HOME & LIVING
TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2022
THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD — B3
Losing the lawn, gaining a garden and peace of mind
By LISA BOONE
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — Even here,
in the scorching summer heat
of Altadena, California, Seriina
Covarrubias’ front yard feels cool
and inviting under the dappled
shade of a magnifi cent elm tree.
“I thought it was going to take
longer for a natural habitat to
materialize,” Covarrubias says of
her two-year-old garden, which is
fi lled with fragrant coastal scrub.
“The birds feel so comfort-
able here they made a nest on the
ground,” she adds, reaching down
to reveal a black phoebe’s nest
beneath a foothill sedge (Carex
tumulicola).
More than thirsty birds have
fl ocked to her garden since she
tore out her lawn and replaced
it with mostly drought-tol-
erant plants native to Southern
California. Other wildlife has
returned, including lizards, lady-
bugs, praying mantises, bees and
caterpillars.
So have her neighbors. While
any visitor can appreciate the
thriving ecosystem from the side-
walk, many visitors often take it a
step further. As Covarrubias’ hus-
band, Kevin Rowles, a fi lm editor,
put it: “When people walk or drive
by, they stop and take pictures of
our yard.”
The couple, who are both 40,
had long wanted to have a garden
instead of a lawn. A death ben-
efi t following the loss of Covarru-
bias’ father, Robert, in June 2020,
assisted by a turf removal rebate
from the state, provided the couple
with enough money to remove the
thirsty Bermuda grass and start
anew. (The couple estimate they
paid around $10,000 for the trans-
formation, including turf removal,
design, irrigation and plants, and
received $3,000 from the state
for removing 1,500 square feet of
grass).
Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times-TNS
Portrait of Seriina Covarrubias at her home in Altadena on Monday, June 27, 2022
in Altadena, California. Covarrubias replaced her once green lawn with California
natives, a stone pond water catchment area and an array of drought tolerant plants.
Two years before the Metro-
politan Water District of Southern
California declared a water
shortage emergency and ordered
outdoor watering limited to two
days a week, the couple knew
they wanted to install plants that
could endure the heat with little
watering. However, there were
other motivating factors: The front
lawn was “an eyesore,” which
meant they never used the yard.
“It didn’t serve a purpose,”
says Covarrubias, who is a project
manager for an internet devel-
opment company. “We wanted
something that we would use and
enjoy.”
For Covarrubias, who suf-
fers from mast cell activation
syndrome (MCAS), an autoim-
mune disorder that causes her to
have severe allergic reactions to
things like dirt, the dusty make-
over would need to be expeditious
to help alleviate her allergies. So
the couple hired Asarel Garcia to
remove their lawn and landscape
designer Julie Deamer at Yard
Queen to help with the garden
design and plant choices.
Going in, Covarrubias knew
she wanted a permeable riverbed,
a Japanese-style Zen rock garden
and a variety of plants for senti-
mental reasons — a selection of
roses to honor her father, heat-tol-
erant wisteria that would hang
from a canopy and greet visi-
tors as they entered the garden,
and white sage in honor of Sage,
the couple’s Australian shepherd.
Many plants, which she never con-
sidered, were a welcome surprise:
‘Mystic Spires Blue’ salvia, purple
fairy fan fl ower, Scaevola albida
‘Mauve Clusters’ and the native
shrub toyon, or California holly.
Working with Garcia, the
couple removed the boxwood
hedges that faced the street and
installed new planters, which
Covarrubias fi lled with sun-loving
California buckwheat (Eriogonum
fasciculatum). New concrete path-
ways were laid to allow access to
the front door and driveway, so the
couple and their roommate, Mike
Jimenez, can reach their cars.
Working with Deamer’s orig-
inal layout, the couple enjoyed
adding more plants as the seasons
changed, being careful to install
the less drought-resistant varieties
safely under the canopy of the elm
tree. In spring, the garden’s cean-
othus, salvia and California hon-
eysuckle add vibrant color to the
garden’s silvery color palette.
To receive the turf removal
rebate, the sprinkler system was
exchanged for a drip irrigation
system, and a 650-gallon rain
barrel, which runs to the perme-
able riverbed for groundwater cap-
ture, was added to the front of the
house.
The couple says they now
water the plants in the front yard
twice a week, and the irrigation
system has helped to bring the
elm tree back to life. “The elm
tree is so happy now,” Covar-
rubias says. “It was sick and
plagued by beetles. An arborist
told us the water from the sprin-
klers was making the tree sick. I
let it overgrow to the point where
it dips down, and it feels like a
treehouse inside the house.”
Covarrubias says working in
the garden became a way for her
to process the loss of her father,
her “best friend,” who had been
living with the couple before his
death.
“It gave me something to take
care of that wasn’t myself so I
could focus on that when I was too
far into grief to want to take care
of myself,” she says.
Her father had always wanted
her to put money into the house.
Now, she honors his memory
through planting the sweet-scented
roses he cherished.
As someone who is chronically
ill, Covarrubias often doesn’t have
the energy to work in the garden,
but that doesn’t stop her from
experiencing the thriving eco-
system from inside the house.
“On the days I couldn’t go
outside because my disease had
fl ared up too much, I would look
out of the window and pay atten-
tion to how much the birds and the
insects were enjoying the garden,”
she says. “Its ever-changing land-
scape brought me peace because
it meant that nothing stayed the
same, not even this miserable
illness.”
After a rough few years, Covar-
rubias is still pulling out blades of
Bermuda grass among the cean-
othuses and sages, but she doesn’t
mind. Looking back, she appreci-
ates what the garden has done for
her and her mental health.
“When things would get hard,
I would go outside and sit in the
garden and just be there with the
plants and the birds,” she says.
“There was always something
new to see or something that had
grown from the previous day.
Plants die and live. It’s a nev-
er-ending cycle of time that helped
me to see my life and the life of
my father from the perspective of
not a linear beginning or end but
an eternal loop.”
The garden has inspired
Covarrubias to look beyond
their property, and she hopes to
add more native plants to their
neighborhood.
“The amount of joy I’ve gotten
from my garden has inspired
me to do more,” she says. “Just
walking down the street in my
neighborhood, I realize there is so
much neglected area in terms of
green space. There are so many
spaces that aren’t being utilized
because of public easements.”
Clearly, Covarrubias’ garden
has become much more than a col-
lection of plants.
As for her health, she added:
“We’re always taught that our
bodies are the same, but good
health is so fl eeting and not the
measure of our worth,” she says.
“My garden is worth more than
one fl ower or season of blooms.
Its daily existence is what gives
it value. The birds and butterfl ies
knew that before I did.”
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