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Simone Fary lives just 3 blocks from the newly-bustling downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, with its shops, night life and subway station to greater DC. So, a great location. Plus plenty of sun, y'all! But like every other front yard in the neighborhood, hers was devoted to the care and feeding of turfgrass and some foundation shrubs. That bit of conformity ended when Simone got the urge to grow some food, dammit, but to grow it in a gorgeous, gardeny way. No need to go whole-farm and get the neighbors all nervous about property values. No need to deny herself a beautiful garden. The gardener with sun can have everything!
There's no real plan or formula for mixing edibles with ornamentals, just lots of experimentation. Lots of gardening. (Get that? It's not what you'd call low-maintenance, and it isn't intended to be.) Here are the plants that have done well for Simone in her sunny city lot.
Fruits and vegetables
Highbush blueberry, Egyptian walking onions, Calendula, Egyptian spinach (self-seeding), Peas, Purple bush and pole beans against the fence, Chard, 'Hard neck' garlic she plants in October, Collonade apple (of which the squirrels eat ALL), Red currents (very pretty in the spring), Pepper, Pawpaws (which are fly-pollinated, so Simone does that by hand with a paintbrush, Asian persimmons.
Herbs
Rosemary, Thyme, Oregano, Pineapple sage, Chives (blossoms are great on salads), Bronze fennel, Sorrel, and Dill (gorgeous the day I visited in late summer).
Strictly ornamen
tal or for wildlife
Sunflower, Purple sage (or its looks, not for cooking), Creeping phlox, Sedum, Asters, Dayliles (though you can eat daylily flowers), Mums, Lamb's ear, Ajuga, Liatris, Monarda (though flower petals can be used in salads), Hydrangea, Sunberries (for foliage only – because the bugs eat the fruit).
What she does not recommend
- Passionflower or purple coneflower because they seed too freely.
- Strawberry also reseeded too freely, and they're great in jellies and syrup. So, maybe in hanging baskets.
- Nanking bush cherry – little red lines, tart. Simone says it takes up too much space for what it yields.
Garden writer Julie Shapiro, whose 1/4-acre garden is in Hull, MA along the Boston Harbor, sent me these photos of her "eco-lawn", and the story behind it. That interesting tale includes far more than lawn, though. Her 1885 house has a colorful history that includes lobster boats being stored alongside it, so Julie's first job on the site was to get rid of some asphalt and lots of soil filled with metal lobster trap shards, glass and other sharp dangerous things. But because her land is in a A1 flood plain – meaning an area of special flood hazard – "care had to be given to the plant material and lawn, if there was to be any."
That official status meant that Julie had to go before the town's Conservation Committee with copious amounts of documentation from all sorts of agencies about her plans for the yard, including exactly how many times her new peastones had been washed. New surfaces needed to be permeable. Even her new 200-square-foot lawn-type area had to be spec'ed and approved – and that's where we pick up the story of her eco-lawn.
My research on what to do with the "lawn" brought me to the developing of an ecolawn or biolawn, an ecologicaly-based area (consisting of plants suitable for the region we live in, and are both drought and shade tolerant, don’t thatch, as grass does, and is attractive to look at, doing away with constant “mowing, spraying , fertilizing and watering, thereby conserving water and energy, protecting the soils surface, and having a lovely and safe alternative to “a patch of green”.
This is what we proposed to the Conservation Committee, and after receiving our positive declaration proceeded to hand sow a mix of Colonial Bentgrass (Agrostis tenuis), Strawberry clover (Trifolium fragiferum) and Dutch White Clover (T. repens), Wild English Daisies (Bellis perennis), Roman Chamomile (Anthemus nobilis), Yarrow (Achillea millifolium), and Baby Blue Eyes (Nemophila menziesii), low-growing thyme, and small spring ephemeral bulbs.
These photos are of our lawn. We are proud of it, have to mow it with our reel mower very rarely, and it blooms, feeds itself, and has become a comfort for our feet and a comfort to us. We did this right and we are happy with all the work and effort we put in to doing it right.
At the 11-year mark, the annual clover, leaving bare patches, has me on the move to decide what to reseed in its place. I do reseed with clover and chamomile every other year, but I would like more thyme. It seems the thyme grows well and lives happily in these reclaimed spots, as a hermit crab would in retaking another's space.
