It's been a couple of years since our last post. Yes, things in real life just spun out of control and so hectic that I just didn't have time to keep up on all of our Musick Channel blogs. The good news is that I retired in March. The bad news is I'm still very busy but a lot of the stress has been let go and I should be able to start keeping up on our other blogs now.
So, the big news was the 5+ year extreme drought that we had in Southern California. Early in 2017, the drought was declared over...although 2018 is back to light rainfall...and it was time to take stock of the damage.
The big thing is that our front yard was just scorched beyond repair. I really only had two options...remove all plant life out front or re-landscape. I chose the second option.
This was not going to be a project I could do alone or cheaply, I'm afraid, so I enlisted the services of my neighbor's gardener. He's a great guy and gardener but has a phobia of telling you a price. I do trust him, though, so into the breach we went.
I drew up what I had in mind for my new yard...a new lawn with sprinklers that took up a little more than half the room of the old lawn. Next, a strip of wood chips that I could put some drippers and shrubs in, and the last part - next to the driveway a strip of rocks that could double as part of the driveway, if needed, but would just be part of the landscape for us. This was to alleviate the part of the lawn I'd have to drive over if I had a second car (I got rid of our second car when I retired).
First job, at a couple hundred dollars, was to kill and remove the old lawn. Then, he ground up all the dirt and added a couple of inches of mulch.
Next was installing a sprinkler system. More spendy at $1600 but I got a state-of-the-art automatic system that would evenly water the grass and I wouldn't have to remember to water. Plus, it only waters where needed and doesn't splash all over the street. The last station on the sprinkler system was connected to a spigot. This I used to put a drip line through my rose garden and also the new shrub garden under the bark. It is also on the timer.
Last, another $400, my gardener installed Marathon Sod for the new lawn. We'd talked about St. Augustine but he went with the Marathon. I'm glad he did because it feels much finer on the feet and grows much thicker than St. Augustine, choking out potential weeds very well.
Plus, as a Marathon lawn family member now, the company sends me periodic reminders telling me when to fertilize, overseed, how much I should be watering during current seasons, etc.
The lawn was spectacular...it looked fake. Now the gardener was done, it was my turn to finish.
First, I planted nandina around my roses. This is supposed to repel deer, which have been munching on my roses for a few years now.
Next I planted dwarf nandina going up to regular nandina at the top of the bark strip. I also put in some leptospermum which puts out little, bright red flowers. Around the mailbox by the curb, I planted tancetum...which is a gray-leaved yellow daisy like flower...and at the top of the strip by the house, I planted a dwarf nectarine tree.
I went to a local quarry and ordered enough pea gravel to fill in the last strip. A large truck was dispatched, and the driver got this special fork lift and dumped the gravel in the spot.
It was up to me to spread that out. Lastly, I went back to the quarry and bought some of the biggest rocks I could carry myself (at 9 cents a pound...about $19 all together) and placed them in the gravel.
There, I'm finished.
Six months later, everything still looks great. I had to have the gardener add another zone to the sprinkler system because of low water pressure, that's why you seen the brown, damaged lawn at the top, but everything's worked out great. The sprinklers being timed and soaking better than I could save me about 30% on my water bill and my lawn is still the greenest on the block.
It was more than I like to spend on my garden but well worth it in the end.
Darryl Musick
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