RE: Low plants for under deciduous trees

---

Thanks to David, Gill, Joe, and Nan for your responses.  I've forwarded them to my friend.

 

Regarding Joe's suggestion to get rid of all the grass, oh, how I agree!  How can we persuade others to that point of view? Here is the mentality we are dealing with:

 

Last year's community beautification award winner was a new public school. As is typical here, it is surrounded by a chain-link fence. The 3-4 meter strip between the fence and the sidewalk is planted with grass. And a few shrubs. On this grass the children will never play due to the fence. The grass exists only for visual purposes.  Here we are in an area where our farmers had to cut water use by 30% last year and barring a March Miracle in the Sierra Nevada, even greater cutbacks are to come. (Many of our farmers raise avocados, which are so intolerant of irrigation interruption that the best strategy is to remove 30% from production by stumping rather than water all of them 30% less.) In spite of the resulting financial hardship, we as a community thumb our noses at a significant proportion of our population by not just tolerating but actually rewarding wasting water on grass no one uses.

 

Nancy

 

 

Here's a starter list:   Acanthus mollis                                              BEAR’S BREECH Aeonium haworthii                             HAWORTH AEONIUM                   Amaryllis belladonna  NAKED LADY Aristea ecklonii  BLUE STAR GRASS Protoasparagus densiflorus ‘Sprengeri’  ASPARAGUS FERN Bergenia  BERGENIA Carex glauca (C. flacca)  BLUE SEDGE Carex solandri  NEW ZEALAND BUSH SEDGE Carex spissa  SAN DIEGO SEDGE Carex subfusca  RUSTY SEDGE Carex tumulicola  BERKELEY SEDGE Crassula multicava  FAIRY CRASSULA Dianella  NEW ZEALAND BLUE-BERRY Dudleya  LIVE-FOREVER Hemerocallis  DAYLILY Heuchera maxima  ALUM ROOT Iris Pacific Coast Hybrids  PCH IRIS Melica imperfecta  COAST RANGE MELIC Muhlenbergia rigens  DEER GRASS Narcissus  DAFFODILS Nerine bowdenii  GUERNSEY LILY Pelargonium tomentosum  PEPPERMINT GERANIUM Ribes viburnifolium  CATALINA PERFUME Sedum dendroideum  TREE SEDUM Sisyrinchium bellum  BLUE-EYED GRASS Sollya heterophylla  AUSTRALIAN BLUEBELL CREEPER Vinca minor  DWARF TRAILING PERIWINKLE Zauschneria (Epilobium) species  CALIFORNIA FUCHSIA Now, convince her to remove ALL the grass.   Joe Joe Seals Landscape Designer, Horticultural Consultant Pismo Beach, California Home/Office: 805-295-6039