That is our story and we're sticking to it.
Thanks, Julie!
Toby Riley in Northeastern Florida wrote to the Lawn Reform Coalition to tell us:
In 1998 I replaced my St Augustine grass with stone and mulch and crape myrtles etc – best move I ever made and it has paid for it'self many times over. Please sign me up as a supporter. Toby Riley.
So asked what was there before and he answered:
There was only a strip of grass along the front of the lot, about 30' by 210'. We saved most of the original trees. The grass was replaced in 1998 with native shrubs, ground cover, crushed stone and the crape myrtles. This year I am adding a vegetable garden since the front yard gets the most sun.
No yard maintenance costs, no fertilizer and very little water used. I have been repaid several times over. Please send it all over the country and we are glad to offer tours to anyone passing by in NE Florida.
Great transformation there, Toby, and thanks for sharing it.
Nine of us garden designer/writer/rabble-rowser types have been conspiring for a while now to come up with a way to bring attention to the problems with the American Lawn as we know it, but even more so on all the solutions we have to choose from – better lawn types, organic, low-water lawn care, and alternatives to lawn altogether. Because you know where the public is always sent for gardening help, right? Those Extension Service websites. Well, most of them are still telling us to "green up" the lawn in the spring, water a inch every week throughout the summer, and kill that awful clover. Yep, the need for information about better choices is clear.
So we pitched in a hundred bucks each, hired a designer, and put together what we hope will be an inspiring website. A little more scheming resulted in a Facebook page, a Flickr group, and printable materials for other lawn reformersr to use locally.
And today’s our big coming out party!! So mosey on over to LawnReform.org and look around. It’s just a start, and puh-leeze send me your suggestions for books, articles online, success stories about overturning laws and rules that mandate perfect, green lawn, etc. And spread our link – especially to the Resources page – because right now people looking for help online are finding pretty much nothing. Seriously, I Googled "lawn replacement" and found a website that was nothing
but stolen content, including my own. (We reported that sucker to their server and got the site taken down stat.) But soon, people looking for help with find it, and they just might make some changes.
WIN THE AMERICAN MEADOW LAWN BOOK
John Greenlee is a pioneer in the use of sustainable plants as lawn alternatives, many of them regionally native, and he’s teamed up with the fabulous photographer Saxon Holt and Timber Press to create what we can safely assume is a gorgeous and informative book about meadows. To be eligible to win a copy, write a blog post or blog comment on this subject: "I used to have a lawn but now I have____________." Coalition member Susan Morrison is in charge and has all the details on her blog. THIS JUST IN: Greenlee and Timber have a trailer for the book on YouTube.
ON PARTERSHIPS
I love ‘em (obviously) and the Lawn Reform bunch is awesome. And about websites, you know I love them because I have so damn many and I have enough now, thank you.
If you’ve followed the links on my WowOWow.com article - "Coming soon: The Death of the Great American Lawn" – welcome and look around. For more articles about lawn, check out the categories "Lawn" and "Lawn Substitutes" over in the right.
Then on my website there’s a whole section called Lawn Reduction and Lawn Substitutes, with examples from across the U.S.
Next up from me on WowOWow I’ll be blogging about solutions – better lawn species, better ways to care for lawn, and alternatives to lawn altogether – and where to find them. And where to find them will be a new website that’’s launching next month. It’s the combined effort of Paul Tukey, Ginny Stibolt, Susan Morrison, Tom Christopher, Evelyn Hadden, Billy Goodnick, Shirley Bovshow, a movie producer/environmental activist named Tom Engelman, and yours truly.
Photo and plant credits, clockwise from upper left: Prairie Dropseed at the Scott Arboretum by Susan Harris; Sedum acre and Dutch white clover by Susan Harris; UC Verde Buffalo grass by Tom Hawkins; and Carex pansa by Owen Dell.
by Guest Blogger Tom Hawkins. Tom’s a San Clemente, CA horticulturist and the owner of Florasource Ltd., a supplier of young plants for nurseries and gardens.
The recently implemented “Cash for Grass” program by the City of Los Angeles (D.W.P.) is an earnest attempt at addressing the limitations of our state water supply and the tremendous waste of water in our urban landscapes. But is this based upon sound science and is it a good investment
in the long term?
