California Native Plant Garden Design Course - Part 3

Yesterday, we finished the 3 part class on designing a garden with native plants at Theodore Payne. In this last class, each student presented his/her design to the rest of the class. We were nervous because we didn't think that our design was that good, but our presentation went pretty well. The instructors said we did a good job :)

Although we sketched our whole property to scale, we only finalized a design for the front yard. It is pretty simple: blue fescue in the parkway and the very front of the yard followed by a section of white sage, and then a section of wooly blue curls on one side and desert lavender on the other. We also want a tree on the left side. We're thinking either a palo verde or chitalpa.

The only hardscape change is a series of cement slabs leading from the front porch to the sidewalk in the center of the yard. Right now we only have a path going south to the driveway, but we usually head away from the house to the north when leaving by foot.

The instructor made a few good suggestions after reviewing our plan. She suggested a few curves in places we had straight lines. She also suggested switching the sections of white sage and wooly blue curls since the sage tends to grow taller and should be closer to the house so as not to block the view of the wooly blue curls from the street. She also suggested that we substitute eriogonum gigantea for the desert lavender in case the desert lavender doesn't grow well in our area. Other than that, she just suggested adding a low flowering accent plant in the corner of the yard. We'll probably go with some kind of monkey flower.

I guess we're ready to start working on the front yard now. We just have to decide if we're going to rip out the existing landscape ourselves or if we're going to hire someone to do it. We know we definitely want to do the planting ourselves. Native plants have to be planted before April so we don't have much time...