Hens and Chicks

Around here, water's scarce. Many of our neighbors have xeriscaped yards, with boulders and drought-tolerant plants but no grass.

We, on the other hand, have a beautiful expanse of bright green grass. It's watered all summer long by an automatic sprinkler system. The lawn needs mowing, weeding, watering, and raking about half the year.

Could we replace it? Our neighbor Linda told me that she was the first on our block to dig up her grass. One day she just started planting other things. So that's what I did, too. Two weeks ago I planted a little circle of Hens and Chicks. They're drought-tolerant, they renew themselves by generating little replacement plants (the chicks), and they are cheap.

Behold, the first patch. There are two patches, now, and perhaps soon I'll add some grasses (the kind you don't cut), some boulders, and some other heat-lovers. My plan is that eventually we'll have only a small portion of the yard for grass (if that) and we can cut back on watering, mowing, etc.