Sonoma County Master Gardeners - From Thirsty East Coast to Thrifty West Coast Garden

From Thirsty East Coast to Thrifty West Coast Garden

East Coast Style

There is much information available about planning a water-wise garden from scratch – the Master Gardener website is full of helpful articles and plant lists, for example. However, what if you inherit a more traditional, ‘East Coast-type’ garden full of roses and peonies? Switching to low-water plants and giving up those lush characteristics can be daunting. However, one Sonoma resident adapted her high-water garden and lawn to a more climate-appropriate design and plant selection, lowered her water bill considerably and didn’t lose any of the eye-appeal or functionality of her old garden. Here’s the story:

A close friend and neighbor bought a property here in the Sonoma Valley upon her retirement some years ago, situated on a roomy knoll in an oak woodland. The knoll-top was surrounded by many second and third growth blue and valley oaks, with some large, old coast live oaks at the edge of the house and garden area.

Oaks had been cleared from the home site and surrounds when the house was built twenty years before, and the landscaping on that 3/4 acre was that "East coast" style--an oasis of water-loving plants and lush lawns in the middle of California oak woodland. Texas Privet (ligustrum japonicum) and Pyracantha hedged the

Under oaks

fence lines; there was a hybrid-tea rose garden; a wisteria arbor; a perennial bed/herbaceous border; a small fruit orchard; and low box hedging around the rear lawn. Drifts of azaleas and rhododendrons nestled in the shade of smaller oaks bordering the front lawns. The property was extensively and beautifully landscaped with non-native, high-maintenance water-loving plants and bluegrass turf. Her costs for landscape maintenance, and, her summer water bills were daunting to most anyone’s budget, to say the least.

New lavender

After an astronomical July-August water bill in the summer of 2007 due to an un-detected leak in the extensive lawn irrigation system, she decided something had to be done. She began by replacing one herbaceous border with a bed of drought-tolerant lavender—l. 'Grosso'. The box hedge was removed and replaced with water-thrifty rosemary, which could then be pruned as a hedge (and has the added benefit of glorious blue winter bloom). She elected to leave the mature privet fence-line hedges, but replaced one bed of azaleas and rhododendrons in the front of the house with

2 year Rosemary, lawn gone, new plants

California natives suitable for under-oak planting. That area’s drip system was completely

Old lawn, new rosemary

re-done to insure efficiency. In the summer of 2008 her water bills were reduced considerably and her garden looked lovely, even though it was only part-way through its transformation. The new beds were attractive and clearly holding their own!

After another year of reduced, but still large, summer water bills (and coincidentally the loss of her two beloved dogs, who had played on the rear lawn) she decided that the lawn had to go.

Rosemary hedge, proposed beds

This spring, with Master Gardener advice, she evaluated the options for lawn removal and replacement. She was not willing to accept the look and time needed for sheet mulching, so opted to have the lawns dug out by hand and shovel, beginning with the rear lawn and driveway turf (approximately 2000 sq ft), a process which took several days and cost around $1500. After the turf removal, compost was added to improve the soil and the area was mulched for appearance.

Entry Before

Entry proposed

This fall, the entry lawn will be removed, and all of the former lawn areas will be replaced by a combination of hardscape and water-wise Mediterranean and California Native plants. The driveway lawn area will have a winding decomposed-granite path around a sculpture pad, and be planted with a harmonious mix of water-thrifty Mediterranean shrubs, perennials and ornamental grasses.

The rear lawn is being replaced with a seating area of a combination of decomposed granite and cast-stone pavers interplanted with creeping time—thymus praeacox arcticus. Flanking beds of lavender, Russian sage, lamb’s ear and catmint inside the rosemary hedge will add color and form. The lawns in front of the house will be supplanted by two central olive trees on mounds surrounded by interweaving swaths of colorful and fragrant Mediterranean plantings.

Plants are spaced such that they will fill in completely at their mature size. The overhead sprinklers in all of these three former lawn areas will be adapted to drip, using inline emitter tubing at 1’ centers, spaced 18 inches apart to completely irrigate the entire beds, rather than individual plants. ‘Smart’ controllers that can incorporate current weather and evapotranspiration data will be installed for further water efficiency. According to HydroPoint, a local manufacturer of such controllers in Petaluma, they can pay back their investment in a very few years.

The water use for the garden after completion is expected to be well under 40% of what it used to be, and would be even lower if the mature privet hedges, wisteria, roses and azalea and rhododendron groves were removed. Ultimately, this will be a consummate transformation of an ‘old style’ high water lawn and garden into a much less thirsty, but still beautiful, climate-appropriate landscape.

West Coast Style

Plants by Area

Azalea & Rhododendron replacement under oaks
Arbutus unedo, Rhamnus californica, Cistus ladanifer, Heteromeles arbutifolia, Arctostaphylos densiflora ‘Howard McMinn’, Ribes sanguineum

Driveway entry lawn area
Achillea millefolium, Santolina chamaecyparissus, Ceanothus gloriosus 'Anchor Bay', Gaura lindheimeri, Nepeta racemosa, Yucca whipplei, Helictotrichen sempervirens, Festuca glauca, Carex pansa

Rear lawn area
Lavandula ‘Grosso’, Achillea 'Moonshine', Perovskia atriplicifolia' Blue Spire', Nepeta x faassenii, Stachys byzantina

Front lawn areas
‘Grosso’ lavender, Gaura lindheimerii, Kniphofia, Achillea millefolium, Salvia 'Bee's Bliss', Salvia greggii, Santolina chamaecyparissus, Helictotrichen sempervirens, Phormium tenax

Water-wise & Beautiful

written by SCMG Steven Hightower

Sonoma County Master Gardeners Helping Sonoma Gardeners