Timely Information! Molly Bogh talks in Redlands about waterwise gardens By Phill Courtney POSTED: 09/22/14 It’s official. California is in the midst of its worst drought in recorded history. Molly Bogh believes that one way we can confront that drought is to “lose our lawns” and convert them into low-maintenance landscapes filled with decorative stones, native plants and other waterwise ways to lower our water bills while doing what’s right. Bogh is co-author of a new book, “Life After Lawns: 8 Steps from Grass to a Waterwise Garden,” in which she shares many of the tips she’s learned during her own process of transforming her yard from a flat, lifeless lawnscape into a space she calls an additional living room for her home. It’s a message that seemed to resonate with many of the more than 70 people who came to hear her when the Redlands Horticultural and Improvement Society met Thursday at the Redlands Church of the Nazarene. Many raised their hands when Bogh asked how many were interested in taking out some grass. “That’s fantastic,” she said. “So glad to hear it.” Bogh began by outlining four topics — why should we care about lawns; getting rid of a lawn and how to do it; what she learned during the process; and what plants she used to do it. “All the people who work in the climate business and the water business are telling us that drought is ... going to be the new normal,” she said. People should count on it for the next 50 years, she said. After all, she said, we “live in a desert, with less than 20 inches of rain per year.” All this adds up to the necessity for recognizing that reality, she said, and to act appropriately. To drive home her point, she presented slides with such eye-opening graphics as the dramatic shrinkage of the Sierra snowpack. She also emphasized how much water people are wasting with some photos of water runoff from lawns in her neighborhood. After laying out her case, she shifted gears into solutions. “This is a problem that we can all do something about,” she said. She told her own story of when she was working as a city planner on a project in north Los Angeles County and how she was running into a frustrating level of resistance when she presented officials with ideas for water conservation. She was bringing that frustration home and sharing those complaints with her family until, one day, her college-age son challenged her about their own yard. She said her son said, “Mom, why don’t you do something? Look at your lawn.” She then flashed a “before” shot of the expanse of Bermuda grass she had several years ago, drawing a knowing laugh from the audience. Stung by her son’s comment, she decided to take up the challenge and see if she could, indeed, do something. “It’s kind of hard to resist a challenge like that from your own offspring,” she said. She then showed the “after” shot of her yard minus the lawn and launched into the process of how she’d done it. It began with considerable help along the way by the co-author of the book, her friend Bill Schnetz, a professional landscape architect for more than 30 years, who took her under his wing and suggested many of the ways she could go once she’d ditched the lawn. Beyond just alternative ground covers, he suggested creating space that she and her family would actually want to spend time in. She said she liked that idea. “We started to think about creating an outdoor living area,” she said. She, her husband and Schnetz then came up with a plan that would work best given the physical parameters of the yard. After that, the first step is the elimination of the lawn, which, she said, is not an easy process, especially with warm-weather grasses like Bermuda. Although many people do have doubts about chemicals, she said the only sure way to kill these grasses all the way to the roots is with products such as Round-Up or Rodeo, because those roots can go down a foot and a half, or even three or four feet in sandy soil. “It’s not a petroleum product,” she said about that type of herbicide. “It’s water soluble. It doesn’t sink into the soil. The only thing it does is stop the plant from photosynthesis.” Sometimes, as in her case, it can take three or four treatments over six to eight weeks to complete the job. From there she took her listeners through the steps outlined in her book, which include drainage considerations; creating walls and walkways; demolitions if needed, which may involve hiring contractors; choosing the best plants for your yard; considering your micro-climate; composting; and irrigation options. “After we were done with the garden,” she said, “I said to Bill one day, ‘We really need to write all this down, because people need to know this stuff.’ ” “It ended up being actually a lot of hard work,” she said about writing the book. The entire process lasted about four years, but the book is now available through Amazon and other retail outlets. redlandsdailyfacts/lifestyle/20140922/molly-bogh-talks-in-redlands-about-waterwise-gardens
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 22:35:00 +0000
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