THE GREAT WESTWARD SHIFT: Saying Good-bye to Unsustainable Lawns

Dry landscape options abound for cities like Houston, Texas

Houston gardeners like myself are opting for a different look than the unsustainable St. Augustine lawn.  However, if you get around .50" of rainfall weekly in your area, then you can grow a lawn with very little supplemental watering. That has not been the case for Houston these last two summers.

 This is now the second summer of watering this part of my front lawn. For the past 7 years I've been shifting to plants you'd find further west. Drought and higher summer temperatures are the driving forces behind this decision. Plus, it feels good to have a garden that can take care of itself!

  Note: I'll keep the shadier areas of the lawn since they take much less water.

I really enjoy garden design and landscaping. Here's the original idea I presented to the people at San Jacinto Stone. They recommended Rio Grande Boulders rather than something smaller. The boulders were about $2.00 a piece.

 The red circles represent small boulders. Surrounding these will be gravel. The yellow areas will be coarse sand.  For plants, I'm going to use a very low growing Ruellia and the beautiful silver gray licorice plant in that top photo. Both grow well in full sun. I'm keeping the plantings sparse.

Here's a close up of the textures.

I looped out the area I'm working on with a garden hose. I layed down some sample gravel along with the stones. When finished, they'll be partially sunk into the ground for a natural look.

I'm leaving an path of green between the two areas. All of the grass in the stone area will be removed and replaced with sand.

I'm also going to use larger gravel along the street to stop the sand from washing out. I'll take some of the topsoil and us it for potting soil.

This is the ground hugging Ruellia I'll use along with the silvery licorice plant seen in the top photo. It will have a Japanese rock garden look.

PART II:

To see the finished project, click below:

http://tropicaltexana.blogspot.com/2011/08/great-westward-shift-finished-project.html

 To see an excellent and inspirational Dallas version of lawnless gardening, visit Plano Prairie Garden at 

http://planobluestem.blogspot.com . 

You might be surprised at how many birds and butterflies suddenly start appearing!

Thanks for stopping by.

David/ :-)

MONKEYING AROUND WITH THE LAWN or The Grass is Greener...Where I Spilled Something

                             During the summer, I reuse water from a lot of sources. I pour it on the grass. But a couple of weeks ago I had a mystery on my hands; I had one patch of healthy, green grass amidst the sad, drought-stricken lawn.

(Comparisons...the left really turned green and healthy)

I had used water with bleach (ok), water from cleaning the chicken coop (it didn't burn the grass when used in dilute amounts), water from the bathtub, and water from the air-conditioning drain.

But none accounted for this patch. Until I remembered an injury. I had cut my foot and had to soak it in Epsom salts. Voila! Normally, I only use Epsom salts on Plumeria and Palm trees. So, did it also work on lawns?

 I tried it on all the lawn.

This is the lawn one week after sprinkling it with 3 pounds of Epsom salts. Epsom salt contains magnesium and is considered an organic soil amendment(by most). For some reason, adding Epsom salts to a lawn allows a rich uptake of nitrogen and phosphorus by root systems. I don't use any other fertilizers on my lawn. I also water sparingly and hardly mow during droughts. Longer grass is more hardy and shades the soil.

PART 2: But the drought goes on and on and on.....

This part of the lawn (by the street) will be converted to small, rounded river stones mixed with small aloes. This area is blasted with 5 hours of afternoon sun AND is on a slope.

The lawn is unsustainable without daily watering and I can't do that for three more months.

This was once unsustainable lawn and is now going to be converted to an aloe and small agave groundcover mixed with airplane plants (Chlorophytum) throughout the pebbles. All can take the xeric conditions due to the slope and the myriad of tree roots sucking up the water.

This area was also unsustainable due to tree roots taking all the water.

Its second purpose is for my son's car while back from college.

Hope this post gives you some ways to fight back during this drought.

Thanks for stopping by.

David/ Tropical Texana :-)