Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: budget, cash, Cash for Grass, kids, lawn, milkweed, plants, rock, Roseville, seeds, wildflowers
main front ex-lawn
gate to street stepping stones
- driveway strip
- driveway strip from driveway
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Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: cash, decorating, festive, grass, landscaping, lawn, leaves, lights, rock, seeds, vacation
This Christmas I chose landscaping over putting up holiday lighting. Our house does not look very festive, but I do have a big pile of rock. Maybe I can build a rockman with a top hat and carrot nose. And I have a mound of grass in my courtyard that is starting to turn brown. Could I put a manger next to it and call it hay?
Today is the first day of a two week (forced) vacation for employees of my company. At least I will have all the time I need to finish what can be done on my landscape, plant all my seeds, and attend to a number of other household projects. How exciting! I finished putting in the plants I have and spreading rock around the infamous strip between driveways, except for the plants I can’t get yet or am growing from seeds that I have not yet planted. I got started on the far end of the main area formerly known as lawn. Rose helped by climbing up and down the rock pile, and occasionally piling up leaves and jumping on them.
Driveway Strip Finished
Driveway Strip Side ViewMain Yard Far Side
Main Yard Far End
Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: All Things Wild, blue-eyed grass, bluebells, butterflies, Butterfly Encounters, cash, grass, landscape, Larner Seeds, lawn, lupine, milkweed, monarch, monkeyflower, native, poppies, spring, yarrow, yellow-eyed grass
Sabrina found a web site through school called ”butterfly encounters” (www.butterflyencounters.com). It explains that monarch butterflies are endangered due to habitat destruction, such as the construction of our home by callous, cigar-smoking, real estate developers whose primary goal is the extermination of all that is good and natural. I am paraphrasing.
The butterfliers encourage us to plant milkweed – the attractive native plant which is the sole food source for monarch butterfly caterpillars. Coincidentally, they sell milkweed seeds, and they post beautiful photos of different types of milkweed in bloom. I am too inexperienced in botany to answer my wife’s philosophical question, “If it is so pretty, why is it called a ‘weed’?”
I spent $20 ordering seeds for a few varieties. My kids want monarch butterflies. How can I deny them? See, I can be flexible. I changed the plan. Interestingly, though, it is not easy to get the seeds to germinate. Another mini-project.
I am skeptical that butterflies will just show up if I plant this stuff, but Genelle (All Things Wild person) assured me that if we grow milkweed, monarch butterflies really will come. And I don’t have to plow under an entire field of corn and wear a funny cap. I wonder what the caterpillars do to the plants’ weedy beautifulness. It all sounds cool and science-y. For the kids.
Update 12/16/08: Seeds are cheap. Dozens of seeds cost the same as one small plant, are cheaper to ship, and I’m not out $9 if I kill one. If I can grow them, my budget is in much better shape. I found a great source for native California wildflower seeds to go with my milkweed seeds, Larner Seeds (www.larnerseeds.com). I ordered poppies, yellow-eyed grass, blue-eyed grass, lupine, bluebells, monkeyflower, and rosy yarrow.
Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: A&A Steppig Stones, boulders, cash, class, cobble, Google, grass, green, landscape, lawn, mulch, native, Newcastle, petrified, plants, rock, wild
I decided I wanted to put a nice stone border around the edges of the project to keep the rock mulch from spilling over. I hadn’t seen anything I liked for a border at Sierra, but using the power of Google I found another local rock seller, A&A Stepping Stones in Newcastle.
Rose and I drove up to look around after I got off work yesterday, because Rose loves rocks and dirt. My other kids did not want another van ride sharing seats with boulders. They had a dazzling selection of rocks, and I found a species that comes in long, narrow rectangular pieces, absolutely perfect for a border. Rose and I loaded about 150 linear feet of it onto a pallet to be carried to my minivan. The stone is called “Petrified Seashore”, which is ironic because I was petrified when it wieghed in at 530 pounds and the clerk rang it up at $228. Plus $38 for about ten or so ordinary 40-pound decorative boulders that we also chose. Rose again got to ride awkwardly in between the 900 pounds of rocks in the minivan, not counting several pounds she had secretly stuffed into her pockets as souveneirs.
This relates to the neighbors because today after work I finished laying the rock to make the border between my half of the driveway strip and my neighbor’s grassy half. As soon as I finished, my neighbor came out and said that he did want in on the plan after all, if it is not too late to do the whole driveway strip. His wife is into gardening, thinks my native plant habitat is a really great idea, and wants to help.
I am so excited to have the neighbors on board. Despite having to take out the border I just layed and add to the rock order, I think it will look much better to not have the strip split up. And I have the comfort of company in the insanity. Also, they have three kids who want to help, and free child labor is always welcome where moving rock is concerned.
Flagstone, Petrified Seashore, and boulders staged on grassless yard
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: butterfly, cash, grass, habitat, lawn, neighbor, pickaxe, property, roots
There is a strip of lawn between my driveway and my next-door neighbor’s that is about 12 feet wide. While working with a pickaxe on the grass removal in the main part of my lawn, which is getting increasingly difficult due to the many thick roots as I get nearer the tree in the middle of the yard, my neighbor came out to see what I was up to and to suggest that I stop swearing loudly in front of the neighborhood children. I explained the project, and suggested that when I get to the driveway strip I could take out the whole strip out between our driveways instead of just my half, and include it all in the project, if he would chip in for the additional rock.
He is “thinking about it”, which I interpret as wondering if it is safe to say “no way” directly to a mentally defective neighbor who is swinging a pickaxe around while ranting about accursed butterfly habitats.
Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: budget, cash, Cash for Grass, cost, estimate, grass, lawn, performance, plan, project
My wife asked me, “So, how much is this going to cost?”
“Before or after the reimbursement from the City?”
“Before.”
“Uh,” I responded intelligently.
“Well?”
I began running some calculations in my head based on my on-line research. I was rapidly simplifying the mental picture I was looking at for the finished product as I began coming up with estimates in my head that I knew would never fly. “About $1.50 to $1.75 per square foot,” I finally answered. This was a conservative estimate, in the sense that I was afraid that if I said anything higher my wife would nuke the project. Kind of like project estimates to management at my company.
“So about $1200 altogether?” Unfortunately, my wife minored in mathematics. And it’s not her first time dealing with a husband who embarked on a home project with ideas bigger than our wallet.
“Yes,” I replied, realizing that I now have my official budget by which my performance will be evaluated, the successful execution of which has consequences more serious than my employer’s performance review.
It is time to get my vision for the yard written down on paper and planned.
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: cash, Cash for Grass, firing, grass, landscape, lawn, lawn service, spanish
I fired the lawn people. It was not easy to do. No, not the emotional part – well, that too - but I mean really, technically, it was not easy to do. The guy I hired a year ago never comes anymore and the person that does come for him, a rather muscular older woman with a bright smile, does not speak any English.
I speak just barely enough Spanish to be able to have conveyed and confirmed that she understood that this was the last month I needed their services. Not much smiling involved at that point. I hope she understood that it was not her fault, but that there is just not going to be any lawn to mow anymore.
