See our native landscaping on the Redlands Garden Tour April 16-17

One week from now (Sat/Sun, April 16-17) our yard is one of six featured ones on the Redlands Garden Tour and Plant Sale. As some know from my articles, in 2008 we replaced most of our lawn in front with drought tolerant — mostly California native –plants. Now it’s a mature example of how lush native plant landscaping can be.

Other features of our yard:

• ‘Our jungle’ out back: where we plugged in native plants amidst existing old sycamores, sugarbush, eucalyptus and mature citrus and loquats.

  

• Our 4 rain barrel system, which waters our trees and saves us more on water bills
• Wildlife (wildcam photos here and here plus undoubtedly some real ones – if nothing else I guarantee sights of one of our dozens of blue-bellied and alligator lizards)
• Educational posters on ‘why natives?’ plus photos and explanation of our landscape process
• Lush natives including ceanothus, 80 year+ lemonade berry, 4 types of milkweed for butterflies, and some fun non-natives like dragon trees
• Our low-water lawn (blue grama and buffalo grass)
• Floral art oil painting demo by Christine White

  

Other featured yards include a home with 25 varieties of citrus, succulents and gnomes, the Humpty Dumpty House Garden in Loma Linda, along with homes dating back to the early 1900s. Four of the six feature drought tolerant landscaping ideas and all are beautiful.

Getting tickets: You can get a $15 ticket (inexpensive by garden tour standards) at our yard – 315 Westwood Lane –  or any of the gardens.  Or you can get tickets at the Plant Yard located  next to the Carriage House in Prospect Park, or at the stores listed here.