Friday, February 26, 2010

THE DAY I DUG OUT MY FRONT LAWN...

When we first bought our little Spanish style house in September of 1999, one of the first things that I did (after pulling out the carpet at midnight to see if I had hardwood floors) was dig out all the grass in my front lawn..Now here in Southern California, we are living in a desert... Most people do not realise this...They think we are in England or the Midwest or other areas where there is alot of rain...we do not get a lot of rain...therefore we do not have the water to keep up a green lawn or any lawn for that matter.. .Go to the desert.. .look around... do you see any grass growing??.... The natural landscape is a decomposed granite type of floor with various sages and other shrubs that are indigenous to this area... grass is not one of those things.. So I tore out my lawn.... passersby would ask "when are you putting in the grass?" "I'm not putting in a lawn.." I replied... They snorted and sniffed and walked away... I proceeded to plant various rosemarys ,sages, succulents... any type of plant that didn't require alot of water...I put in rocks and gravel and bird baths and bird feeders.. Someone reported me to the city...I received a citation in the mail to remove the "weeds" I had growing.. I ignored that and carried on my evil plan... As the years went by, I began to notice, that one by one other people started to dig out their front lawns as well... In their place went Mexican sages, Pride of Madeira,Gazanias, Verbenas....Our little neighborhood became a kaleidoscope of color...Hummingbirds, butterflys, birds...the place is exploding with them...People come in their cars to look at our pretty little street...they take pictures..they wished they lived here...

8 comments:

Debra She Who Seeks said...

You were ahead of your time!

kelro said...

Great one today! I wish I lived there too.

People Who Know Me Would Say: said...

You headed up a movement!!!

You were on the bleeding edge!!

Most excellent!

nostalgia*gal said...

I as an old hippy gardener from Monterey Ca love what you did for your neighborhood! I did veggies.
Could you post some pictures for us?

Had a great day today and its late but wanted to send you a note...and Huge thank you! You are so correct about doing a canvas sign and because of you I am going to get my act together and get it done before the next show. I guess I needed a push. Or someone thinking like I do.

LOVED your post on the Estate sale! Still thinking of you going so long without coffee. How do you do it?

Wish I was closer would love to see your store or where you sell.
Cheers,
ck

Fire Byrd said...

You know that new camera you've got, well....
Pics of your garden would be good.... hint hint!!!!
xx

The Antiques Diva™ said...

Wonderful to discover your blog! You popped by mine a few weeks ago and I'm taking a lazy Saturday to surf and was delighted to find you!
Toma

jeanette from everton terrace said...

I would also love to see your desert "garden". We decided not to put grass at our house as well. It was hard for my mid-western husband but we're glad we didn't. Have a couple thin strips out back for the dog.

Fire Byrd said...

As you are on blogspot the way you get photographs that you have taken on your blog is this. You may of course know all this and I might be teaching my Grandmother to suck eggs!
When you write a post on the bar at the top the box is a picture of a camera. When pressed it comes up with a frame that says browse. Hit this,and it should go direct to your photos. Choose which one you want, select open on your photo, this takes you back to the browse page, select wear you want the picture side or centre. Then hit the save button at the bottom of the page, and the computer should do the rest.
This is how it works on my laptop, it may of course all be completely different on an AppleMac, in which case ignore me.
xx

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