later. As an urban area, West Contra Costa experiences
the so-called “heat island effect” because our homes are
surrounded by asphalt streets and concrete sidewalks.
Replacing vegetation with stone just adds to that effect,
so whatever you save on your EBMUD bill you’ll
probably end up paying to PG&E for your summer
air conditioning. If you don’t have A/C, you’ll pay in
suffering.
Ivy. Another old style that one still encounters is English
ivy. While it’s green and needs minimal water once
established, its vines must be constantly trimmed back
to prevent it from climbing and growing over nearby
trees, fences, buildings, pets, loved ones, etc. My yard
also came with a patch of ivy that I have to prune out
of my plum tree regularly. Perhaps more importantly, it
can damage ecosystems some distance away. I’ve done
occasional volunteer sessions with Spawners, a group
restoring natural creek habitat in El Sobrante, removing
ivy from local stream banks – ivy that might not have
even originated nearby. This plant produces berries,
which birds consume and then poop out (with fertile
seeds intact) sometimes far from the source. My own
ivy patch may have originated in this manner. (Invasive
Himalayan blackberry spreads the same way.) I’m not
sure if anyone is really planting ivy anymore, but if you
were considering it, please don’t.
Juniper. Juniper is another oft-seen front lawn substitute,
and it does have certain virtues. It’s easy to maintain
with hedge trimmers, and needs little water. However,
fire departments hate it. I recently attended a lecture
on urban forestry at Arlington Park (because when you
write about gardening that’s the sort of thing you do
on weekends), and learned that the City of El Cerrito
is discouraging or may even ban planting of junipers.
Like the infamous Eucalyptus, the plant has a high oil
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Decorative Rock Failed to Prevent Weeds in this Yard
content, and after a long dry summer, a lit cigarette butt
can make it go up like the Great Sept of Baelor when
Cersei fire-bombed it in season 6 (which will, mercifully,
be my last Game of Thrones reference).
On the other hand, firefighters have a somewhat
myopic focus, and all design, including landscaping,
involves trade-offs. There are dozens of juniper varieties,
including ground-hugging ones that don’t grow over a
foot tall and are unlikely to become a “fire ladder”. If
you want to plant junipers, I’d suggest finding one of
these.
Carex. An increasingly popular lawn substitute is Carex,
which is a genus of native sedge. A sedge is similar to
a grass in that both words have five letters, but where
“grass” ends with an “s”, “sedge” has that letter at
the beginning. No doubt there are more substantive
differences, but I don’t know what they are and have
never cared enough to look it up. (I’m sure Wikipedia
has a fine article on the subject, if it really matters to
you.) Suffice to say that Carex is like a bunch grass
that grows 12-18” high but stays green with very little
water. You wouldn’t use it for a playing field, but if
you want something similar to a lawn – albeit a lumpy
one – Carex is the way to go. If you’re curious, drive
out Castro Ranch Road between Pinole Valley and San
Pablo Dam Roads and you’ll see a vast patch that was
planted in front of the Carriage Hills subdivision. It
looks good.
Lippia. Lippia (or Phyla nodiflora, to you botonists) is a
native ground cover. It only gets a couple of inches high,
so unlike ivy it won’t smother taller plants, but it spreads
quickly, stays green, and is covered with tiny multicolored
flowers in summer. I’ve used it extensively in
my front yard, and the only maintenance I do is edging
it monthly so it doesn’t grow onto paths and sidewalks.
Like Carex, it needs little water beyond natural rainfall
once established.
Shrubs and Perennials. The list above offered choices
that are vaguely lawn-like – simple alternatives for
covering a space with green plants. There’s no rule that
says you can’t get more interesting. Spend some time at
one of the east bay’s fine local nurseries (particularly the
ones that sell native plants). Find a couple of shrubs or a
few perennials you like. Keep them in pots until autumn,
and once your lawn has fully expired, push aside the
mulch in your chosen spots, cut slits in the cardboard,
and dig holes for your plants. Water the transplants
deeply and regularly until the winter rains come.
Those same rains will cause the paper or cardboard
to decompose. By starting this process in the summer,
you’ve put nature’s seasonal cycle to work for you.