Okay, it's time for anual rant on the importance of sustainable landscaping. When Poopsie and I bought our home six years ago the first order of business was to kill the lawn. Not only are lawns big water-wasters but the mowing and fertilizing of America's lawns are ruining the environment. Check out this article in The New Yorker. Here in Utah, with its dry climate it's impossible to have a beautifully lush lawn during the dog days of summer. We have watered the yard twice so far this summer and it looks much nicer than our neighbor's lawn. He is out there everyday with the hose by the way. This water-wise landscaping is not as complicated as it looks, either. Since I'm a lazy gardener, I just dumped a truckload of dirt on top of the old lawn and started from scratch. I planted quaking aspen, yarrow, rosemary, dayliles, lavender, cat mint and salvia. We found some rock up in the canyons for the path, threw in some poppie seeds and oila!
The bees really love the lavender, too.Love, Kelly
That is awesome, Kelly. I am all for lawn killing, too, and would happily kill my lawn if I had one (although lawns make more sense in NY state.) Environmental issues aside, lawns are almost always aesthetically bad, and always signify the blandness of suburbia for me.
ReplyDeleteAND what you guys did is really beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI like to have some grass for doggies and or if one has little children. but your yard does look beautiful--you should sell tickets to get into it--you'd make a killing. love, Annie from Brigham
ReplyDeleteKelly, I love your ideas. Your yard looks great. If I had my way, I'd have just a little bit of grass for the kids to practice ball on. But my husband likes grass. Plus I love your idea of just dumping out the dirt. I'm always looking for shortcuts when gardening, so I'm going to copy you on that.
ReplyDeleteHey Kelly....!
ReplyDeleteGood on you....I LOVE your garden & your water wise ways....!!! You could teach some wasteful Aussies a thing or FIVE....We've been in drought for YEARS & live with water restrictions that mean we can't wash our cars with a hose or water our gardens when we want....Makes me sad when I remember the days when as kids we used to spend hours running around under the sprinkler in our undies....Poor kids now don't get to enjoy this very simple past time here in Australia any more....!!
Cheers,
Tamarah :o)
Your yard Rocks! It should be featured on every blog here! Loving your attitude about lawns.....what is the point...they start to dry out and look weary about now....who couldn't resist the buzzing of bees over the lavender and the bee balm and the cone flowers?
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