INBUILT LANDSCAPE: Front yards and sidewalks of Southern CA: goodbye to lawns!

Long Beach sidewalk, CA. Photo by Myriam Mahiques, personal archives.

There is an interesting post on The Guardian today, "The American lawn feels irresponsible": the LA homes ditching grass for drought-friendly gardens that explains how many homeowners have decided to remove the lawn of their front yards and replace it with water wise gardens, in other words, draught tolerant gardens with succulents and cactus among other desert species.

This is not new. There is a rebate program that has been going on for some years:

"The Los Angeles County Waterworks Districts offer customers a rebate for removing water-inefficient grass with drought-tolerant landscaping. The current rate is $1, with a minimum requirement of 500 sq. ft. and maximum of $5,000. The Rebate Program assists customers with reducing their overall water consumption." The paragraph is from the Los Angeles Waterworks Districts, the link to apply can be found here:

https://dpw.lacounty.gov/wwd/web/Conservation/CashforGrass.aspx#:~:text=The%20Los%20Angeles%20County%20Waterworks,and%20maximum%20of%20%245%2C000.

Succulents and wild grass front yard garden and a beautiful pepper tree which branches extend across the sidewalk. Photo by Myriam Mahiques, personal archives.

More information will be found on my previous post about Long Beach front yards.

I've been walking around the neighborhood again and enjoying the front yards that extend to the right of way landscape, in a wild but careful manner, most of the time in combination with the beautiful palm trees and old pepper trees.

Long Beach is one of the most pedestrian friendly cities I've known in Southern CA, they have some rules based on research of other cities, like Chicago. There is publication about "walkable Long Beach" containing an explanation of why trees are important, not only for our physical wellness but our psychology and behavior as well.

https://www.longbeach.gov/globalassets/lbds/media-library/documents/orphans/cx3/chapter-7-make-long-beach-walkable

I am sharing here some of my pictures of September 2022 to complete the examples shown on The Guardian article and with the intention of bringing up the homeowner's interest on water wise gardens.

A beautiful historical house on Termino ave. See how the succulents are arranged to create a border of the front yard.

A nice surprise to see a book exchange box in a front yard.

Wild but neat, the succulents are trimmed to keep the sidewalk width. In general, the trees are left to create canopies across, which I find very appealing.

Cactus, succulents, palm trees, wild grasses....

Crossing Termino Ave towards the beach.

Colorful ceramic pots are part of the landscape decoration.

The pepper tree across the sidewalk.

This picture has been taken with the owner's permission. We had a brief conversation about this landscape, he says that it is consuming too much water, even when they are wild grasses with a front yard Strelitzia (Regal Bird of Paradise or Parrot flower). He added that by January it will be all gone. I'll be back to see what he is proposing.

A different view of the previous photo, from the neighbor's house. Here we see a trellis with climbers, there's Rosemary in the middle of both lots. The Bird of Paradise is in full bloom.

Ivy covering the sloped front yard.

A close view of the previous ivy, next planter is full of Rosemary, which strives very well in the southern CA dry weather. The right of way has willow trees, their branches in canopies.

Palm trees, cactus, succulents. A climber Gardenia and a Bougainvillea at the side entrance.

The following pictures of the Long Beach Green Belt are part of the draught tolerant urban landscape of Long Beach, California. The trail leads to the Colorado Lagoon, which is part of the wetlands.

This type of urban and landscape design is so important for people to learn how to take care of our environment.