Eat Your Lawn

My goal is to have an edible landscape. This means that a majority of plants have some sort of culinary purpose for me or for the beneficial wildlife I am trying to attract.

When you think of food production in terms of a landscape, it really opens your eyes to appreciate all qualities of the plants we grow to consume. You don’t need coleus or begonias when you can have an even more beautiful bed of Bright Lights Swiss Chard. Asparagus fern, why not just plain asparagus? Need something tall in the background? Grow corn. There are several varieties that have burgundy coloring in their leaves, stems, and silk that is just lovely. Forget about morning glories and plant Scarlet Runner Beans instead. They have the sweetest red flowers and the beans are delicious. Another favorite landscape plant of mine is Globe Artichoke. The plants grow into huge specimens with silver foliage. They are very dramatic and can yield a dozen or more tasty appetizers. I also love Fennel. The airy fronds dance in the wind and are a favorite snack for butterfly caterpillars.

I also expand my definition of an edible landscape to include wildlife I want to attract. I need birds in the yard to keep the bugs down, so I grow plants that will attract them. Amaranth (weed them into your salad), Echinacea, Cosmos, Barbados Cherry, Rose varieties that produce hips, Pigeon Berry, Lantana, and Chili Pequin all provide color and treats. Birds like low cover to hide in while they are scoping out the groceries, so I've included Bamboo Muhly and berry producing shrubbery like Agarita and Yaupon.

And what about that grassy lawn? Get rid of it. It is a total waste of water and human resources. Replace the blades with Thyme, Marjoram, Winter Savory, Peppermint or Oregano (or a blend of all of them.) They form a thick, green carpet that you can walk on. Heck, you can even mow them if you want (talk about a head rush though!) They stay low and don’t take nearly as much water to keep green. They also bloom and will attract bees and other pollinators to the garden.  If you want more "real" grass, try a native Texas Sedge (Carex texensis), which is what I put in.

It takes courage to do this however, because your yard will not look like everyone else’s. Peer pressure can be hard to overcome and you can bet you’re efforts will generate plenty of comments. However, I’ve always found that including your neighbors in your plans and sharing the fruits of your labor go a long way to smooth the path. They’ll start to think you are a genius as you sit in your lawn chair amongst the fragrant herb lawn, sipping an ice tea watching them slog it out with the lawn mower. Wave to them and ask them to sit with you for a spell. You might just be able to find a second career as a landscape consultant.

Rock Star

Linda and Missy

My aunt, Linda Williams, is a rock star.  Her Central Point, Oregon rock garden is a real stunner and has legions of fans.  I consider myself her #1 groupie.

Linda and I are the same age.  The two of us have been close our whole life and it is such a treat to garden together.  Linda is very creative and has an artist’s eye for color and placement.  She’s one of those crafty people too and always amazes me with her latest sewing project, table mosaic, stained glass, needlework or even a batch of cookies.  I am the absolute Plain Jane in comparison.  Lucky for me she doesn’t mind when I totally steal her great ideas.  And let me tell you, her garden is an idea worthy of grand theft.

Street view of Linda's garden.

When she purchased a new home on a bare lot in 2006, she wanted to create an ever-changing canvas that would handle the south facing Southern Oregon summer heat.  She was inspired by nearby resident Kathy Allen, whose extensive rock garden was featured in Sunset Magazine. The two women met at the Jackson County Master Gardener Plant Sale, which Kathy regularly participates in.

The tall front berm. 

Linda wanted to do something dramatic, so the two of us went to work.  I advised her to use nondescript rocks to create height for her berms instead of just piling soil.  That way the mounds would keep their original shape instead of slowly sinking away.  As luck would have it, we drove by the Crater Rock Museum on the way to collecting rock along the highway, and saw that the recent remodel had yielded two large piles of broken concrete.  The serendipity was too much to pass up.  The museum was thrilled to have us haul away the debris and thus the bones of the garden were born.

Linda uses gravel in walkways.

