-
Recent Posts
Top Posts & Pages
Archives
- December 2025
- November 2025
- October 2025
- September 2025
- August 2025
- July 2025
- June 2025
- May 2025
- April 2025
- March 2025
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
Categories
- Country Gardening (678)
- Country Living (185)
- Field Notes (516)
- Inspirational Quotes (79)
- My Photos (1,459)
- Uncategorized (71)
Recent Comments
-
Posts I Like
Blogs I Follow
- Annettes Garten / Annette's Garden
- Karma's When I Feel Like It Blog
- Change Is Hard
- Breeze after a rain
- GreenDreamsSweden
- Mucky Boots
- Capturing The Art Of Living
- Follow your Garden Bliss
- Life in a Zone Three Garden
- Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
- Feathers & Leaves
- Rtistic
- Nature Diary
- randomandsuperficialthoughts.wordpress.com/
- Cosmos and Cleome
- Handmade by Lennea
- shelleymwhite.wordpress.com/
- Backyard Bird Nerd
- Sun, Water and Stone
- Leaf And Twig
Meta
Eliza Waters 
Fantastic! Let’s all ditch the lawn and replace it with native flowers, shrubs, and trees!
Amen to that! Embrace your native environs. 🙂
How striking!
Thanks, Sandy. Quite dazzling!
Here, here! 🙂
🙂
Goodness! Love it 💖
Can you imagine waking up to this in the morning, wow!
Instant smiles!
Lovely, much better than lawns!
I thought so, too. Thankfully, the idea of naturalized yards is catching on.
African daisies? During spring there are fields of them in a variety of colours growing in the wild along our West Coast. What a beautiful crop of them here!
You got it! (I knew you’d recognize them 🙂 ) They have naturalized in the arid areas of the Southwest US. Better than wasting water trying to maintain a lawn (a crime, IMO).
So so Beautiful 🙂
Thank you, Deepa!
Wow! That’s a beautiful sight, Eliza. Is it in your garden?
No, a friend sent this photo from Arizona, she knew I would love it. 🙂
So did I. 🙂
Who wouldn’t like a lawn like this one…. fantastic sight !
Thanks, I would love to see this in my yard. 🙂
Love it! Just imagine if everyone did that… 🐝🐝🐝🐝
IKR? So beautiful and happy bees!
Wow! A neighbor tried a meadow in a small front lawn, and it always looked like his lawn mower was broken, but this is handsome.
It takes some diligence to establish a wild lawn, up to three years by some experts, involving a lot of weeding out of unwanted plants. I think folks who think they can just seed and walk away are giving wild lawns a bad name!
Yes! Meadows rule!
For sure! 🙂
Back to nature — yay!
Much better, I’d say!
What is the flower, Eliza? I’d love for neighbors to agree to trying this.
Osteospermum, African daisy, drought tolerant, ideal for Arizona. You might try Garrett’s for a SE mix: https://garrettseed.com/product-category/wildflowers/
Thank you.
Kris noted that it may be Dimorphotheca, but regardless, I’d stick to what Garrett’s promotes as best for your region.
Beautiful!! 🧡💛🐝💛🧡
Thanks, Donna. I thought so, too. 🙂
Striking!
Thanks, I thought it was great, much better than irrigating a lawn in the desert!
Absolutely!
Now, if only we could persuade the HOAs to allow such things.
Agreed, citizens have to approach the boards of HOAs and town councils to get the rules changed. Time to update to the reality of climate change and water scarcity.
YES!!! I am planning on xeriscaping my front lawn. Going to have to go bits and spurts. Honestly, my grass sucks so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to plant stuff that is happy in the shade and crappy earth.
Beautiful flowers!
Good for you. 33 years ago, when we first moved here, mowing the lawn took 3 hours! I’ve got it down to about 20-30 minutes. 🙂 Still whittling it away. Even that remaining lawn is full of flowers and mini-meadows. I’d like to think my bees are happy.
My grass grows so poorly (after the no-mo-May), I only have to do it once every month and a half… So, I’d like to plant ground covers requiring zero maintenance.
