Lifestyle
In a hot L.A. neighborhood full of brown lawns, his DIY native plant garden thrives
Water-hungry lawns are symbols of Los Angeles’ past. In this series, we spotlight yards with alternative, low-water landscaping built for the future.
The temperature was in the 90s in West Hills, but that didn’t deter an astonishing number of monarch butterflies, hummingbirds and bees from feeding on the California-friendly plants — sages, salvias and flowering milkweed — in Eric Augusztiny’s front yard.
Pollinators, however, aren’t the only ones who call the front yard home. “This is our buddy, Lizzy,” Augusztiny said with a smile as he and his wife, Lise Ransdell, greeted an enormous lizard who crawled out from under a large salvia ‘Desperado’ plant.
“It’s just a postage stamp suburban yard, but there’s a lot going on here,” Ransdell said of the yard’s abundant wildlife, which counts rabbits, skunks, raccoons and possums as visitors.
It wasn’t always like this. When Augusztiny purchased the home in 1996, the traditional yard looked like many others on his street with a Bermuda grass lawn, assorted shrubs and an apricot tree.
Milkweed, a favorite of monarch butterflies, left. Cleveland sage, Salvia clevelandii. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Foothill penstemon grows in Eric Augusztiny’s drought-tolerant front yard.
Yes, Augusztiny acknowledges, lawns have appeal, but not in his West Valley neighborhood where “concrete is the equivalent of a frying pan,” and sustaining thirsty turf in triple-digit heat is impossible. “Even if I wanted a lawn — and I don’t — you can’t keep one alive here,” he said, pointing to the brown lawns that border his tree-lined street.
“The garden goes dormant in the summer but doesn’t die. Drought-tolerant plants are survivors. The sugar bush, toyon, manzanita, coffee berry, ceanothus and hummingbird sage hold their vivid green color year-round. The California fuchsia blooms into the fall, and although the salvias’ spikes above the foliage die back after flowering, the structure and leaves remain vital.”
Besides mowing the lawn, Augusztiny was not much of a gardener before he purchased his home. “I knew how to reseed the lawn. Again and again,” he said with a laugh. So he decided to learn all he could about removing his lawn, building healthy soil and replacing it with a drought-tolerant alternative.
He started by attending a demonstration on lasagna mulching led by artist-in-residence and horticulturist Leigh Adams at the Los Angeles County Arboretum’s Crescent Farm. The class inspired Augusztiny, who then checked out books on California native plants from the Los Angeles Public Library and attended a hands-on workshop at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California Field Office.
When the couple remodeled their home in 2018, they decided it was a good time to remove the lawn. The LADWP’s lawn conversion program — which currently pays $5 per square foot to remove turf and replace it with low-water landscapes — was an incentive but not the primary driving force. “I wasn’t in it for the money,” Augusztiny said of the $2,000 rebate they received then, “but it helped cover the cost.”
Eric Augusztiny’s front yard in West Hills before he removed his lawn and replaced it with a drought-tolerant alternative.
(Eric Augusztiny)
Eric Augusztiny’s front lawn is smothered in cardboard during the sheet mulching process.
(Eric Augusztiny)
Suitably educated, Augusztiny decided to tear out his lawn and plant a low-water substitute himself. Just don’t call him a designer. “It was a process of figuring out a simple design, getting the drip system in and putting down the cardboard,” Augusztiny said of the process known as sheet mulching, where the cardboard is wetted down and covered with 3 inches of mulch.
When he smothered his lawn with cardboard, his neighbors often asked him what he was doing. “I told them I was getting rid of the Bermuda grass,” he recalled. “They all told me, ‘Good luck with that.’”
Taking classes offered Augusztiny some revelations as he planned his garden. He followed Adams’s suggestion to “paint with wildflowers” and scattered wildflower seeds on top of established plants. He planted hummingbird sage after he read that it grows well in the shade of oak trees. Concerned about the depletion of Western monarch butterflies due to habitat loss, he felt it was important to plant Narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis). “They have since shown up in droves,” he said.
On the parkway, a coast live oak, Catalina cherry and silk tree provide shade. Augusztiny collects water using a rain barrel and rain chains. He also installed drip irrigation.
Regarding plants, Augusztiny made treks to native plant nurseries all over Los Angeles, including the California Botanic Garden in Claremont, Theodore Payne Foundation in Sunland and Pierce College in Woodland Hills. “Now, I have to stop because I’m generating my plants from harvesting the seeds and taking cuttings,” he said. “You can generate and regenerate the garden.” He even picked up free animal waste from the Los Angeles Zoo (known as “zoo doo”) at the Griffith Park Composting Facility.
