Beachside OFG in Volusia, Florida

Description

Our front yard started as a mix between St. Augustine grass and random weeds. We built a wooden walkway, dug a dry creek bed, covered the grass with cardboard and mulch and planted several plants suited to the area (needed to tolerate salt, high winds, full sun). We hired someone to add gutters to our home to direct the downspout into the dry creek bed. We also installed 2 rain barrels and another dry creek bed in the back of the house that the remaining downspouts empty out onto.

Our landscaping plan was created by Jenny at Lindley's Nursery in New Smyrna beach for $50. The gutters were $1800. The plants, mulch, rock, wood for walkway, etc ran about $1000. Since we created our OFG, we have not needed to run our sprinklers at all and rely solely on rainwater (except for raised bed food gardens in back yard, which we use rain barrel water for).

Our next step is to make our driveway permeable, most likely by cutting the concrete.