Imlay Ave., Culver City

Description

In fall 2007, my husband and I decided to re-landscape our backyard. At that point, I knew nothing about gardening and so hired a landscaper, Joel Lichtenwalter of Grow Outdoor Design, to design a drought-tolerant garden featuring California native plants. We got most of the plants at Theodore Payne. Salvador Martinez's crew did all the hard-scaping, including pulling up the lawn, installing plant-specific irrigation and planting the plants. We loved the backyard so much that we did the same in the front the following year. In fall 2010, we converted our garage into a rumpus room and so had the back driveway removed and replaced with more California native plants. Again, Joel did the design and Salvador's crew the hard-scaping. All three gardens have flourished. As you can see in the attached photos, the pathways in all three gardens are pea gravel and/or recycled concrete. This is the third year we've been invited to be part of Theodore Payne's native California plants garden tour.