After three years of drought here in California and the west, we are expecting a wetter winter from El Niño. I see a prediction for rain off and on all next week.

This is just what we've been waiting for. I have 28 pounds of native grass seed. A man is coming tomorrow to till the weedy areas between my orchard, vegetable beds, and ornamental beds and dig in compost and fertilizer. Then we let the rain do its bit, sprouting as many weed seeds as possible. After a month we kill off the weeds and plant the grass seed. Next we water for a few months -- this is where the rain comes in handy -- and in the end, a meadow of native fescues and others instead of what is there now, as follows: oxalis, tarweeds, pineapple weeds, mustard, shepherd's purse, sowthistle, cudweeds, filaree, bindweed, groundsel, speedwell, burclover, knotweed, thistles both milk and Canadian, purslane, scarlet pimpernel, malva and many exotic annual grasses, as well as patches of the dreaded bermuda grass. Yes, I have them all. I once went on the UC Davis list of common California weeds and I had almost all of them, skipping only those that require wet conditions.

There has never been a lawn here. It is a semi-wild area on a hillside. There simply isn't enough water here to do a lawn even if I wanted to, and I don't. I don't fool myself that all these weeds will go away, but I dearly hope that this effort will help me make them more manageable. I don't mind pulling weeds if grasses replace them, rather than bare dirt that washes down the hill, or at best, more weeds.

And I also hope that my roses and bulbs and flowers will look prettier surrounded by long clumping grasses than they do by weeds! More cottage-y and less neglected.

Rosefolly