Lawn conversion on 12th
Objective: improve street appeal of the garden and ease the work load for the owners who were retiring and preparing to spend more time travelling.
We wanted to design a garden that would naturally occur under large coniferous trees on the west coast, remove all the invasive plants, create more privacy for the home which was quite exposed to the street, and take advantage of a sunny corner to establish some of the more delicate native plants common in meadow environments.
In planning ahead to provide a solution to the upcoming problem of chafer beetles, and easing of work load we wanted to exclude any turf grass which will lower the environmental footprint by reducing the use of fossil fuels, noise and fumes, and the need for weekly lawn maintenance. A large deciduous tree next door, dropping many leaves in the fall is no longer a problem as the leaves drop in the native arctostaphylos uva-ursi we have chosen as the groundcover and provide organic matter for the garden.