Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: California, cash, grass, lawn, manzanita, native, plant, rock, rose, wild
Then we went rock shopping and ordered 6 tons of rock from Sierra Rock, to be delivered next Saturday. Not having a place to put the rock yet, and feeling like I might now be doing things just a bit out of order, I spent the rest of the day ripping out the remaining grass. The pace picked up quickly once I got away from the tree, and I did not swear as much. My half of the driveway strip peeled off really easily, and I finished it all in about four hours.
I had also bought and brought home some flagstones from Sierra Rock at the same time I ordered the other rock, to make a path from the sidewalk to the courtyard entry. My kids had to sit awkwardly in the minivan because of the pile of stones on the floor and in the middle seat, but that is they price they pay for going along when Dad runs errands.
I‘m now in for about $550 so far. It looks now like the whole project will cost about $1,400. With the $700 check I hope to get and lawn-lady savings, this should pay for itself in less than a year. More importantly, it is within the margin of what my wife calculated my $1,200 quote to actually mean.
The pile of sod in my courtyard has grown enormous. I might have to actually pay someone to haul it away, which would increase the budget.
Really huge grass pile
Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: All Things Wild, Berkeley, California, Calphoto, cash, Cash for Grass, grass, landscape, las pilitas, native, photo, plants, wild
We got a flyer from the Cash for Grass program for a class at the library on landscaping with native plants. I thought this might be useful given that I know absolutely nothing about landscaping or plants, so I signed up, and also took my daughters, 8 and 10. About half the class were fellow “Cash for Grass” program participants. I think I was the only one planning to do all the work myself.
The class was led by Genelle, a young woman with the appearance and demeanor of a passionate environmental type who has found her calling. Dressed for gardening, her casual appearance belied her keen intelligence, education, and experience. Genelle runs her own small business called “All Things Wild” (www.alltingswildca.com). She consults with commercial landscapers, and also sells native plants at a local farmer’s market on Saturdays. She brought a dozen or so popular native plants so we could see them first hand. Where safe, my daughter Rose also smelled, felt, and tasted them. Genelle was great, the kids loved the class, and they are very excited to help with the yard. Also my daughters now want to grow up to be people who sell native plants at the farmer’s market. We’ll be visiting her stand soon to buy plants.
I also found some fantastic California native plant web sites.
The best is www.laspilitas.com. This is a nursery, but they post information and photos on almost every native California plant, whether they sell them or not, and they have an on-line store that carries many of them and will ship.
http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/flora/, run by the University of California at Berkeley, has more photographs from a variety of sources for almost every native plant, including data on where it grows and/or was found and photographed.
Surprisingly, the California Native Plant Society web site http://www.cnps.org/ was not much help as far as actual landscaping ideas and guidance.
I am now finally designing my new landscape, on actual paper.
Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: California, cash, Cash for Grass, catharsis, chaparral, construction, debris, garden, grass, grasslands, lawn, native, plant, plants, sod, trees
Today I began ripping out grass. I don’t have any plan made yet as for what specifically I will put back in it’s place, but the grass is on its way out.
I have a picture that looks very nice in my head of what this will look like when done, but nothing on paper. I have started doing research on native plants on-line. Did you know that less than 10% of California’s land area has ANY native (pre-European) plants left excluding trees? Almost all the grasslands, hills, chaparral and forests have either been replanted with or entirely overcome by invasive and non-native species. I feel I have embarked on a kind of sacred mission to help preserve a few remaining bits of California’s botanical history in my own little garden.
After a long day at work, feels good to be out with a pick and shovel, ripping out the lawn I have decided to oppose on moral grounds. The sod peels away easily, as the roots have barely penetrated the native clay and rock even after 8 years.
I am also learning something about the construction industry. Under the sod I am finding bits of pipe, nails, siding foam, soda cans and construction waste that our builder laid the sod over without cleaning up. Among the more interesting finds: a large broken mirror, a 2-foot length of heavy chain, a 30 pound slab of broken concrete, and a hole with several beer bottles which I hope were not left by people responsible for the structural integrity of my home.
I have also created a waste problem. What do I do with the sod I am ripping up? We have a “green waste” can that the city picks up every two weeks that I had planned to use. I filled it to the top with about 30 square feet of lawn. That’s means I’ve got about 16 months worth of grass at that pace of pickup. Hauling is not in the imaginary budget that goes with my mental pictures.
