aka four more reasons I love living here.
Click to embiggenate.
We don’t get the spectacular fall colors around here, but I thought this was an okay approximation.
This last one’s not particularly beautiful, but I’ve always been attracted to landscapes that look “layered,” as the various patches of vegetation in the foreground do. The yellow-brown band nearest the hill is cattail. Closer to camera is some type of heather or close relative of heather, and closer yet just some grasses, maybe some sedge. I don’t know what all the plants are. I just know I like looking at them as they change through the seasons. And enjoy the prospect of making art out of those layered landscapes
A way to add to your own fall colors, as well as layers, is to transplant a few well-placed ornamental grasses on the edge of your yard or shade-loving ones in the woods. They really come alive in the fall, and can act as boundaries (and bird-watching) during other seasons. Or maybe put them near or around your water feature.
Just a sample from Lowe’s. Don’t know what’s best for your area, but Sunset magazine could tell you, or even PacNW section from Seattle Times.
https://www.lowes.com/pl/Ornamental-grasses-Plants-bulbs-seeds-Plants-planters/4294392554
As it happens, Pat, I’m planning (eventually) to replace my lawn with native plants — though mostly things like ferns and salal that I can just go out in the woods and dig up. Where there aren’t native plants, there will be walkways, patios, ponds (I have two pond forms I pulled out of the yard of the flatlands house), raised-bed veggie gardens, rock gardens, and graveled open spaces.
It’ll be a years-long project, but totally worth it in the cause of getting rid of the stupid lawn (I don’t see the point of lawns). I’m planning to do it all on the cheap, but buying a few colorful grasses and water plants for in and around the ponds might be worthwhile. Pretty far off, though. Still more work on the house first!
I don’t have any use for lawns either. Sounds gorgeous, like a first-rate plan!
It may be a weird fixation for a desert person to have, but I love wooden boats. The sight of a wooden boat rotting on a shore always makes me sad.
Fortunately that’s a rather pleasant form of melancholy, because one time I happened upon what turned out to be a sort of dhow graveyard at low tide in the Persian Gulf. *Hundreds* of once-beautiful wooden boats of all sizes, in various degrees of decay…would have been suicidally depressed, if I really took the matter seriously.
That would have been worth the picture, though. If I’d had a camera at the time…
Dogs like lawns.
Then I’ll leave a 4 x 4 patch for Ava. But only if she promises to mow it herself. š
You’re right that she’ll need an area that’s her own. I’ll take that into consideration. I promise.
I sorta figured people did lawns because they liked to fertilize water and mow them. Else maybe risk spending time doing something that might get them in trouble. Then, dogs do like lawns and fire hydrants. So there is that.