People talk about the Zen of gardening: Birds sing, sky’s blue, things grow. Ahh, bliss.
But for gardeners, bliss often comes at a sweaty price. A few days ago Elise Donalson, out front of her Colfax Meadows house, wrestled with a lantana bush, saw in hand. She went mano a mano with the shrub and it seemed to be winning.
The reason for the showdown? One of Donalson’s long-standing purple lantanas had kicked the bucket, for reasons she was hard put to figure out, and it was going to get pulled.
Call it sumo gardening.
The slender actress-turned-legal secretary does her own grunt work: pulling weeds, mulching, pruning, transplanting, raking, irrigating and just plain schlepping. That’s in Studio City, where most homeowners pawn the dirty work onto the leaf blower brigade.
Is the effort worth it? Well, after spending two eleven-hour days getting things organized before summer barrels down, Donalson answers, “I barely notice time going by. It’s a delight. That’s the carrot. With the heat coming there’s so much to do. That’s the stick.”
Donalson moved into her Spanish bungalow on the shady corner of Valley Spring and Farmdale in 1984. “It was surrounded by ivy and weeds and something remotely resembling grass,” she remembers. She only knew enough about gardening to pull the weeds and keep the gorgeous cedar and sycamores. Then one day she took a walk around the corner and spotted a no-lawn garden by her neighbor Katherine’s (more on her mentor next week). Inspiration ensued.
Katherine told me, “You can do it too,” recalls Donalson. On Katherine’s recommendation, she hired Steve Wagner, a Disney landscape designer who freelanced on the side.
Donalson told him, “I’m willing to put in a lot of sweat equity and I’m happy to put in the installation.” And she sought a subdued palette. “I wanted something that didn’t look like I had gone out bought every plant I loved,” she explains. “I like a garden that has a soft look to it. But I’m not really an English Garden kind of girl.”
Wagner drew up plans and told his client to “do the homework.” She scoured garden centers for weeks, rounded up 150 plants, and put them in herself.
Donalson had two priorities. “I wanted low maintenance. I work full time,” she explains. “And I kept the cedar. The tree is older than me. I can’t cut it. “
Since the cedar blocked the sun, Donalson needed plants that would survive in shady, dry conditions. “If it wasn’t going to work,” she was insistent, “(then) I’ve done the plants a disservice. They’re not asking you to sing them to sleep but they can’t get up and move.”
So she put her own spin on Xeriscape, which champions low water consumption, no lawn mower, less deadheading and minimal fertilizing.
To that end her landscaped parkways, include shade- and drought-tolerant Creeping Rosemary, lavender, Phormium, Plecostachys serpyllifolia, Limonium (Statice). Mounds in soft colors of mouse ears, darker green fronds with small pale purple flowers, greeny gray curly headed bushes make a make a most impressive composition around her terra cotta-colored house.
“They’re very happy,” she says with pride. “Putting them in, seeing them grow, it gives you joy. I did my job.”
As she awaits a dump truck to deliver a load of un-bagged mulch, the self-deprecating Donalson says, “I’m sure my neighbors think I’m the crazy old lady on the corner with three cats and an overgrown garden.” Then again eccentricity yields its own rewards. She says, “There’s something about sticking your hands in the dirt. It’s like meditation for me.”
PART TWO NEXT WEEK: Is The Grass Always Greener If There Isn’t Any Grass?
WHAT TO DO:
Install low-water usage plants.
Consider Acacia redonlens Desert Carpet, red flax, Dwarf Coyote Brush, creeping sage.
Donalson recommends Urban Forest Weed Free Organics mulch, delivered by dumptruck.
Buy a couple of good shovels (one will inevitably break).
Steal this Idea: Plant rosemary. Share with neighbors--use cuttings for marinara.
