The nature park anniversary celebration is over. Yay! The plant sale is over. Yay! And the weather is perfect for gardening, cool and overcast. YAY!
As I walk around the yard thinking about what has worked and what hasn’t, I have lots of ideas on what I want to do. It is so exciting that I now have a sunny front yard to landscape. The irises and juncuses (junci?) will have to be moved because they will never survive the full sun and scorching heat of the now avocado-free zone, and a new tree will take years before it casts much shade. The parkway is doing great, though I will be removing many of the deergrasses that crowd the strip and spill over into the street and sidewalk. If it doesn’t fit without pruning, it should be moved. These will be dug out and divided. They will be replanted in the front and back yards, potted up for next year’s plant sale, and shared with friends.
This is one of the great lines of gardening: " If it doesn't fit without pruning, it should be moved." May I quote you?<br /><br />
Go for it, Susan. It was so nice getting outside to garden. Only have about 4 more humongous grasses to dig out.
Thanks for the post, Barbara. I'm reading about grasses for my parkway and am thinking of a mix of Bouteloua–side-oats grama and blue grama. The sun is brutal on my parkway on the south side of an east-west street in Temple City. I've got dymondia and aster ground cover there now, but they seem to want more water than I care to give them. Do you think the grama grasses would do
@JoYouDog, not sure exactly what you want. Do you want a lawn-like groundcover? Dymondia and aster are very durable, but yes, I can imagine that you would need to water a little. Not sure the grama grass will fill in without it getting quite weedy. Have you thought of UC Verde buffalo grass. It is a selection and not strictly native to CA but it is southwestern. If you want a lawn, this may be a
Thanks, Barbara. I'm not exactly sure what I want either. I don't need a lawn-like ground cover, just something that looks decent and takes the brutal sun with little water. I was thinking maybe some clumps of low-growing grass interspersed with white sage, and mulch to fill in the blanks. Does that sound reasonable?
Yes, it does sound reasonable. In fact, that is what I am trying to do in my front parkway (I live on a corner). Haven't put in white sage but placed some boulders and planted some bunch grass. I seeded it with wildflowers. <br /><br />I tried Phyla nodiflora (formerly Lippia nodiflora) as a groundcover and it did fine but needed more water than I wanted to give it. It is mostly gone now. I&#
Thank you. I'm going to give it a shot. If it looks good, I'll post some photos on Fbook. If your yard is on the TPF tour again this year, I'll check to see how your parkway is doing.