He admits he killed some native plants initially because he overwatered them in the summer. That ended when he took a three-month hands-on course in native garden maintenance with Antonio Sanchez of the Santa Monica Mountains Fund in 2022. “I learned that drought-tolerant plants strengthen during the rainy season to ride out the dry season,” he said. He stopped drowning plants in the summer because he thought they were thirsty.
A Matilija poppy grows in Eric Augusztiny’s drought-tolerant front yard.
After six years, Augusztiny thinks Adams’ “sleep, creep, leap” mantra has finally materialized. “She told us the plantings would sleep the first year, creep the second and then leap in the third,” he explained. “Ah, but with only 11.5 inches from 2020-2022, the garden wasn’t moving.”
Fast-forward two years. After two years of record rainfall in Los Angeles, the California native habitat has overwhelmed the front yard.
“I hate to steal a title from a Hollywood film,” said the actor, “but suddenly it was everything, everywhere all at once.”
Narrowleaf sunflower grows in the garden.
The garden is wild and colorful with a heavenly fragrance attributed to the exploding sages — Cleveland (Salvia clevelandii), hummingbird (Salvia spathacea) and white (Salvia apiana) — along with colorful wildflowers like the fire-resistant California fuchsia (Epilobium canum) and purple Foothill penstemon (Penstemon heterophyllus).
Although many of the larger drought-tolerant plants are planted away from the street, some, such as bigberry manzanita (Arctostaphylos glauca), are dwarfed by California buckeye (Aesculus californica), coffeeberry (Frangula californica) and sugar bush (Rhus ovata).
Rain chains capture rainwater from the roof.
Augusztiny’s front yard and parking strip are overflowing with drought-tolerant plants.
No longer a gardening novice, the Seattle native passionately advocates the “need to do our small part to help stem climate change.” He thinks creating a native habitat in his front yard and installing rain barrels and a permeable driveway in the face of record-breaking heat waves is a good place to start.
“I enjoy nature, and Los Angeles has it all,” he said. “I’m not a purist when it comes to plants. I like to refer to them as climate-appropriate. But the more blacktops we can eliminate and the less stormwater runoff there is, the better our water quality and lives will be.”
Now, when neighbors walk their kids to school, they don’t ask him what he’s doing in his front yard. “They compliment the garden,” said Augusztiny, who waters twice a month. “The garden is not just for me. It’s for everyone.”
Plants in this garden
Arabian lilac (Vitex trifolia)
Coffee berry (Frangula californica)
Sugar bush (Rhus ovata)
Cleveland sage (Salvia clevelandii)
Narrow leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis)
Black sage (Salvia mellafera)
White sage (Salvia apiana)
Purple sage (Salvia leucophylla)
Bigberry manzanita (Arctostaphylos glauca)
Palmer’s abutilon (Abutilon palmeri)
Desperado sage (Salvia desperado)
Penstemon heterophyllus ‘Margarita BOP’
California fuchsia (Epilobium canum)
Purple needle grass (Nassella pulchra)
Australian emu bush (Eremophila glabra)
Snow berry (Symphoricarpos mollis)
California buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum)
Hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea ‘Las Pilitas’)
Nuttall’s sunflower (Helianthus nuttallii)
Giant wildrye (Elymus condensatus)
Toyon ( Heteromeles arbutifolia )
Dudleya abramsii
Coulter’s Matilija poppy (Romneya coulteri)
Ceanothus griseus var. horizontalis ‘Yankee Point’
Fiesta Marigold monkeyflower (Mimulus ‘Fiesta Marigold)
Mimulus (Diplacus) ‘Fiesta Marigold’
Mara is a single mother of two in Minnesota. She and her family have depended on SNAP benefits to make ends meet.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
Although Mara is unemployed, she is busier than ever.
When she is not taking care of her two children, Mara is at her desk applying for jobs. She is surveying her belongings to see what she can pawn off to buy toiletries. Or she is sifting through bills, calculating which ones can wait and which need to be paid right away.
Soon, Mara, a single mom in Minnesota, may have another task on her busy schedule: figuring out how to afford food for her and her family.
That’s because of new work requirements for people receiving aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.
“It would be so beyond hard” to lose SNAP benefits, Mara said. “Without SNAP, there’s no funds for food.” Mara asked for her last name to be withheld given the stigma tied to receiving government assistance. She is also worried that speaking publicly will affect her chances of getting a job.