Small berm next to walkway

Linda’s home was in a new development so the builder still had topsoil in the area to landscape the remaining houses.  After assembling the concrete mound, we (and my husband Ed) hauled the soil to cover and shape the garden.  Linda then placed her “pretty” rocks throughout and finished the rest of the landscaping.

Blue cascade of glass pebbles

She has also used several other elements in her landscape; glass, wood, and ceramics also play a part to create a sense of whimsy throughout. She purchased many of her plants from Kathy Allen, but picks up new ones at various nurseries and sales. Her plant collection now yields enough starts for her to sell at yard sales and share with fellow enthusiasts.  She installed drip irrigation to water the yard about once a month, even during the hot summer.

One of her color "wallops"

Art glass on a hanger.

When asked what advice she has for people who'd like to copy her yard she says,  “Go for it - small or large scale.  Dig deep for the scavenger in yourself and start collecting plants and rocks you like.”  She has found that the easiest to grow are Hens and Chicks (Sempervivum tectorum) and likes all the colorful varieties.  Her favorite plants in the collection are mini Coral Bells. “I just love the rock garden flowers.  Small petite plants with a wallop of color. “

Linda crafts her own globes.  I love this one next to the strawberries.

The "old man" rock

Petrified volcanic ash.

The garden is constantly evolving as plants or rocks are replaced and rearranged.  The kaleidoscope of color she has created with both rock and plants is stunning no matter what time of year.   It’s been such a success that friends and family have her helping to create more rock gardens at their homes.   Her neighbors are fans too; Linda says they are always commenting, “You did this yourself!”

Part of Linda's heart rock collection

My favorite part of visiting her yard is discovering some new little vignette.


It’s a garden to savor and not to be viewed in a rush.  Just looking at all that rock we moved usually causes us to collapse in a chair to talk about where each stone came from.

It’s a long conversation.

I Am A Walking Bug Snack

I have discovered that being a hot sweaty woman here in Central Texas doesn't attract cowboys. Instead, I am a walking all-you-can-eat cafeteria for every blood sucking or biting insect within five counties.

What really irks me though, is that I never catch them munching on me. It's only at two in the morning that the welts start to itch and the rashes crawl up my shins. I get up in the morning and am raw from scratching.

It's probably karmic pay back for gloating about my yard. All my hard work (which is why I am hot and sweaty) is really starting to pay off. I got ten flats of Texas Sedge planted this week, plus installed my two Yaupon Holly trees (latin name illex vomitoria - click on the link and read why it is named this. Pretty funny.) Both plants are natives that are drought tolerant and really pretty to look at. I also added some milk weed and fennel for the butterflies to lay eggs on. Next time all those Monarchs fly by my house they are going to want to stop and leave me some caterpillars! I also planted basil (in November, it felt completely wrong) and some winter savory to flavor my black eyed pea dishes next summer.

My garden is still growing like crazy. I am feeding five people, not including Ed and I, with the greens that I planted. I keep harvesting them and you can't even tell I've touched them. They must grow at least an inch a day. It is amazing.

Yep, things going well out in the yard. Now excuse me, I have to go scratch.

Toughing up the Turf

It is finally time to start planting my new lawn. Be gone with you water-greedy St Augustine grass! There's a tougher act coming to town that will leave you in the literal dust - sedges.

Sedges (Carex spp.) are wonderful plants. They are perennials that resemble grass, but don't have the heavy growing requirements that many of our grasses are bred to demand. The sedge I chose for my front yard is a native Texan that is able to grow in shade with limited water. I have interplanted it with some variegated liriope that I moved from a flower bed. The combination of dark green and the white margins of the liriope should be pretty amazing. I might throw in some red Oxalis lasiandra just to punch it up a bit. If I do it right it will look like one of Grandma Clemmy's or Linda's quilts.

The best thing about it is that it will look great all year round and I won't have to mow it, fertilize it, edge it, thatch it, rake it, aerate it, water it, or procrastinate about it. I can walk all over it, park my lawn chair on it, spill beer on it, and generally sit and wave at the neighbors as they slog it out in the heat slaving over their lawn. Oh yeah, I'm likin' this sedge more and more.