l2g4jeanineplanting [This is the fourth installment of a diary by Greater Long Beach photographer Jeanine Birong, who with her husband, Mark, and children, Anthony and Sarah, is replacing their traditional grass lawn with drought-tolerant plants as part of the water-saving Lawn to Garden Project, sponsored by the Long Beach Water Department. This week: Pulling back the plastic, putting in the plants.]

We have found ourselves fighting an unexpected opponent—rainy weather—throughout our Lawn-to-Garden project. An ironic opponent, too, considering the point of this makeover is to replace our water-guzzling front lawn with a garden of drought-tolerant plants.

Our front yard has spent the last eight weeks under black plastic—it was only supposed to be five weeks … but … you know … the rain—to be certain even the hardiest blades of grass are dead.

But the day has dawned—well, if not beautifully, at least not raining—and we set out to see what we could accomplish.

 [ DAY ONE ]

 It’s the morning after Christmas, but there’s not a hint of holiday spirit in the air as we begin pulling back the black curtain covering our lawn. Actually, the mood has been a lot like this for weeks as my husband and I have silently mulled our dire financial straits and our obligation to complete the transformation by the ever-looming mid-January deadline—or forfeit the $2.50-per-square-foot subsidy from the Long Beach Water Department.

At this point, it doesn’t look promising. All our time and effort have only succeeded in decimating our lawn and offending the neighbors with the resulting eyesore. We’ve spent way more than a thousand dollars we can’t afford, not to mention countless hours of back-bending work, all the time asking ourselves, “Are we making a big mistake here?”

But the best answer we can come up with is, “There’s no turning back now.” Whatever our fate, we have accepted that it lies at the end of more money, time, effort—and according to the latest forecast, more rain only four days away.

l2g4alldirt But removing the black plastic to discover completely bare dirt—not a single weed—and the “tabula risa” of our lawn is somehow very satisfying. Completely killing any grass or weeds that may grow is very important to the success of a new drought-tolerant landscape. The goal is to get our new ground cover to grow in before any weeds take hold.

I charge out to Armstrong’s Nursery with an unspent $100 gift card from my last birthday and a list of approved plants. I buy as many plants as I can, alternately weighing what I think are Armstrong’s terribly high prices against the fact that the plants they sell are wonderfully healthy. I was able to score some divine brown sebum (I am finding it rare), which is in our plan for the parkway, and also grabbing all the “Freeway Daisies’ I can find in pink.

Meanwhile, Mark is out find tools to level and smooth the front yard. He has discovered that the Home Depot in Lakewood offers our area’s best selection of yard tool rentals. Also, after paying a one-time signup fee to establish an account, the rental process is much easier. Mark comes home with a fancy rake and a drum roller.

My next stop is Lowe’s. I am excited to find they had four of our five “anchor” plants at really good prices, plus a great selection of the other plants on our list. I lay out $225 and leave Lowe’s with nearly 40 plants—again, including all the pink Freeway Daisies I can find. My cart also includes some recycled bender board ($25 per 20 feet, including 5 stakes) to begin the hardscape.

I soon discover the best prices for plants, by far, is Home Depot—if they have what you are looking for. Again, I buy all the ganzia I can find in pink. Unfortunately, even after visiting every garden center in Long Beach there is still one plant on our list I am unable to locate. We plan to leave holes for that plant when we find them.

Back home, looking at our completely barren yard is a bit daunting. I had already learned not to buy plants unless they were going right into the ground, and here I am with more than 70 plants and 11 flats of groundcover. And rain heading our direction. l2g4bendboard

We start by laying the garden hose on the ground to outline (a tip I learned from experienced landscapers online) where we would begin building our first path, and then dig a trench to install bender board. Then we use our plan to lay out the plants where we will install them.

Suddenly our yard looks like a yard again! For the first time in a long time, there is some hope for this project! Mark and I look at each other, and one of us says, “Wow! This is gonna look great when we are done!”

Then I notice: we are wearing matching LB Dirtbags baseball caps. I ask him if he thinks that makes us dorks (married people wearing matching clothes—so NOT cool), and Mark says he is definitely sure that we are dorks. Then I start digging on one side of the yard and he starts leveling and smoothing on the other. We work well past sunset and by the end of the day we have managed to plant about 40 plants. Our kids are irritated with us for not paying any attention to them all day—except to keep making them bring us stuff from the house—and they hated being interrupted from their new electronics for even a moment. Lazy kids.

 [ DAY TWO ]

 Mark has to return to work. I find myself in the holiday doldrums (no work at this time of the year) and throw myself back into the project while I am still on my first cup of coffee. My kids groan and say, “No way! You’re going to work on the yard some more?”

I plant another 24 plants and demand my daughter bring me more coffee—made just right with the slightest amount of sugar and loaded with milk.

My morning brightens with each dog-walker and jogger. Nearly every“regular” stops with a comment or compliment on the progress of our garden! The new neighbor that rarely talks to me even gave an enthusiastic, “It looks so good!”

As it was the first really nice day after a couple days of rain, many of the neighbors were out puttering in their yards or detailing their cars. There was a general party atmosphere on the block … or maybe it was just me feeling so happy to be getting my garden in. l2g4prettierplants

I actually started feeling kind of bad because after all the hard work Mark had done preparing the way, here I was reaping the accolades just because I was now holding the shovel. But that passed quickly when my brother-in-law stopped by during his bike ride to check on my progress. He entertained me with a tale from his ride. He had come upon a man, also frantically installing his Lawn-to-Garden, like us toiling against his looming deadline. This man was nearly done and his comment about the whole project was, “I am so over it, I just want it done. I had no idea what I was getting into!”

I started laughing as I surveyed the dirt with a few scattered plants and asked, “Well does his look good?” My brother-in-law said it looked really good—he just thinks the guy has been working so hard for so long he is tired. Apparently, he is also fighting the return of weeds already—turns out he had used the chemical method!

Weeds. I can see they are definitely going to be the biggest problem without a plan to control them. That’s why the program is requiring mulch. And in the back of my mind I start stressing about how quickly I can get my mulch on.

By the end of day two I have planted about 25 percent of the groundcover and the majority of the border plants along the walkways. 

[ DAY THREE ]

Heavy rain is expected by nightfall. But my first plan of action was to determine how to score some mulch—as quickly, as easily and as cheaply as possible. Turns out, the City of Long Beach Department of Sustainability offers the stuff for free—and delivered to your doorstep—on Tuesdays or Thursdays.

After a quick call to the Water Department to be sure this mulch would be acceptable (Daniel at the Water Department says, “Sure, why not?”) I call and e-mail an order to Larry in sustainability. It can be ordered by the truckload, and one load promises to cover a 30×30 square foot yard one inch deep. I have never been so excited about shredded trees before. The idea of using recycled mulch appeals to us because the whole idea of changing our lawn to a garden is about sustainability. l2g4plantshouse_0

In fact, our plan includes as many recycled items as possible. We are leaving the existing sprinkler system and eventually retrofitting it to be lo-flo. The planter we are building is from a wall our friend, Craig, removed from his property (saving us a few hundred dollars—thanks Craig!). The bender boards are from recycled materials. The existing hardscape is not our preferred materials, but we decide to leave and incorporate it into our overall design, by choosing new hardscape that complements it, colorwise. We’ve also chosen plants whose colors would coordinate with the existing brickwork.

But I must return to my shovel. I have seven more flats of ground cover to install before the rain hits this evening.

To date equipment rentals, materials, and plants have cost us approximately $1,600 and we have spent about 150 people hours.