A ‘ROOM’ WITH A VIEW
Landscape makeover is like a colorful, waterwise extension of family’s Rancho San Diego home
Landscape makeover is like a colorful, waterwise extension of family’s Rancho San Diego home.
While Patricia Wood celebrates a top award in landscaping presented by her local water providers, there are probably more than a few disappointed gophers that are not singing her praises.
Wood and a team of landscapers spent 2018 and 2019 transforming her 3,850square-foot lawn, located along a cul-desac near Valhalla High School in Rancho San Diego, into drought-tolerant landscaping. The effort has successfully kept rodents away, even as the Ohio native garnered an impressive award from Otay Water District.
Wood was honored as “Best in District” by her local water agency in the 2020 Watersmart Landscape Contest. At its online board of directors meeting on Aug. 5, the Otay board said Wood’s landscape demonstrates well thought-out design, methods for efficient irrigation, and appropriate plant selection and maintenance.
Otay Water District is one of more than a dozen member agencies in the San Diego County Water Authority that participate in the annual contest. Each water agency identifies and recognizes a winner, a resident within its district who beautifies their landscape with water-saving designs.
Wood was given a certificate of recognition, a gift certificate to a local nursery of her choice, a winner’s yard sign and promotional items.
“I’d pay companies to get rid of the gophers, and as soon as the grass got green, they’d be back digging around,” recalled Wood, who has lived in the home since 1985. “And I was getting weeds, too, with gopher holes all over the place. It depressed me. I was also paying $300 on my water bills, and for what?”
Wood said that in summer 2018, she saw a flyer online announcing a workshop presented by the San Diego County Water Authority — a “do-it-yourself ” series called the Watersmart Landscape Makeover Program. As part of the Otay Water District, Wood was able to attend the four, three-hour classes in which local landscape design professionals share their skills and knowledge.
If I could sit out here every day, I would. It relaxes me, my stress goes away and, when I see the butterflies, it makes me smile.” Patricia Wood • homeowner
In taking the course, as well as a class at the Water Conservation Garden at Cuyamaca College, Wood said she was able to learn which low-water-use plants and design would work best for a new garden at her home.
In place of the high-maintenance grass, which was completely removed, Wood and Kyle Shelton and his crew from El Cajonbased Boulder Landscapes added 200 plants, a plumeria tree and a gold medallion tree, from Evergreen Nursery.
Based on a design envisioned by Wood, they built a stone-lined dry creek bed, placed a bench to sit on, installed solar lighting (which “looks like a runway at night,” Wood said), added a birdbath and carved out a meandering path made of decomposed granite throughout, so Wood’s 34-year-old daughter, Kimberly, who needs to be pushed in a wheelchair, could enjoy a stroll through the garden.
Wood is founder and president of the Neurodegeneration with Brain Iron Accumulation Disorders Association, a nonprofit dedicated to families affected by a group of rare, genetic neurological disorders. She said she had long dreamed of one day surprising her daughter, who has NBIA, with a beautiful, waterwise garden.
When the instructor in her class suggested the students think of a garden differently, Wood said, the motivation kicked in.
“When I first started taking the course, it was a little daunting, and I thought, ‘I don’t have the ability to do this,’ ” she said. “But in the second class, the instructor said, ‘Don’t think of it as a yard, think of it as another room.’ And I was thinking of Kimbi. She’s staying in our family room and bedroom. I thought it would be awesome to bring Kimbi outside, to another room.”
Wood said there are 22 kinds of waterwise plants joining the two trees on her grounds. Among the virtual rainbow of plants are foxtail agave, sea lavender, society garlic, blue chalksticks, lantana, Texas sundrop, paddle plants, butterfly bush, cape plumbago, agapanthus and a small bougainvillea bush.
A large stone announces “Kimbi’s Garden,” lettered by hand, with other artwork also drawn on it. The stone sits next to a butterfly statue, and both are near a table with a large umbrella over it to provide a place to be in the shade. In another part of the garden, two circular pavement stones read “HOPE” and “BELIEVE.”
The total cost for the makeover was $35,000, which Wood acknowledges is steep but noted that it was offset somewhat by an incentive of $7,325. She received the incentive as part of the Turf Replacement Program through the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. For irrigation, Wood replaced her overhead spray nozzles with a drip irrigation system that runs twice a week for seven to 12 minutes, depending on the weather. A weather-based irrigation sensor automatically shuts off the controller when it rains and turns it back on when it is dry.
Water officials say the changes have helped Wood decrease her estimated water use by nearly 30 percent, compared with the years before upgrading her landscape.
With COVID-19 keeping Wood and her daughter at home, the garden and all of its benefits have been well worth the price, she said.
“I could have done it for $15,000 less, but costs went up for wire mesh for keeping out gophers and wire baskets around each plant, for 5 inches of mulch,” Wood said. “I knew that if you really don’t want the grass to come back, you want to get rid of 6 inches of turf.”
She said getting to be out in a natural setting has been calming for both herself and Kimberly, and there is nothing that can top being out in nature just by opening her front door.
“It was worth it because our quality of life has increased so much,” Wood said. “I get the feeling when Kimbi comes out here, she sighs, she relaxes, she gets into the nature.
“I can feel that she’s like me, that nature is impacting her. And that makes me happy, just to have her out here and see that she has something else. I would say that her quality of life has improved by 50 percent. If I could sit out here every day, I would. It relaxes me, my stress goes away and, when I see the butterflies, it makes me smile.”