Her water bill was 'insane.' So she tore out her lawn and planted a 'wabi-sabi' wonderland

Water-hungry lawns are symbols of Los Angeles’ past. In this series, we spotlight yards with alternative, low-water landscaping built for the future.

Julia Lee had nary request for a caller plot erstwhile she and her hubby purchased their Cheviot Hills location 8 years ago. The accepted 1950 location came with mature tropical plants successful the backmost and a sprawling writer hillside tract successful front, and it suited them conscionable fine. But arsenic drought and wildfires dragged connected successful California successful caller years, she started to question whether keeping the thirsty tract made sense.

“Our h2o measure was insane,” she says arsenic she offers a circuit of the erstwhile lawn, which is present filled with colorful autochthonal plants and drought-tolerant plants. “It was a discarded of space. Our kids were getting older and didn’t play connected the lawn. There was conscionable nary crushed to support a large greenish lawn.”

After speechmaking a Times communicative astir Georg Kochi, a retiree who swapped his Koreatown tract with plants suited for California, Lee was inspired by Kochi’s wild, wabi-sabi-style garden, which embraces the creation of imperfect beauty.

“I’m into chaos,” Lee says, bending down to odor the minty fragrance of a autochthonal Woolly bluecurls (Trichostema lanatum) shrub. “It’s an close reflection of my personality.”

Lee’s tract successful Cheviot Hills earlier she sheet-mulched it with cardboard.

(Julie Lee)

Lee’s plot today.

So successful 2022, Lee decided to regenerate her tract with a drought-tolerant landscape, utilizing the LADWP Free Landscape Design Program, present called the Landscape Efficiency Assistance Program, for help. She besides applied for the Metropolitan Water District’s turf replacement rebate, which was $3 per quadrate ft astatine the clip (now $5), and got $5,310 backmost erstwhile the plot was finished.

She wanted to larn much astir autochthonal plants, truthful she took a plot plan people astatine the Theodore Payne Foundation for Native Plants successful Sun Valley. But the people felt overwhelming. “I emotion Theodore Payne,” she says, “but I hatred measurements and trying to fig retired hardscape. I’m not a mathematics person. The teacher wanted america to usage a compass and gully a standard drafting of the full lawn, and I thought, ‘I can’t bash this.’”

Feeling paralyzed, she thought astir hiring idiosyncratic to assistance her, adjacent though she didn’t privation to walk the wealth connected a scenery designer. But erstwhile Lee shared her frustrations with her postgraduate schoolhouse adviser, noted writer and avid gardener Jamaica Kincaid, she got the encouragement she needed. “She told maine to bash it myself,” Lee says, “as she designed her ain gardens herself, and they are idiosyncratic conscionable similar she is.”

With encouragement from Kincaid, Lee, 49, began by planting tiny sages that would turn rapidly and assistance forestall erosion, since water, mulch and rainfall often ran down the hillside to the sidewalk. She besides dispersed Theodore Payne’s Rainbow Mix wildflower seeds passim the landscape, including California poppies, Arroyo lupine, Desert Bluebells and Clarkia. In the spring, the gait was afloat of colorful wildflowers, but for the remainder of the year, it stayed dormant. “People loved it due to the fact that it was similar a wildflower meadow successful the mediate of the city,” she says.

Walking done Lee’s garden, arsenic birds, bees and butterflies zoom astir the yard’s agleam flowers, it’s evident she loves color. With assistance from her person Ben Liou, who replaced his tract with autochthonal plants, Lee filled the abstraction with a lively premix of sages and flowering perennials, including yellowish Bladderpod, pinkish Palmer’s Penstemon, bluish California lilac and poppies. Also, successful the mix, determination are California poppies, Channel Islands Tree poppies and gangly Matilija poppies that look similar fried eggs.

An endangered Western monarch caterpillar nibbles connected immoderate California autochthonal milkweed.

A “Think Global, Plant Local” motion rests adjacent to a handwritten works recognition tag.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

She was amazed to find that moving successful her plot helped her link with her neighbors successful unexpected ways.

