Lawn, not such a bad thing.

An Eco minded lawn and garden.

I’m not sure if we should call this a ‘Healing Garden', a 'Low Maintenance Garden’, an ‘Environmentally Conscience Sustainable Garden’, or just a ‘ Fun Family Garden’.

What ever the title , this newly installed landscape is being enjoyed by family , neigbhors and friends.

It all started with an extremely sports active young family of 4 , a new house at the beach, one horrific head on motorcycle accident and the strong will and undying love of a devoted family.

Upon leaving his new beach side house the husband and a friend were enroute on their motorcycles to see their young daughters play a soccer game.
Coming around the corner, in a bacchanal state , a man in a truck hit the two motorcyclists head on.
One of the fathers was killed , the other left dying on the side of the road with massive head and body injuries.

After months of intense successful surgeries a strategy was prepared for the long road of physical rehabilitation therapies to begin.

This is where the blog Garden Rant, Miriam Goldberger and Eco-Lawn comes in.
I had read on the blog, ’Garden Rant’- http://www.gardenrant.com/ about a drought tolerant, slow growing, deep rooted , non fertilizer dependent lawn that Ms. Goldberger’s company, Wildflower farm - http://www.wildflowerfarm.com/index.php?p=home was offering .

I corresponded with Miriam and she donated the Eco-Lawn seed for my clients project.

From Beach House

We installed a fairly large Eco-lawn area for physical rehabilitation activities and for family fun activities such as ball games , Frisbee and romps with the family dog.

From Beach House

The planted lawn also addressed the problem of the underground septic system, which almost completely covered the back yard and cannot be over planted with deeply rooted trees and shrubs.
Photo: staking out the septic system:

From Beach House

In light of the heavy dew point at this location on the beach , paired with the low water needs of the Eco-Lawn we installed a water efficient irrigation system with MP ( matched precipitation rate ) rotor heads and a drip irrigation system for the out lying drought tolerant plantings.

From Beach House

The Eco-Lawn seed was seeded on Christmas eve day.
Depending on the weather we hope to see green sprouts in a week or two.

From Beach House

Many of the drought tolerant plants and young succulent cuttings that we planted three weeks ago are already forming root systems and some are even starting to send up flowering buds.

Hakea

From Beach House

Protea

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Passiflora

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Leucadendron Jester

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Echium

From Beach House

Leucadendrons, Agaves, Miscanthus, Anigozanthus - planted at another beach garden
that we did last year, inspired this new beach side planting.

From R E D

A LARGE variety of succulents were planted - many came from my garden

From California Gardening

As the months pass by and the landscape establishes itself i’ll keep you updated on its progression rate.

Last photo:
The existing vegetable garden was given a new stabilized decomposed granite path

From Beach House