Upgrading my native plant garden
Toward this rainy season I started upgrading my native plant gardens. Main goals of this project (v2) are
- Completing removal of lawn from frontyard.
- Planting evergreen shrubs and perenials.
- Enlarging and remodeling backyard garden.
- Expanding grape tree in backyard.
- Labeling plants with weather resistant labeles.
Completing removal of lawn from frontyard.
Fig.1 Survived lawn.
Fig. 2. Replacing lawn to native plants.
In the first project I expected spontanious disappearance of lawns from fronyard by no watering during summer. It is surprising that lawns were survived during hot and dry summer; most of lawns were dead, but some become patchy and stay green (Fig. 1). So I decided to remove all survived lawn before rainy season started this year (usually mid to late fall) (Fig. 2).
Planting evergreen shrubs and perenials.
The last year I sprankle annual native plants, which were dead and dried and look miserable. So we decided to try adding evergreen shrubs and perenials this year. Fortunately there are native plant sales in falls around my area including annual sales in California Native Plant Society (CNPS) and Morningsun herb farm. Here are list of native plants I planned this year.
| species and common name | characters |
|---|---|
| Chilopsis linearis desert willow | shrub, Winter Deciduous |
| Epilobium canum California Fuchsia | Perennial herb, Winter Semi-Deciduous |
| Penstemon heterophyllus Foothill Penstemon | Perennial herb, Evergreen |
| Rhamnus crocea ilicifolia Hollyleaf Redberry | shrub, evergreen |
| Salvia apiana white sage | shrub, Summer Semi-Deciduous |
| Sambucus nigra caerulea Elderberry | shrub/tree, Winter Deciduous |
| Diplacus aurantiacus Sticky monkey flower | shrub |
| Salvia x clevelandii ‘Pozo Blue’ Gray Musk Sage | shrub, evergreen |
| Rubus ursinus California Blackberry | shrub, vine, Winter Deciduous |
| Vitis ‘Roger’s Red’ Roger’s Red Grape | vine, Winter-deciduous |
Enlarging and remodeling backyard garden.
In accordance with increase of numbers of native plants in our yard, I remodeled and enlarge backyard garden.
Expanding grape tree in backyard.
Our one big grape tree in the backyard became huge, so that I expanded grape tree latice. To our surprise this tree was delivered as a small give away from open campus day event ten years ago.
Labeling plants with weather resistant labeles.
Fig. 3. Plant label
I planned so many native plants this year that I need to tag their labels. There are many inexpensive and innovative methods found in internet, and I chose a free method to making labels using Document Studio Google Sheet add-on and a spreadsheet that contains plant picture URL and QR code URL for explanation, which is laminated with UV resistant sheets. Fig. 3 is an example of my plant labels.