Previously, SNAP recipients with children under 18 were exempt from work requirements mandating that recipients work, volunteer or participate in job training at least 80 hours a month. But now, under President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that exemption only applies to those with children under 14 — which is how old Mara’s youngest child turned in December.
“It would be so beyond hard” to lose SNAP benefits, Mara said.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
The Trump administration has argued that the mission of the nation’s largest anti-hunger program has failed.
“SNAP was intended to be temporary help for those who encounter tough times. Now, it’s become so bloated that it is leaving fewer resources for those who truly need help,” the White House said in a statement in June.
But policy experts say the SNAP changes do not fully take into account the unique challenges faced by single parents like Mara or the sluggish job market in many parts of the country. They argue that losing food assistance will only create more barriers for recipients struggling to find work.
The timeline for implementing the new SNAP policy varies based on state and county. In Mara’s home state of Minnesota, recipients who don’t qualify for an exemption or meet work requirements will be at risk of losing assistance as early as April 1. Others may have more months depending on when they next need to certify they are eligible for benefits.
Over 100 job applications
Mara imagined she would have a job by now.
It was August when she was let go from her part-time administrative assistant role due to her workplace restructuring. Since then, Mara estimates that she has applied for over 100 positions. She has also attended job fairs and taken free workshops on resume writing.
She has been working since high school, she said, but “ I’ve never been out of work for more than one month, so it’s very difficult.”
Mara spends time working at the computer at CareerForce, a resource for job seekers in Minnesota, on March 4.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
Although she misses her old job, Mara said it didn’t pay enough to support her and her kids, so she relied on SNAP benefits.
Many recipients are part of the low-wage labor market, where job security is often unpredictable and turnover tends to be high, according to Lauren Bauer, a researcher at the Brookings Institution who has studied SNAP extensively.
“SNAP is supposed to be there to help people smooth that and not let the bottom fall out when they experience job loss,” she said. “And this policy doesn’t account for that at all.”
Mara’s lowest point came in November when the government shutdown led to disruptions in SNAP benefits. Not only was she searching for a new job, but she was constantly figuring out where to get her family’s next meal.
“I might be looking for food stuff during the day when I should have been looking for a job,” she said. “Then, I’m trying to make up that time in the evening after my kids go to bed.”
During the pause, Mara turned to food banks, which revealed other challenges. First, food pantries do not always provide enough for an adult and two growing teenagers, she said. Second, they often lack gluten-free foods, which is essential for her daughter who has celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes digestive problems if gluten is consumed. Gluten-free products tend to be more expensive.
If Mara loses access to SNAP again because of the new work requirements, she fears another stretch of long days spent looking for the right food and enough to feed her family.
“I would be so reliant on looking for food shelves or food banks,” she said. “There would not be time to even live.”
“We’re going to see increases in poverty. We’re going to see increases in food insecurity”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that roughly 2.4 million people will lose food benefits in a typical month over the next decade as a result of the new SNAP requirements — including 300,000 parents like Mara with children 14 or older.
Gina Plata-Nino, the SNAP director at the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center, says many of the affected recipients will be single mothers who make up a majority of single parent households in the U.S. She added that the changes target a group that often lacks or struggles to afford a support system to help care for their children.
“How can they have a full-time job when they need to pick up their children [for] various activities?” she said. “And they are working — just not enough hours because they need to be there present for their children.”
Mara shops for groceries at a local discount grocery store.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
The new law also imposes work requirements on veterans, homeless people, young adults aging out of foster care, and able-bodied adults without dependents from ages 55 to 64.
It also toughened the criteria for waiving work requirements for recipients in areas with high unemployment. Previously, there were multiple ways to determine a weak labor market and secure a waiver. Now, it only applies to places with an unemployment rate above 10%. (Alaska and Hawaii have a different measure.)
For those who fail to meet the work requirement, SNAP provides assistance for up to three months within a three-year span. But Bauer from the Brookings Institution argues that it is not enough and the impact of SNAP changes will be widespread.
“We’re going to see increases in poverty. We’re going to see increases in food insecurity. We’re going to see increasing strain on the charitable food sector,” she said.
Mara holds her favorite anchor ring, which carries the inscription, “God for me provide thee.”
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
As anxiety hangs over her head, Mara tries to put on a brave face for her children. She does not want them to worry, explaining that her recent struggles have reminded her how tough life can get as an adult.
“I remind them it’s not their responsibility and they’re not accountable for me or for what’s happening,” she said. “I say, just know you get to be a kid.”