For now I am making a big pile in the front yard. In just an hour or so I ended up with 70 square feet of grass pulled, one full green waste can, one pile of grass, and 630 square feet to go…
Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: bees, butterflies, California, cash, grass, habitat, hummingbirds, landscape, native, plant, plants
After some research into what is available in the drought-tolerant-plant category, my children and I decided that we want to put in a landscape consisting entirely of plants native to our area of California. The reason for this is to help preserve native species as well as meeting the drought-tolerant goal, and particularly to attract more butterflies, hummingbirds, and endangered species of native bees, so that my children can catch them and put them in a jar. Or something.
We hope to create a purely native “California micro-habitat” to help preserve the things that naturally lived in our area before the explosion of subdivisions like ours.
I am not without misgivings. For economy, I plan to execute the landscape transformation with my own labor (and the forced labor of my children). We’ll see if that works. We are also not certain what the neighbors in our little subdivision, every single one of which has a lawn, will think of the result. Fortunately, we have no homeowner’s association, so no one can veto my plan or design! (ha, ha, ha!)
Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: California, cash, Cash for Grass, environment, funds, government, grass, Roseville
The application for this program turned out to be one form, downloadable, that can be filled it out in a few minutes. Surprisingly easy – kudos to Roseville! We sent the form in. Then we waited. For weeks. OK, now it was looking like government.
I decided to try to contact them, if it was physically possible. The City did have a web site with actual people to contact, Shane Reid and Lisa Amaral. These actual people responded promptly and helpfully, despite being in government. They responded that we were too slow and the program was out of money. But they were trying to get more funding due to the strong response for the program.
2 days later they called back and said they got funding for an additional 70 houses, and our application was accepted. Too cool! THEY called US, and they had actual MONEY! Either the drought situation here truly is dire, or Shane and Lisa are brilliant at working the bureaucracy, or both.
Now that we have been accepted into the program, we are reading the terms and conditions. This is a bigger commitment than I expected. The city inspected our yard and determined that my front lawn has 700 square feet of eligible grass. I have to complete the project within 6 months to get a reimbursement. I have to use drought tolerant plants. I have to remove or cap my sprinklers, but I can put in drip irrigation if desired. I have to replace the grass with plants that are rated on their chart with pre-established “coverage when mature” area. I have to use a mulch (no bare ground). I have to hop on one foot while I dig the holes with my teeth. OK, maybe not the last thing. Still, it’s a big deal.
When done, I have to close the process by sending back my list of plants and such that I installed, and they will confirm with another inspection. I agreed to the terms. The project begins.
Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: budget, California, cash, Cash for Grass, college, conservation, drought, environment, freshman, grass, green, hippies, Roseville, subsidy
Remember in college when that freshman bought a bag of “grass” for $25 from some guy, and it turned out it really was grass, like right from the lawn outside the dorm? Well, the City of Roseville, California is that college freshman, and I am the guy. Yes, I am selling my lawn to the City of Roseville, and they are buying.
Specifically, Roseville is trying to get people to remove their lawns in order to conserve water. It is an example of a government incentive pushing people to behave in a socially responsible way, at the local level. Must be a couple of hippies in our city government. The program is called, truly, “Cash for Grass”. The summary is that they will pay $1/square foot (not quite as good as $25 for a Zip-loc baggie) for you to rip out your lawn and replace it with drought-tolerant low-water landscaping.
I already hate my lawn. I hate taking care of my lawn. I hate paying someone to take care of my lawn after I got sick of taking care of it last year. I hate cat poop on my lawn. I hate that it looks just like everyone else’s, except more weeds and crabgrass. I have always wanted to rip it out, and now I can get paid to do it.
I created this blog to chronicle the adventure of attempting to get government funding for something I wanted to do anyway, but was not worth the effort and cost until they prodded me with a subsidy. Unfortunately, the city funding will almost certainly not cover the full cost, so I’ll still be doing this on a tight budget. Still, between lawn-guy savings and the reimbursement, the project should pay for itself pretty quickly.
There will certainly be other challenges as well, as I will defintely no longer have a house that looks like everyone else’s from the street. We’ll see what the neighbors think…
