Category Archives: Home & Family

The city or suburban lawn, although a delightful play place for pets and little people, is controversial -particularly in its water usage and run-off:

• The California city of Santa Cruz offers a lawn removal rebate to encourage water conservation.
• The US Geological Survey and others are studying how lawn fertilizer run-off may damage lakes.

Our family has been decreasing the size of our three areas of grass and creating drought-resistent gardens in their place.

John and I go for daily walks around our San Jose neighborhood of Willow Glen and naturally notice what our fellow-gardeners are doing. As we approach Easter, we now see the results of both fortunate and ill-advised Winter gardening efforts. As patchy as our back lawn is from enthusiastic dog wallowing, at least it is not the saddest lawn around!  Some neighborhood notables:

Zebra-lawn (from uneven fertilizer distribution):

Dandelion crop (too long between weeding):

Bowling lanes (from mowing when wet):

Dirt (work in progress?):

Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson

Between professional duties, I have been creating a garden around my new porch. This has required days of digging – both to remove concrete, boulders, brick fragments, wood, nails, wire and trash from the dirt and to add compost to improve the soil. Most of the bushels of concrete bits I dug out were hand-sized or smaller, with a few the size of my head. The big surprise was an exceptionally heavy boulder, more than twice the size of my head, which for some reason was sunk deep in the planting bed. It took an hour to dig around it enough to pry up an edge, then roll it out without cracking the PVC water pipe it was nestled against.  I dug through old patches of sand, concrete rubble, sawdust, and clay from the various uses to which this ground has been put since 1930.  Other than ornamental rocks, the only item I discovered worth keeping was half a fork with a drilled end, probably part of an old wind chime.

The major plants I put in are drought-resistant and should do well in our hot San Jose California summers:

1. Phormium (“Pink Stripe” and “Black Taya” New Zealand Flax)
2. Lavandula (“Goodwin Creek” and French Lavender)
3. Rosemary (prostrate)

Ground covers include Dymondia and Blue Fescue. The only plant to survive the construction (and heavy-booted construction workers) is the Meyer Lemon which seems much happier since we took away the fence and vine that were next to it.  I hope we get more rain to help settle the new plants before the weather gets much warmer.

January 2013:

December 2012:

July 2012:

Images Copyright 2012-2013 by Katy Dickinson

The breakfast bar tile was installed this morning on our new porch in Willow Glen, California.  This was the last major work to be done. I am very proud of our creation. My husband and I designed a completely new space (with much-appreciated advice from friends, relations, and professionals) and it came out beautifully. Best of all, the addition looks like it was always part of our 1930 house.  Our son Paul is already using it to work on his art.  As the weather gets warmer, I am sure the porch will become our preferred location for informal meals. I am half done installing the new planting bed in the garden around the new foundation. So glad to be done with contractors!

Here is what the same space looked like in July 2012:

Images Copyright 2012-2013 by Katy Dickinson