We went up to White Salmon, Washington, this past weekend to see George, Jennifer and Fanny.
As usual, we were generously and lovingly cared for with three brilliant meals cooked by George. On Saturday we piled into the car and went on the Hood River/White Salmon garden tour. The gardens were lovely, the views were good:
but ONE garden knocked me out. It was the home of Jurgen and Susan Hess, he a landscape architect, she a writer. He has written and lectured extensively on native plants and sustainable gardens and he walks the walk. They bought this house in the 90’s and have transformed an ugly situation into something amazing:
He jack-hammered up some of the concrete to make part of the driveway look like stepping stones:
Grass, gone:
He estimates that lawns consume 50% of home water uses and over 70 million tons of pesticides nationwide. In 2000 lawnmowers used 580 million gallons of gas.
In the garden he has used only native plants because natives have already adapted to our weather patterns and “this adaptation means they tend to be disease and pest resistant, are hardy, and need no water after establishment.”
and the back garden is pretty nice too:
I was particularly fascinated by the “bioswales” which return rainwater to the plants. In our town code requires you to route downspouts into the sewers. Geeze.
In his excellent book “Landscaping with Natives” Hess urges us to seriously think about changing the things we can to help the planet, since there are so many things over which we have no control. Maybe it all DOES start in your own back (front) yard.
On The Way 
Great post! Here’s some more lawn mower facts that are pretty scary:
1. The EPA estimates that 5% of all air pollution in the US comes from lawn mowing.
2. A single lawn mower generates as much pollution as 43 new cars driven 12,000 each.
3. Americans annually spill 17 million gallons of gas refueling their lawn mowers. That’s more than the Exxon Valdez spill.
The Hess lesson is a terrific one. Hope his neighbors are copy-cats.