Meet our latest community champion, Nazima C. from Redwood City! Last Fall, Nazima took the initiative to transform her yard’s lawn into a thriving rain garden, home to beautiful drought-tolerant plants and magnificent pollinator friends. Now Nazima enjoys sipping her morning coffee, chatting with the neighbors, and soaking in the sun in her very own oasis amidst urban life.
“It’s very comforting,” Nazima said. “You open the front door, you have this beautiful garden in front of you, and it doesn’t matter that nonsense is going to hit your plate during the day; you just open the door and have 5 minutes sitting on the steps, watching nature do its work, and you think ‘ok, now I can start my work.’”
Nazima’s Yard Transformation Tale
In the Fall of 2021, Nazima had been receiving rather pricey water bills, yet was well aware of the current drought affecting all Californians. She decided it was time to switch up her home’s landscaping.
“Psychologically, people have this notion of grass: it’s in all the Hollywood films, it’s the white picket fence, it’s the lawn. It’s quite a mental leap to get rid of it, but the moment you do you never look back. It’s a huge improvement. Just make that jump. Make that leap!”
After looking around online, Nazima came across the Lawn Be Gone! Program that offers rebates to residents who replace their lawns with a drought-tolerant landscape, with an additional $300 rebate to include a rain garden. Rain gardens are a landscaping technique that involve drought tolerant plants and a shallow depression designed to naturally capture rainwater. These gardens help to reduce flooding, clean water, create natural habitats, and beautify the yard while saving you money!
Nazima then coordinated with a representative from the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency (BAWSCA), drew up the garden plans, scheduled a pre-inspection, got the plans approved, and received her rebate in a mere 2 weeks—all of which she found “seamless” and “very straightforward.”
While Nazima emphasized the ease of the rebate process, she noted that “the really compelling part was that the choice of plants was so huge… If you were going to rip up your grass and do something new, it wasn’t going to be cookie cutter to what everyone else had. You can really do a lot with the amount of space that you have.”
Digging Into Change
Equipped with experience in contracting work, Nazima’s husband got to work in removing their lawn and setting the foundation for their new garden. Meanwhile, Nazima used BAWSCA’s list of over 2500 approved plants to pick out their new plantings. With the wide variety of choices, she was able to choose plants that fit her preferences. “I wanted pollinators, so I was looking in the salvia range,” she said. From start to finish, the entire process only took them 1 week to complete.
Soaking up the Benefits
Less than a year after their landscaping switch up, Nazima is thrilled at the abundance of pollinators that now enjoy the garden alongside herself, her husband, her neighbors, and even passerby. The little slice of nature right in her front yard attracts butterflies, hummingbirds, and bees. “The salvias are all beautiful and they really do attract the hummingbirds, you walk out and there will be 5 and you think wow, how lucky am I to live here!”
Additionally, Nazima noted that all of her new plants have flourished with essentially zero maintenance. While her previous lawn required regular watering and care, the rain garden has been largely self-sufficient. Nazima even said she went away on vacation for three weeks, but upon her return, you would never be able to tell she was gone just from looking at the yard!
Insights from Nazima
The most important piece of advice Nazima would give to anyone considering implementing a rain garden is that “it’s not as hard as you think it is.” Aside from that, here are some additional insights from our water-wise champ:
- Picking out Plants: “You just have to be organized, and it’s really hard to hold on to this at that moment, but everything is going to grow and spread so you don’t need as much as you think you do.”
- Practicing Patience: “You have to be patient, but it only takes about 6 months for everything to really flourish.”
- More Admiring, Less Maintenance: “Once [the plants are] established they need minimal care, 99% of the time it’s just admiring.”
- Cost: “The [Lawn Be Gone and Rain Garden] rebates pay for the plants, and at the end of the day you won’t worry about how much you spent on it because it just brings you so much joy.”
So, if you’re looking to beautify the yard, attract more pollinators, spend less time maintaining, or simply save money on your water bill, why not consider digging into your very own lawn transformation project? Particularly in light of the current drought, you can stay ahead of the curve and make the swap from a grass lawn to a water-wise and beautiful landscape.
Get more information on the Lawn Be Gone! And Rain Garden Rebate Program here and even check out this past blog post to learn more about rain gardens.
