Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Cash for Grass, check, government, milkweed, pile, plant, Roseville, seeds
We got the check from the city of Roseville this weekend. $700 to put in the bank. That sure feels good. Who would ever have guessed you could get a government check without having something really unfortunate happen to you first, or being in Congress!
That conlcudes our relationship with the City of Roseville for the time being, but the project continues to evolve. None of the plants have died yet.
As for the seeds, not one of the milkweed seeds has sprouted yet of any type. They have been in the dirt for about 8 weeks so far, so I expected at least a few of the early seeds to have started by now. Maybe the “cold stratification” outside failed and I killed them all. Of the wildflowers, the lupine and poppies have started coming up, some of them are a couple inches tall. The lupine were large seeds, with only a few in the pack. I think I got about 50% of them to start. Plenty of poppies. The yarrow and monkeyflower have also sprouted, and they are numerous but very tiny. Nothing yet of the bluebells, blue-eyed grass, or yellow-eyed grass.
Some of the other plants in the front are starting to show new growth. Others look like they are barely hanging on. My sod pile is also gradually decreasing in volume every couple of weeks. I’ll post more pictures soon.
Filed under: Cash for Grass | Tags: acorns, better, cash, grass, lobata, oak, plant, quercus, smaller, tree, valley
As I have noted, big nursery plants are expensive. Small plants are cheaper. Seeds are even cheaper. I wanted a single Valley Oak (quercus lobata) tree. The area coverage rating on one of these alone covers the enitre requirement for live plants for purposes of the City reimbursement forms! I gathered acorns a few weeks ago from a nearby tree, which was actually free, even cheaper than buying seeds. None of them sprouted – they just grew moldy and rotted. So I forked out $7 for this little guy I planted today.
Busy at work this week, so this is probably the only thing that will get done until Saturday.
Baby Valley Oak (acorn shell still attached)
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: 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!)