Past city incentives have included synthetic turf rebates, an interesting choice considering published research which points to both environmental and personal health problems that can come with this product. The current program doles out cash when turfgrass is removed and replaced with “something besides turf”. Per the program guidelines, acceptable turf substitutes may include various drought tolerant groundcovers or native plants; emphasis is placed on plants that require a minimum of 15” of water per square foot per year.
Is turfgrass the problem, however, or is it the type of turfgrass we find in our California landscapes? With very few exceptions, California’s residential and commercial lawns are all “exotics”, coming from outside of North America. These turfs include Tall Fescue (Europe), Blue Grass (Europe), Bermuda Grass (Africa), Zoysia (Philippines), Seashore Paspalum (tropical Americas), and St. Augustine (West Indies, West Africa). All of these grasses come from areas
with much higher rainfall than California. Of these, tall fescue is our most common landscape turfgrass state-wide, and this grass type is also one of the most water-requiring, using upwards of 40” to 50” of water per square foot per year.
Do we need to give up our lawns? Should we give up our lawns? And is this rebate truly directed at replacing turf with something smarter and for the long run? Temperatures in cities around the world are on the rise due to the urban heat island effect. Numerous studies have shown turf grass to provide the greatest evaporative cooling effect of any planted landscape. Turf also reduces water runoff, increases ground infiltration, and helps to purify water before ground water recharge.
What about using a much more water-friendly turf, such as a native Carex or buffalograss? Years of research at UC Davis and Riverside resulted in a buffalograss selection called ‘UC Verde’; this grass has been shown to get by on just 12” of water per year, makes a beautiful groomed turf at 2-
3” tall, or it may be grown as a short meadow at 6” in height. The water savings is 75% over tall fescue lawns…that’s huge.
Finally, what of the economics of a Cash for Grass program? According to the L.A. Times, Southern California water managers were impressed by the Cash for Grass program in Las Vegas, where water officials report more than 125 million square feet of turfgrass has been removed at a rebate cost of $1.50 per square foot, saving 7 billion gallons of water per year. This is effectively spending $187 million dollars to offset 7 billion gallons of water use, but with the end result of giving up lawns entirely.
The estimated cost of switching out an existing lawn for a more environmentally correct lawn variety comes to less than $ 0.75 per square foot, all the while allowing for the long term benefits of turfgrass and without adversely affecting our local climate. This may make sense (and cents) at almost anytime, but especially so when expenditures and climate change are daily concerns.
Photos: Top, UC Verde Buffalograss, uncut. Bottom: UC Verde plugs.
Voila the Oval Formerly Known as a Lawn. I’m having loads of fun fussing with this stuff – urging the thymes along, removing just enough Creeping Jenny to keep it from overtaking. Tweaking – I love it! Anyhoo, what you see in the foreground are the thymes, and the chartreuse in the background are Creeping Jenny and strawberry. And below is the opposite view – from the walkway. The taller bits are red clover, just starting to bloom.
So I asked a friend what she thought of this mix in a front yard and she thought the tall clover made it look kinda messy, less lawnlike – so I yanked it all out. I know, I’m spineless.
I’ll let these photos speak for themselves. Above is a sea of Sedum acre with red and white clover, all in bloom. Below? The ideal of American landscape design (sic). (Or is it sick? You decide.)
ADDENDUM: I forgot to link to my Standard Disclaimer about Lawn Replacement - what a mistake! I promise I don’t mean to add to the chorus of lawn-bashing that paints turfgrass as all bad and lawn-owners as environmental criminals. But ya gotta admit that we Americans have waaay more of the stuff than we really need, and that goes for homeowners and institutions alike.
Lawn photo credit.
One commenter to the previous post asked for a close-up of my ex-lawn and hey, I’m here to please.
And to answer some questions raised about it, I assume that the sedum can’t take much foot traffic. I say "assume" because it’s never complained when I’ve walked on it. Light foot traffic is certainly no problem.
About how long it takes for this stuff to fill in, Sedum acre spreads so fast it covered the whole area within three months, from small plugs spaced a foot apart. Because this space is on an incline and erosion was just waiting to happen, I couldn’t wait around for slow-spreaders like thyme.
And about my neighbors? Imagine a hippie commune of 16,000 people, and you have a sense of the politics and aesthetics in my town. Here, the nasty looks from neighbors would come if a ChemLawn truck pulled up.
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