It’s their very own super bloom
California’s super bloom hasn’t materialized the way it did last spring, but that hasn’t stopped Woodland Hills homeowners Ron Gales and Andrea Fields from enjoying a spectacular wildflower bloom of their own.
Walking up to the house in springtime, it’s hard to believe the landscape was “an ugly lawn filled with weeds” when they purchased the home in 2009.
When the drought hit, the couple wanted to save water but was overwhelmed by the prospect of removing more than 6,000 square feet of turf. When the Metropolitan Water District began offering turf removal rebates in 2015, the couple felt empowered to remove both lawns and start over.
They turned to landscape designer Marilee Kuhlmann of the Santa Monica-based Urban Water Group, who had transformed their neighbor’s yard with low-water, low-maintenance plants.
To create the meadow-like gardens, Kuhlmann first removed the lawns, which the couple had stopped watering. She then transformed the blank canvas with permeable pathways made from broken concrete to allow visitors to experience the garden firsthand — woolly grevillea, sun-loving purple celosia intenz, flowering desert willow and rock roses, prickly yucca and fragrant calamint and Russian sage, among others. With water conservation in mind, she also installed a drip irrigation system, added mulch to retain moisture and swales and rain barrels to collect rainwater.
Three years ago, Fields planted wildflowers, including California poppy, lupine and clarkia, in the gardens. Since, the gardens have been inhabited with brightly colored wildflowers year-round.
“We wanted color,” Fields says of the makeover. “We wanted it to look natural. We like the wild look.”
And while Fields admits that wildflower cleanup can be laborintensive, she isn’t complaining.
“The backyard looks so amazing from our kitchen,” she says of the project, which cost $15,000 after a turf removal rebate of $15,000. “It’s just spectacular. We sit and have dinner and look out over the backyard, and it makes us feel like we are living in a beautiful forest.”