Tilling the Fields

After work yesterday, I went to the library and checked out some gardening books. One is a basic primer, and two are more specific to caring for Southern California flora. While numerous indoor tasks await (not the least of which is unpacking), I'm looking forward to spending some of my Memorial Day weekend out in the yard. My neighbors, no doubt, are likewise looking forward to me spending some time in my yard.

So what about my yard?

In the front, the yard is encased on 3 sides by a short retaining wall of concrete bricks. The short retaining wall results in a fairly level yard, which I appreciate, given the precipitous slope of the driveway. At the east and west front corners of the lawn, evergreen shrubs, roughly manicured into triangles, serve as boundary markers. Roughly centered on the lawn is a large shade tree, grown rather wild and unruly in the absence of care.

Along the edges of the front walk, and under the front window, additional short retaining walls enclose raised flower beds. I have positively identified the daffodils planted in the beds; the other flowers remain a mystery to me. A series of fledgling bushes may very well be seedling versions of the huge tree in the yard, and need to be uprooted before they undermine the foundation of the house.

One of my tasks will be to move the flower beds. Their level of elevation means that water is draining into the foundation, and that's not so great. I want to keep the daffodils and mystery flowers, however, so I hope they'll survive being uprooted and relocated.

Before I get to that, though, I need to pull out the dandelions that are rapidly overtaking the front lawn. Dandelions, it appears, need rather less water than grass, so while the grass is mostly dead, the dandelions are proliferating.

Ultimately, I'd like to take out a bunch of the grass, and put in more succulents and native plants. Not only will this have the benefit of saving water, but it will help my allergies. As it turns out, I'm allergic to just about every kind of grass there is. There are a lot of people thinking along similar lines in my neighborhood (which is not surprising, given ongoing promises of water rationing this summer), so I'm hoping to take some walks this weekend to get inspiration.

And that's just the front yard. I think I'll save the back yard for another day.