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After tearing out the front lawn and replacing it with a drought-tolerant garden, one family discovered the delights that native plants can bring — especially the tiny, winged, feathered ones.
My son noticed two things on our drive to school the other day. One was a mysterious smell in my car that he could only describe as “strong Mom.” The other was a pattern of tiny droplets and specks on my windshield. At first we thought something was dripping from the overhanging tree, but on closer inspection, we realized what it really was: hummingbird poo.
What could be cuter? I’ll tell you what: the tidy little cup of a nest we found tucked in that tree, and the birds that twinkled and hummed and orbited the nest like real-life fairies.
It’s a delight and an honor to host these little scraps of stardust. We notice them in greater numbers every year, starting when our native plants have their first spring bloom. But it really started about eight years ago when we removed our grass lawn and replaced it with drought-tolerant landscaping.
Climate Change at Home
California was five years deep into a drought at the time, and we were witnessing the sobering effects of climate change on our own block. As a community we talked about water constantly. We saved what meager rainwater we got in barrels and caught the runoff from our showers in buckets to water the trees. I once saw my kids build an irrigation system at the beach instead of a sandcastle.
On morning walks it felt like a gut punch to see broken sprinklers pouring water into the gutters, or even just doing their intended job of watering the grassy lawns. The once-lovely arc of a sprinkler-sun-rainbow began to look like a harbinger of doom; given the circumstances, turning off the water felt like the least we could do.
To Court a Pollinator
We applied for funding through the city’s lawn-to-garden program and visited some local participating nurseries to choose pretty rocks and native plants. My timing wasn’t perfect; I started planting in the heat of summer. I also installed the drip irrigation system myself, so that wasn’t perfect, either — but at least it was dry. And what I lacked in know-how, I made up for in sweat.
It felt jarring to kill the grass, especially when the city instructed me to cover the ground with thick black plastic until everything under it was not only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead.
My kids worried about the change, having spent a lot of happy afternoons sitting on the front lawn to watch the local dogs parade by. Where will we sit? they asked me. Where will we hunt four-leaf clovers? Can we still dig holes in the ground? What will happen to the roly-polies?
I reassured them with the promise of new pollinators and flowers. If we build it, they will come, I said. Butterflies! Hummingbirds! Bees! My daughter was then working on a personal campaign to save the world’s bees after encountering some brutal environmental facts at the school science fair, so she gave me her reluctant blessing.
The Latest Buzz
This spring I added hummingbird sage alongside some colorful yarrow and three varieties of salvia already in flower, and I’ve been watching in wonder as they do what plants do — grow and flower and nourish other living things. I feel like a new parent, charmed by every stage of their development, with a deep-down suspicion that my garden is the first and only one of its kind. I mean, hummers are nesting here!
This spring I added hummingbird sage alongside some colorful yarrow and three varieties of salvia already in flower, and I’ve been watching in wonder as they do what plants do — grow and flower and nourish other living things.
Just this morning on my way out with the dogs I heard the telltale buzz of tiny bird wings and saw an iridescent blur whiz by on my left. I marveled at the excitement it could still stir in me. I’m proud of my drought-tolerant plants for being so miraculously tolerant — even flourishing — and I’m extra proud of those little birds. (Their wings can beat 200 times per second!) But the more the garden grows, the less it feels like a thing I created. Stepping through it now is like walking into another world where I’m just a visiting witness, lucky to be there.
