Water-hungry lawns are symbols of Los Angeles’ past. In this series, we spotlight yards with alternative, low-water landscaping built for the future.

Julia Lee had no need for a new garden when she and her husband purchased their Cheviot Hills home eight years ago. The traditional 1950 home came with mature tropical plants in the back and a sprawling grass hillside lawn in front, and it suited them just fine. But as drought and wildfires dragged on in California in recent years, she started to question whether keeping the thirsty lawn made sense.

“Our water bill was insane,” she says as she offers a tour of the former lawn, which is now filled with colorful native plants and drought-tolerant plants. “It was a waste of space. Our kids were getting older and didn’t play on the lawn. There was just no reason to keep a big green lawn.”

After reading a Times story about Georg Kochi, a retiree who swapped his Koreatown lawn with plants suited for California, Lee was inspired by Kochi’s wild, wabi-sabi-style garden, which embraces the art of imperfect beauty.

“I’m into chaos,” Lee says, bending down to smell the minty fragrance of a native Woolly bluecurls (Trichostema lanatum) shrub. “It’s an accurate reflection of my personality.”

So in 2022, Lee decided to replace her lawn with a drought-tolerant landscape, using the LADWP Free Landscape Design Program, now called the Landscape Efficiency Assistance Program, for help. She also applied for the Metropolitan Water District’s turf replacement rebate, which was $3 per square foot at the time (now $5), and got $5,310 back when the garden was finished.

She wanted to learn more about native plants, so she took a garden design class at the Theodore Payne Foundation for Native Plants in Sun Valley. But the class felt overwhelming. “I love Theodore Payne,” she says, “but I hate measurements and trying to figure out hardscape. I’m not a math person. The instructor wanted us to use a compass and draw a scale drawing of the whole lawn, and I thought, ‘I can’t do this.’”

Feeling paralyzed, she thought about hiring someone to help her, even though she didn’t want to spend the money on a landscape designer. But when Lee shared her frustrations with her graduate school adviser, noted author and avid gardener Jamaica Kincaid, she got the encouragement she needed. “She told me to do it myself,” Lee says, “as she designed her own gardens herself, and they are idiosyncratic just like she is.”

With encouragement from Kincaid, Lee, 49, began by planting small sages that would grow quickly and help prevent erosion, since water, mulch and rain often ran down the hillside to the sidewalk. She also spread Theodore Payne’s Rainbow Mix wildflower seeds throughout the landscape, including California poppies, Arroyo lupine, Desert Bluebells and Clarkia. In the spring, the yard was full of colorful wildflowers, but for the rest of the year, it stayed dormant. “People loved it because it was like a wildflower meadow in the middle of the city,” she says.

Walking through Lee’s garden, as birds, bees and butterflies zoom around the yard’s bright flowers, it’s obvious she loves color. With help from her friend Ben Liou, who replaced his lawn with native plants, Lee filled the space with a lively mix of sages and flowering perennials, including yellow Bladderpod, pink Palmer’s Penstemon, blue California lilac and poppies. Also, in the mix, there are California poppies, Channel Islands Tree poppies and tall Matilija poppies that look like fried eggs.

An endangered Western monarch caterpillar nibbles on some California native milkweed.

A “Think Global, Plant Local” sign rests next to a handwritten plant identification tag.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

She was surprised to find that working in her garden helped her connect with her neighbors in unexpected ways.

“I was worried the neighbors would complain,” she says. “But I’ve met so many people because I’m out here every day. Other gardeners are curious and often ask me, ‘What’s that interesting yellow plant? Oh, Palmer’s Indian Mallow?’ I even know all the dogs’ names now.”

When she and her gardener sheet-mulched the front yard with cardboard Amazon boxes she had collected from her neighbors in October, one neighbor joked that it looked ready for Halloween. “She told me it looks like a graveyard,” Lee says, laughing.

An aerial view of Lee’s garden.

Not all the plants survived, partly because half the garden is shaded by a large magnolia tree on the parking strip. Lee estimates she lost about 70% of her plants in the first year because she didn’t water enough. “The very first year you’re supposed to water regularly, and I did not hand-water enough, so everything basically died. The water bill went down dramatically, though.”

Three years later, after losing so many plants, she decided to add an irrigation system. Liou and her gardener helped Lee install it and build a bioswale to catch rainwater, using stones from Valley Builders Supply and some larger rocks from Bourget Bros. “We installed it in one day,” she says. “It was my birthday present to myself.”

Lee installed the bioswale in just one day with help from a friend and her gardener.

At first, she was nervous about adding something so different from the other traditional lawns on her street. “There weren’t any other houses that had anything like that,” she says. “But now I like it because it breaks up the front lawn into separate planting sections.” She can also walk down the bioswale to work in the garden. “I find garden maintenance so relaxing,” she adds. “It’s meditative.”

Lee says plants help her connect with people. One neighbor who knew the home’s previous owner gave her succulents. Another brought her some aromatic California sagebrush, also called Cowboy Cologne. “I really like the fact that I can point to certain things and remember who gave them to me,” she says. “That’s really nice.”

She hopes the golden yarrow will spread, and she’s especially proud of the large white sage she grew from seeds that a friend gave her. “It’s so happy over there,” she says, clearly excited by its growth. “Look at how big it is. I am so proud of it.”

