit a field entirely usuitable to me).  American universities are amazing and wonderful - they have so much knowledge to offer and the libraries and the professors are brilliant.  After poring through catalogues, talking to friends and family - I decided to apply to the renowned Cal Poly Pomona's Master in Landscape Architecture program.  That was one of the best decisions of my life.  The MLA program is rated in the top 10 in the US, teaches about design, environmental ethics, sustainability, cultural awareness, california natives, water sustainability, watershed awareness, wetlands and creek restorations etc.  - I got so much out of it, plus it changed the way I perceive the external world.  It taught me to perceive the world in multiple layers, rather than think in a uni-dimensional way.

One of my favorites class was the California natives class.  70% of the native plants in California are endemic to it - that is, they are not found anywhere else in the world.  Coastal California is mediterranean in nature, its plants are uniquely adapted to the soil and climate. 

Mediterranean climate is generally described as having a hot, dry summer and a mild, wet winter.  Although California has a vast array of unique habitats, within a few hours you can drive from the coast -  to the desert - to the sierras and to the redwoods, it is still described as being Mediterranean.  Other Mediterranean climate countries are Spain, Italy, Greece, South Africa, Southwest Australia and Central Chile.  They cover 5% of the land mass of the earth, but have 20% of the plant species in it.  Mediterranean plants are aromatic and xeric.

City of Long Beach has a wonderful program called "Lawn to Garden" program.  Their website describes it: "The Long Beach Water Department will rebate $2.50 per square foot of lawn removed from front yards and parkways and replaced with California friendly landscaping, up to 1,000 square feet to qualified customers."

My husband and I discussed the option of taking out our turf entirely.  We finally agreed that although  it was a lot of work, we really wanted a native garden, instead of boring grass, which was guzzling precious water and producing nothing in return.  Our gardener, a grumpy man, comes in weekly with a loud lawn-mower (I can't stand them) and then an equally loud leaf blower to keep the grass trimmed, while we pour gallons of water on it to make it grow.  The weekly see-saw between growing and cutting, growing and cutting - the crazy dance had to be stopped.  We wanted the leisure of growing a tiny patch of a productive, aromatic habitat - that we could sit in and enjoy.  The lawn was of no use to either of us (we couldn't roll around on it) or the butterflies, bees and birds.  It had to go. 

Sorry, Mr. Gardener.  We are going to offer him to stay on for the back-yard.  We still have lawn there (but are taking part of it out to install a herb garden).  Last week, we had the front-yard turf removed.  See attached picture of the turf all gone.  The two straggly plants are the 'trees' we had planted the year before - Western redbud (Cercis occidentalis) and Chilopsis linearis.



Front yard Plan






































We may deviate only slightly from the approved plan (there are some last minute plants I want to add - it's easy to be greedy with so many lovely choices).  I will post the final plan later, changes et al, when everything has been installed. We are keeping the sprinkler in the parkway, but are installing drip irrigation for the main front natives garden.  Wish us luck!