How about violets? They stay low and will grow in sun or shade, can be mowed and aren’t bothered by it (my lawn is full of them). You can seed them in spring and in time, they will spread. Other suggestions are wild geranium (G. maculatum), ferns, Pennsylvania sedge. Lowbush blueberry and small viburnums (V. dentatum/prunifolium) might work, too. If your soil is poor, and prone to drying out, you may need to add some soil amendments like shredded leaves and compost. Good luck!
Oh absolutely. I will eventually not be mowing anything! But yes. And Forget-me-nots and anything that loves to reseed and be pretty. I will put a few stepping stones so the mailman can stop just walking through my lawn. 🙄
The right flowers, the right climate…bliss for pollinators…& hopefully the turkeys would stay off!
There is a ridiculous amount of water waste in the southwest maintaining an idea of what a lawn looks like that originated in rainy England. Wake-up America! 🙂
I would probably loose my house through the HOA if I did that. We must all have perfect grass and shrubs.
Time to form a committee and present the facts to the board! There is plenty of resources to site that support the idea. https://www.monarchgard.com/store/p38/workingwithhoa.html
And I have done so in summer toasty/droughty Texas. I only have pathways and gardens and mostly grow native plants. My garden is lush and beautiful and there’s no mowing involved. Thanks for this post, Eliza; hopefully it resonates with more folks!
Thank you, Tina. I believe the idea is taking hold. It really makes the most sense… native plants are by far, much easier to establish and maintain, and are better for helping native wildlife. Win-win!
Absolutely love it! It took me a few years, but I finally got rid of all the turf on my large corner lot. So much more happy with just perennials, groundcovers and native plants-so much easier and better for the environment.
Agreed, and good for you. In truth, the great American lawn is rooted in English colonialism. Time to embrace our native environments and promote the habitat and creatures that live there. 💚
Amen. When you live in a mountain desert, you have to be more aligned with the area.
My front lawn is gone! what is that? it is pretty.
African daisies, but not sure which genus, though. I agree that it is pretty, better than trying to maintain a lawn in the desert.
My brother grows masses of the annual African daisies too. If those are the annual form of the flower, they’re officially classified as Dimorphotheca rather than Osteospermums (the perennial form). You can find more information at osteospermum dot com slash dimorphotheca
Thanks, Kris. As this was a friend’s photo, I can’t be sure of the ID. Are both referred to as African daisies?
The reference to “African daisies” always drives me crazy as there are plants in various genera that are described by that same common name, Eliza. In addition to Osteospermum and Dimorphtheca, that includes Gazania, Gerbera and Arctotis. Osteospermum and Dimorphotheca look more alike than the others I’ve identified and, with all the reclassifications going on, I wouldn’t be surprises if they end up in the same genus one day 😉
🙂
Wow that’s stunning.
Eye-opening for sure! 🙂
It is beautiful and nothing to mow 😊
Win-win! 🙂
Done and done. This is gorgeous.
Thanks, Alys. Yours is a good example as well!
It took time to convince my husband, but we’ve never looked back.
👏🏼
Perfection!
Thanks, Cindy!
Oh wow! What a view from the windows every day.
Worth getting up extra early in the morning!
Gorgeous!!
Isn’t it? … so pleasing to the eye and low maintenance, I bet.
Now there’s a great idea!
MJ
I have always been a fan of wildflowers. 🙂
Whoa! Amazing!
I thought so, too! 🙂
I love this and would love to ditch my lawn!!!🙂
There is a lot one can do with shrubs and trees. It doesn’t all have to be labor intensive gardens.
I’ve reduced my lawn a lot over 3 decades. It gets wilder every year and I love it, the critters do, too!
Ah, to look out the windows on such beauty!!
Pretty low maintenance, too. 🙂
Love it
Thanks, Karina, the bees must love it, too!
A sunny and bright yard. We have these in our front yard, all over it, they grow like weeds even without watering ever. They have a strong underground root system. I loved your words here, Eliza, and bright spirit.
Thank you, Jet. Xerophytic landscaping is becoming more popular, thankfully. Have a good weekend… you must be getting rain?
Lots and lots and lots…but I’m safe and actually like the rain after all those terrifying drought years. 🙂
WOW! What a sight. I’ll bet the neighbours are envious and the bees are going crazy.
I hope it gives the neighbors the idea to do a similar thing! 🙂