Dylan Dreyer
Savannah Will Likely Come Back … Just Not Sure When
Published
TMZ.com
Dylan Dreyer is giving a small update on her embattled “Today” co-host, Savannah Guthrie, as the search continues for Savannah’s mom, Nancy — telling TMZ she does believe she’ll likely return to the show at some point.
We caught Dylan leaving NBC Tuesday afternoon, and she said while she thinks Savannah will come back, the timing is totally unclear — adding everyone at the show is simply giving her the space she needs because they care about her so much.
TMZ.com
Dylan also reflected on Savannah’s emotional visit to the “TODAY” studio last Thursday, saying the hug they shared was something they both really needed in that moment.
Catch the full clip — Dylan says the visit was incredibly emotional, adding Savannah clearly wants to get back to some sense of normal life … she just doesn’t quite know how yet.
Still, Savannah managed a few smiles during the brief stop by the studio, doing her best to keep moving forward during an incredibly tough time.
TMZ.com
As we reported, Nancy was taken from her Tucson home in the middle of the night on February 1. She was last seen entering the house just before 10 PM on January 31 after dinner with her daughter Annie and Annie’s husband, Tommaso Cioni.
Kevin Kline plays actor Richard Bean, and Laura Linney is his sister-in-law Kristen, in American Classic.
David Giesbrecht/MGM+
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David Giesbrecht/MGM+
American Classic is a hidden gem, in more ways than one. It’s hidden because it’s on MGM+, a stand-alone streaming service that, let’s face it, most people don’t have. But MGM+ is available without subscription for a seven-day free trial, on its website or through Prime Video and Roku. And you should find and watch American Classic, because it’s an absolutely charming and wonderful TV jewel.
Charming, in the way it brings small towns and ordinary people to life, as in Northern Exposure. Wonderful, in the way it reflects the joys of local theater productions, as in Slings & Arrows, and the American Playhouse production of Kurt Vonnegut’s Who Am I This Time?
The creators of American Classic are Michael Hoffman and Bob Martin. Martin co-wrote and co-created Slings & Arrows, so that comparison comes easily. And back in the early 1980s, Who Am I This Time? was about people who transformed onstage from ordinary citizens into extraordinary performers. It’s a conceit that works only if you have brilliant actors to bring it to life convincingly. That American Playhouse production had two young actors — Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon — so yes, it worked. And American Classic, with its mix of veteran and young actors, does, too.
American Classic begins with Kevin Kline, as Shakespearean actor Richard Bean, confronting a New York Times drama critic about his negative opening-night review of Richard’s King Lear. The next day, Richard’s agent, played by Tony Shalhoub, calls Richard in to tell him his tantrum was captured by cellphone and went viral, and that he has to lay low for a while.
Richard returns home to the small town of Millersburg, Pa., where his parents ran a local theater. Almost everyone we meet is a treasure. His father, who has bouts of dementia, is played by Len Cariou, who starred on Broadway in Sweeney Todd. Richard’s brother, Jon, is played by Jon Tenney of The Closer, and his wife, Kristen, is played by the great Laura Linney, from Ozark and John Adams.
Things get even more complicated because the old theater is now a dinner theater, filling its schedule with performances by touring regional companies. Its survival is at risk, so Richard decides to save the theater by mounting a new production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, casting the local small-town residents to play … local small-town residents.
Miranda, Richard’s college-bound niece, continues the family theatrical tradition — and Nell Verlaque, the young actress who plays her, has a breakout role here. She’s terrific — funny, touching, totally natural. And when she takes the stage as Emily in Our Town, she’s heart-wrenching. Playwright Wilder is served magnificently here — and so is William Shakespeare, whose works and words Kline tackles in more than one inspirational scene in this series.
I don’t want to reveal too much about the conflicts, and surprises, in American Classic, but please trust me: The more episodes you watch, the better it gets. The characters evolve, and go in unexpected directions and pairings. Kline’s Richard starts out thinking about only himself, but ends up just the opposite. And if, as Shakespeare wrote, the play’s the thing, the thing here is, the plays we see, and the soliloquies we hear, are spellbinding.
And there’s plenty of fun to be had outside the classics in American Classic. The table reads are the most delightful since the ones in Only Murders in the Building. The dinner-table arguments are the most explosive since the ones in The Bear. Some scenes are take-your-breath-away dramatic. Others are infectiously silly, as when Richard works with a cast member forced upon him by the angel of this new Our Town production.
Take the effort to find, and watch, American Classic. It’ll remind you why, when it’s this good, it’s easy to love the theater. And television.
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