That's exactly what I plan to do with our place. It makes things beautiful, the flutter bys, the bees & the birds all get something they love & need and we humans don't have to pollute the air with foul emissions or noise. We can sit back & listen to the sounds of the birds singing & the bees buzzing.

I do not understand this obsession with sod. It isn't natural; that's why we have to work so hard & spend so much time & energy to keep it looking nice.

Lovely article Tee. I love your start on your suburban prairie!

I had forgotten all about white star grass. I pulled some out of the creek for my pond years ago. Don't know when it disappeared, but I'm going to go find some more this weekend. I had no idea it would grow on land. I'll be looking forward to your garden transformation. Good history lesson/article!

Thanks, Ann and Sandi, I'm lovin' this project so we'll see how it goes. It's just so much easier to work with Mother Nature than against her.

Lucky you that you could find some white star in the wild, Sandi. I love the look of that white star grass and am anxious to plant it. I was going to say, "as soon as the weather warms up". But it's 60º today! I've got a year-round damp/wet area by the back fence since there is a seasonal stream behind it ... it will go there along with some rushes and a few other things. Any other suggestions for occasionally very wet areas? Not boggy, just a flow-through for a lot of water occasionally, especially during the Spring.

Ann, will you be starting from scratch, so to speak, or will you clear land?

Sod, ack. It was the norm in CA ... not the cheapest thing but still the norm ... followed closely behind by the notorious sod webworm happily munching out on all that $$ people had just put in.

Tee, follow the link & you can see what I did on our small lot in town & then at the end you can see what I will be working with in our new location.

http://garden.org/articles/vie...

Thanks. I remember the tour (very nice) but I didn't remember the end of it.

Lovely article Tee! You are so right about the Cali suburbs and the very manicured and limited plants at times...especially in new developments, a specified list of plants allowed, needs permission and so forth and so on, otherwise issues with the HOA. I guess the rationale behind is that some people do not have the time to put in maintaining the yard, which a sod would still require anyways..all the more for other plants. And the on and off drought conditions, plus I think they are also trying to encourage less fire prone vegetation around the homes, especially those along the hillsides.

Ah but I love your article! A wondeful insight how plants adds color to our homes and our lives

I agree with you, tarev. In most instances the HOAs are just trying to keep things looking "nice" (from their point of view) and hold up the property values. The uniformity gets a bit overwhelming at times though, IMHO.

We were up on top of our second story wood shake roof once in San Diego with hose in hand as Santa Ana wind-driven fire came over the hill in front of us. Yes, it's scary. Of course, now it's against the building codes there to use wood shakes on roofs or anywhere else. The rest of the house was stucco, but we did have big Eucalyptus trees right alongside our property. And you know how those can literally explode with fire. The winds turned at the last minute and the nearest home that burned was just over the ridge of the hill, down the canyon a little way. Fires are definitely scary. You just never know for sure which way they will go.

Thanks for commenting.

So true Tee! Too cookie cutter in HOA communities

I missed seeing actual prairie land, we lived for awhile in Winnipeg, and outside the city perimeter it was so lovely to drive and see huge swaths of praireland especially when the short spring and summer comes about...feels like magic to me, after the 6-month white stuff, and all those dancing prairie fields comes to life!

Oh My! That would be a very scary situation Tee!

'Twas indeed, Ann. The police helicopter was overhead telling everyone to evacuate. DH said nope he wasn't going. So up on the shake roof we went with the hose. Good thing there was still water to wet it down. But in the end, all was well. Not for everyone nearby though.

I remember my friend in San Diego saying during the last time they had a series of big fire over there, that a reverse 911 call was being made to homeowners in grave danger of fire. And the last time, all their different family members & pets converged to their home, since theirs is the one nearer to the coast line and all the rest were from the inland side where the fire was raging. All that they can do before the family members left their homes was to make a digital inventory of their homes & contents for insurance purposes later if needed..the other family did not even have time to do it, just have to hie off and leave at dawn when the patio tarps suddenly got engulfed by ambers brought about by the winds.

San Diego is a very nice place, but at times it feels a bit deceiving especially when the threat of wildfire does exist. I like the area, especially to grow lots of tropicals, succulents, orchids...ah plant heaven..just douse that lurking inferno. What annoys me most, later finding out some of those fires should not have happened in the first place, especially if caused by indiscriminate and neglectful people.

Oops..got a bit off track your prairieland project..plants in all forms still gets high marks for me

Scary, those wildfires! So many people have lost their homes in Texas recently. I heard lately that there is concern about an endangered kind of toad that used to be common near Bastrop, TX and they won't know if that species is going to recover after the fires until later this year. I can't really have a true prairie here because I'm in a hilly area and the so-called 'soil' here is different, but many kinds of prairie-type plants can grow here...grasses and forbs, especially.

I love the grasses (and forbs too). To me, some of the grasses are what just scream prairie.