“I was disquieted the neighbors would complain,” she says. “But I’ve met truthful galore radical due to the fact that I’m retired present each day. Other gardeners are funny and often inquire me, ‘What’s that absorbing yellowish plant? Oh, Palmer’s Indian Mallow?’ I adjacent cognize each the dogs’ names now.”

When she and her gardener sheet-mulched the beforehand gait with cardboard Amazon boxes she had collected from her neighbors successful October, 1 neighbour joked that it looked acceptable for Halloween. “She told maine it looks similar a graveyard,” Lee says, laughing.

An aerial presumption of Lee’s garden.

Not each the plants survived, partially due to the fact that fractional the plot is shaded by a ample magnolia histrion connected the parking strip. Lee estimates she mislaid astir 70% of her plants successful the archetypal twelvemonth due to the fact that she didn’t h2o enough. “The precise archetypal twelvemonth you’re expected to h2o regularly, and I did not hand-water enough, truthful everything fundamentally died. The h2o measure went down dramatically, though.”

Three years later, aft losing truthful galore plants, she decided to adhd an irrigation system. Liou and her gardener helped Lee instal it and physique a bioswale to drawback rainwater, utilizing stones from Valley Builders Supply and immoderate larger rocks from Bourget Bros. “We installed it successful 1 day,” she says. “It was my day contiguous to myself.”

Lee installed the bioswale successful conscionable 1 time with assistance from a person and her gardener.

At first, she was tense astir adding thing truthful antithetic from the different accepted lawns connected her street. “There weren’t immoderate different houses that had thing similar that,” she says. “But present I similar it due to the fact that it breaks up the beforehand tract into abstracted planting sections.” She tin besides locomotion down the bioswale to enactment successful the garden. “I find plot attraction truthful relaxing,” she adds. “It’s meditative.”

Lee says plants assistance her link with people. One neighbour who knew the home’s erstwhile proprietor gave her succulents. Another brought her immoderate aromatic California sagebrush, besides called Cowboy Cologne. “I truly similar the information that I tin constituent to definite things and retrieve who gave them to me,” she says. “That’s truly nice.”

She hopes the aureate yarrow volition spread, and she’s particularly arrogant of the ample achromatic sage she grew from seeds that a person gave her. “It’s truthful blessed implicit there,” she says, intelligibly excited by its growth. “Look astatine however large it is. I americium truthful arrogant of it.”

Venice beekeeper Ian Kimbrey from Cheep Cheep Homes enactment up a bluebird container made from recycled materials connected Lee’s magnolia tree. There haven’t been immoderate bluebirds yet, but Lee is excited to spot hatchlings successful the future.

Not each the plants successful the unamended ungraded are California natives oregon adjacent drought-tolerant. Lee kept immoderate plants that person been increasing successful the gait for decades, similar the jasmine climbing astir the beforehand of the location arsenic good arsenic the achromatic roses. “I truly don’t similar lantana,” she says, “but I hatred sidesplitting things.”

Someday she hopes to acceptable up a escaped effect library, and she’s excited to spot bluebird hatchlings successful the bluebird location that Venice beekeeper Ian Kimbrey installed successful her tree. “I conscionable request to beryllium patient,” Lee says astir the bluebird box, which is inactive empty. “I’ve entered that signifier of my beingness wherever I conscionable emotion to spot truthful galore birds and bees and different animals successful my garden. It’s bully for my intelligence health.” She besides wants to adhd a h2o diagnostic wherever birds and butterflies tin bathe and sip, and she plans to works much berries to pull much pollinators.

Lee, who grew up successful L.A. and teaches English astatine Loyola Marymount University, says her unkempt plot reminds her of Los Angeles successful immoderate ways. “Everybody conscionable wants to look young and cleanable each the time, and that’s not healthy,” she says. “My plot is beauteous successful the spring; past it goes dormant successful the summer. And that’s OK.”

She hopes her communicative volition promote others who who can’t spend a scenery decorator oregon simply consciousness overwhelmed by the thought of replacing their lawn. “I deliberation sometimes it’s adjuvant conscionable having idiosyncratic who’s determination to clasp your hand,” she says of her person Liou. “For me, that was critical. I don’t deliberation I would person ever made immoderate advancement without him.”

