Slow down, don't rush.....

Our culture is killing me- flashing images, chewing up information and imagery endlessly, voraciously, creating nonsense and anxiety 24 hours a day, all the time. I only dip my toes in briefly, occasionally, but can walk around with a hangover if I dwell too long..  A I feel my randomly aching muscles from a few days of gardening (sore ankle flexors, really??), I balance the groundedness of working with the earth with the modern impatience of "want that now now now".  (Caveat- I have a 4 year old and 8 year old. Perhaps I'm overly sensitive to the want want "greedy gimmies".. Magical thinking generally pisses me off if it is not part of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez (RIP) novel).  Getting to the point- I tore out a bunch of grass, planted new teeny plants and am inpatient to see how they do, but realize watching them grow (really, really) is a huge part of the fun..

OK- this is the house from the front (in March).. with too much St Augustine that goes sad and brown in the summer. Focus on the lawn on the right center area.. high sunshine area, always scraggly..

Grubs? Cinch bugs? In disgust I started removing sod bit by bit. It took.. a little while. I may need another deep tissue massage. I certainly need a new shovel (the old one broke mid-project, so I finished using a kid sized shovel..).

Teeny plants in a big space, no definition.. While I amended the soil with a good amount of compost, I'm still not sure what will thrive where. And I'd love to build pathways, but have issues with commitment..

Voila.. left over slats of wood from the chicken coop enterprise. They look a bit Morse-code-ish. Placed on the fly, sneaking in gardening with child entertainment ("look at Mommy sawing with a handsaw, how fun!"). They are thin, and will weather (and break) fairly quickly, but will give me and my hopping children some structured paths (and keep the rest of the space from getting trampled). Already the kids love "walking the planks". Once I see how the plants flow in the grass free area I can replace the wood with stone..

Such a blank slate- what's in there? Below are my guiding principles...

First- I'm over agaves. I have one on the other side of the sidewalk, and love a good Hotel San Jose decor, but am tired of sharp pokes. I have sensory issues, and love stroking and smelling my plants as much as I love seeing them.

Second- These plants must do ok with benign neglect (as in deep but not frequent watering after they get established). I love the idea of an edible front yard, so I threw some chard seeds as well as two peppers in the "likely to get bystander weekly Stage 2 drought lawn watering" zone. Everything else is theoretically drought resistant: salvias, santolina, gauras, fall asters, Mexican Mint marigolds, ice plants, coneflowers. I could be nervous about the new lavenders, but I have an older one (further down the no-water slope) that has held on for 5 years...

Third- get a little height: I placed an old galvanized bucket and a big (repurposed from the in-laws) ceramic pot full of mini sunflowers in the middle to add a (cheap) sculptural element while I wait to see how my salvias, lavenders, Mexican mint marigolds and transplanted volunteer Pride of Barbados's do over the next year. If they struggle, I'll have a good space to plant a central feature (perhaps even an overused agave!). If they go insane and grow huge, I'll at least have a protected sunny pocket in the middle to add an accent point...

I'm excited about the new bed, and even gave my  remaining poor St Augustine a bit of a treat this weekend by top-dressing it in compost and tossing some diatomaceous earth down to protect it from the grubs/cinch bugs/other evil humors..

Meanwhile, in the back yard....

Idyllic evening (chickens happy in freshly mown lawn..). The four girls have been well behaved, putting themselves to bed in the bigger coop, growing and being entertaining. Even my husband is entranced, taking to reading my chicken care books and getting them treats.

In the back-back. Friend or foe? I think it's a volunteer passionflower vine, prettier than the lighter green one that attempts to take over my coral honeysuckle every summer. I've decided to baby this one- placing a make-shift trellis around it to see how it grows. I love volunteers- if they go to the effort to start growing, I feel like they should be rewarded...