Venice beekeeper Ian Kimbrey from Cheep Cheep Homes put up a bluebird box made from recycled materials on Lee’s magnolia tree. There haven’t been any bluebirds yet, but Lee is excited to see hatchlings in the future.

Not all the plants in the unamended soil are California natives or even drought-tolerant. Lee kept some plants that have been growing in the yard for decades, like the jasmine climbing around the front of the house as well as the white roses. “I really don’t like lantana,” she says, “but I hate killing things.”

Someday she hopes to set up a free seed library, and she’s excited to see bluebird hatchlings in the bluebird house that Venice beekeeper Ian Kimbrey installed in her tree. “I just need to be patient,” Lee says about the bluebird box, which is still empty. “I’ve entered that phase of my life where I just love to see so many birds and bees and other animals in my garden. It’s good for my mental health.” She also wants to add a water feature where birds and butterflies can bathe and sip, and she plans to plant more berries to attract more pollinators.

Lee, who grew up in L.A. and teaches English at Loyola Marymount University, says her unkempt garden reminds her of Los Angeles in some ways. “Everybody just wants to look young and perfect all the time, and that’s not healthy,” she says. “My garden is beautiful in the spring; then it goes dormant in the summer. And that’s OK.”

She hopes her story will encourage others who who can’t afford a landscape designer or simply feel overwhelmed by the idea of replacing their lawn. “I think sometimes it’s helpful just having somebody who’s there to hold your hand,” she says of her friend Liou. “For me, that was critical. I don’t think I would have ever made any progress without him.”

The project was ultimately about more than just saving water. It gave Lee a chance to connect with her community while experimenting in what she calls a “test garden.” She calls her garden a work in progress, and although she has suffered failures along the way, she values the friendships she has made outside her front door. “My garden doesn’t look designed because it isn’t. I’ve learned it’s OK if things aren’t perfect.”

Actually, she says, an imperfect,-always-evolving garden is “a good lesson for life.”

Lee looks for bees inside the Matilija poppies in her garden.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

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Plants used in this garden

California native shrubs/flowers

Coulter’s Matilija poppy (Romneya coulteri)
Pigeon Point Coyote Brush (Baccharis pilularis “Pigeon Point”)
Twin Peaks No. 2 Dwarf Coyote Bush (Baccharis pilularis “Twin Peaks No. 2”)
Lilac Verbena “De La Mina” (Verbena lilacina “De La Mina”)
Armstrong California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum “Armstrong”)
Marin Pink California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum “Marin Pink”)
“Bert’s Bluff’ California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum)
Catalina California Fuchsia (Epilobium “Catalina”)
Hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea)
California Sagebrush (Artemesia Californica)
California Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum)
Red Buckwheat (Eriogonum grande var. rubescens)
“Warriner Lytle” Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum “Warriner Lytle”)
Ashyleaf Buckwheat (Eriogonum cinereum)

Lee grew the white sage from seed.

Sea Cliff Buckwheat (Eriogonum parvifolium)
Ceanothus “Julia Phelps”
Yankee Point Carmel Ceanothus (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus var. griseus “Yankee Point”)
Coyote Mint (Monardella villosa)
Woolly Blue Curls (Trichostema lanatum)
Golden Currant (Ribes aureum var. gracillimum)
Bush Monkeyflower (Diplacus longiflorus)
Jelly Bean Red (and Pink, and Orange, and Fiesta Marigold) Monkeyflower (Diplacus “Jelly Bean Red,” etc.)
Canyon Prince Giant Rye (Elymus condensatus “Canyon Prince”)
Island Alumroot (Heuchera maxima)
Santa Ana Cardinal Alumroot (Heuchera “Santa Ana Cardinal”)
California bee plant (Scrophularia californica)
California Huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum)
Common Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus var. laevigatus)
Fragrant Pitcher Sage (Lepechinia fragrans)
“Whirly Blue” Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Whirly Blue”)
“Celestial Blue” Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Celestial Blue”)
Winnifred Gilman Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Winnifred Gilman”)
Allen Chickering Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Allen Chickering”)
“Bee’s Bliss” sage (Salvia “Bee’s Bliss”)
“Mrs. Beard” creeping sage (Salvia sonomensis “Mrs. Beard”)
Russian sage (Salvia yangii)
Santa Barbara Mexican Bush sage (Salvia leucantha “Santa Barbara”)
Deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens)
California bush sunflower (Encelia californica)
Margarita BOP penstemon (Penstemon heterophyllus “Margarita BOP”)
Palmer’s Indian Mallow (Abutilon palmeri)
Island Mallow (Malva assurgentiflora)
White sage (salvia apiana)
Black sage (saliva mellifera)
Butterfly bush (Buddleja)
California Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Oregano (Origanum vulgare)
French lavender (Lavandula dentata)
Bush Anemone (Carpenteria californica)
Channel Islands tree poppy (Dendromecon hartfordii)
Manzanita
Blue Grama (Bouteloua gracilis)
Showy Island snapdragon (Gambelia speciosa)
Bladderpod (Cleomella arborea)

Wildflowers (Native and non-native)

California poppies (Eschscholzia californica)
Blue Globe gilia (gilia capitata)
Elegant Clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata)
“Farewell to Spring” Clarkia (Clarkia amoena)
Cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus)
Theodore Payne’s Rainbow Mix wildflower seeds
“Indian Summer” Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta, “Indian Summer”)
Cosmos (cosmos bipinnatus)
Various breadseed poppies (papiva somniferum)