The task was yet astir much than conscionable redeeming water. It gave Lee a accidental to link with her assemblage portion experimenting successful what she calls a “test garden.” She calls her plot a enactment successful progress, and though she has suffered failures on the way, she values the friendships she has made extracurricular her beforehand door. “My plot doesn’t look designed due to the fact that it isn’t. I’ve learned it’s OK if things aren’t perfect.”

Actually, she says, an imperfect,-always-evolving plot is “a bully acquisition for life.”

Lee looks for bees wrong the Matilija poppies successful her garden.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Plants utilized successful this garden

California autochthonal shrubs/flowers

Coulter’s Matilija poppy (Romneya coulteri)
Pigeon Point Coyote Brush (Baccharis pilularis “Pigeon Point”)
Twin Peaks No. 2 Dwarf Coyote Bush (Baccharis pilularis “Twin Peaks No. 2”)
Lilac Verbena “De La Mina” (Verbena lilacina “De La Mina”)
Armstrong California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum “Armstrong”)
Marin Pink California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum “Marin Pink”)
“Bert’s Bluff’ California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum)
Catalina California Fuchsia (Epilobium “Catalina”)
Hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea)
California Sagebrush (Artemesia Californica)
California Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum)
Red Buckwheat (Eriogonum grande var. rubescens)
“Warriner Lytle” Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum “Warriner Lytle”)
Ashyleaf Buckwheat (Eriogonum cinereum)

Lee grew the achromatic sage from seed.

Sea Cliff Buckwheat (Eriogonum parvifolium)
Ceanothus “Julia Phelps”
Yankee Point Carmel Ceanothus (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus var. griseus “Yankee Point”)
Coyote Mint (Monardella villosa)
Woolly Blue Curls (Trichostema lanatum)
Golden Currant (Ribes aureum var. gracillimum)
Bush Monkeyflower (Diplacus longiflorus)
Jelly Bean Red (and Pink, and Orange, and Fiesta Marigold) Monkeyflower (Diplacus “Jelly Bean Red,” etc.)
Canyon Prince Giant Rye (Elymus condensatus “Canyon Prince”)
Island Alumroot (Heuchera maxima)
Santa Ana Cardinal Alumroot (Heuchera “Santa Ana Cardinal”)
California bee works (Scrophularia californica)
California Huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum)
Common Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus var. laevigatus)
Fragrant Pitcher Sage (Lepechinia fragrans)
“Whirly Blue” Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Whirly Blue”)
“Celestial Blue” Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Celestial Blue”)
Winnifred Gilman Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Winnifred Gilman”)
Allen Chickering Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Allen Chickering”)
“Bee’s Bliss” sage (Salvia “Bee’s Bliss”)
“Mrs. Beard” creeping sage (Salvia sonomensis “Mrs. Beard”)
Russian sage (Salvia yangii)
Santa Barbara Mexican Bush sage (Salvia leucantha “Santa Barbara”)
Deer writer (Muhlenbergia rigens)
California bush sunflower (Encelia californica)
Margarita BOP penstemon (Penstemon heterophyllus “Margarita BOP”)
Palmer’s Indian Mallow (Abutilon palmeri)
Island Mallow (Malva assurgentiflora)
White sage (salvia apiana)
Black sage (saliva mellifera)
Butterfly bush (Buddleja)
California Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Oregano (Origanum vulgare)
French lavender (Lavandula dentata)
Bush Anemone (Carpenteria californica)
Channel Islands histrion poppy (Dendromecon hartfordii)
Manzanita
Blue Grama (Bouteloua gracilis)
Showy Island snapdragon (Gambelia speciosa)
Bladderpod (Cleomella arborea)

Wildflowers (Native and non-native)

California poppies (Eschscholzia californica)
Blue Globe gilia (gilia capitata)
Elegant Clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata)
“Farewell to Spring” Clarkia (Clarkia amoena)
Cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus)
Theodore Payne’s Rainbow Mix wildflower seeds
“Indian Summer” Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta, “Indian Summer”)
Cosmos (cosmos bipinnatus)
Various breadseed poppies (papiva somniferum)