Dancing With The Natives

This is beautiful bright sunny California, and this week’s weather is exactly why we live here.  Yet travelling down most any street in Lamorinda you would think this is England. Acres of lawn in front of houses, as if rained all summer long.  Instead we provide artificial rain in the form of imported water through sprinkler systems.  Those acres of lawn require an awful lot of work too, whether you do your own mowing, fertilizing, weeding or spraying or you work to pay someone else to do that work for you; lawn care is serious business.  

Now is the time to make a change. Now is the time to dance with the natives.

Mother Nature will be turning on her free sprinklers in the months ahead and will welcome native, drought tolerant plants.  This is the perfect time of year to either reduce or replace your lawn with plants that are okay in our native clay soil, can stand our dry summers, and don’t need a bunch of chemicals poured on them to keep them happy.

It’s time to rethink your lawn.  Do you, or your kids, actually ever sit on or play on the lawn? Why do you have it? Is it just for show?  Is it serving you well?  Is it costing more than it’s worth? You may have heard a lot recently about lawn conversion, and that’s because people are waking up to the cost of that patch of green both in terms of money and the environment.  Putting in native plants can save you time, energy, and money.

You can begin to reduce your lawn in patches, shrinking it in from the edges. Plant a few large native plants each fall and in a few years your yard will be transformed into a sustainable space, that may actually be a better show than any lawn could be.  Another approach is to wipe it out entirely with sheet mulching or removal. Whichever method you choose, reducing your lawn can improve the beauty of your home.

When you plant perrenial plants that burst into vibrant reds, oranges, blues and pinks, or have distinctive foliage, or provide lots of nectar for native pollinators, you’re guaranteed a show.  Native California fuchsias or penstemon attract Anna’s Hummingbirds better than any feeder and provide a natural, nourishing food source that help the birds thrive, more so than sugar syrup will.  In fact, those plants and the birds have evolved together to match up perfectly; the hummingbird’s bill fits exactly into the tube of the fuchsia like nature intended.

Putting in natives will help you leave the chemicals on the shelf. They’re hardy plants that don’t need help with fertilizers and generally don’t need crowd control with herbicides. Mulch around them and they’re fine.  Lawns use more chemicals than all food crops combined.  The runoff from our lawns is a chemical cocktail that harms the environment in ways we are just starting to learn about.

There is a patch of lawn in front of the Lafayette School District Office on School Street that is approximately 25 feet by 50 feet.  Members of Sustainable Lafayette’s Green Schools Committee have identified the annual cost of maintaining this relatively small patch of lawn that is neither sat upon or played upon, as $1,400 and teaches the children nothing.  Replacing this lawn with native plants would pay for the cost of the new plants in a single year, and will continue to save the school district money forever. Additionally, plants can be tied to curriculum and can demonstrate both science and social studies topics.  

Dancing with the natives can be an educational adventure for you and your family as you learn about the beautiful plants that grow naturally in our golden state.  The best local places to purchase native plants are Moraga Garden Center, Mount Diablo Nursery and Orchard Nursery.  The biggest selection is at the Moraga Garden Center.