Ron and Michelle Wallach’s Garden
Alamo
Gardening experience: 30 years
Years gardened at this location: 4 years
Size: 1/3 acre
Showcase feature: These Illinois natives left their prairie garden and bought this house when it had extensive front and back lawns, and beds of ivy, oleander, and roses. They promptly researched California natives, and removed the lawns and exotics. The attractive low-maintenance, low-water-use California native plant garden the gardeners designed and installed themselves contains a large water garden feature with two streams, waterfalls, and a pond.
Other garden attractions:
- Wood chip mulch keeps the weeds down.
- Ask these gardeners how they took the lawn out, and what they did with it afterward. (Hint, this involves the healthy lemon tree.)
- Check out the 'before' photos.
Gardening for Wildlife: A number of plants were included in this garden specifically to attract wildlife. These include milkweed for the monarch butterflies, and coyote mint, yarrow, penstemon, fuschia, flowering currant, and manzanita to attract a variety of beneficial insects and birds. The garden, which attracts butterflies, bees, lizards, and frogs, also contains bee boxes, bird houses, feeders and baths, a bat house, and branch pile.