Reimagining the California Lawn: Water-Conserving Plants, Practices, and Designs

"Reimagining the California Lawn" features water-conserving plants from around the world and offers design ideas and practical solutions to help you create a vibrant garden that complements our mediterranean climate. From greenswards and meadows to succulent and kitchen gardens, this book presents alternatives to the traditional lawn that can reduce water use, beautify the landscape, and attract birds and butterflies. The authors of "Reimagining the California Lawn"—Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O’Brien—are visionary horticulturists who wrote the award-winning book "California Native Plants for the Garden". With this new publication, they share their passion for water-wise plants and landscapes to help Californians discover the many possibilities and pleasures that come with reimagining the lawn. If you are thinking about removing or reducing your lawn, this inspiring book is the perfect companion to help you begin the process. Its detailed text provides information about how to plan, install, and maintain an attractive landscape that can replace your lawn and describes hundreds of water-thrifty plants from California and other mediterranean climates of the world. "Reimagining the California Lawn" is illustrated with more than 300 color photographs and offers a variety of plant palettes to choose from as you begin the process of creating a more sustainable landscape.

Carol Bornstein is a horticulturist, instructor, and garden designer. For more than 30 years, she has been an advocate for sustainable, regionally appropriate landscaping. While Director of Horticulture at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, she managed the living collections, retail nursery, and plant introduction program and selected several new cultivars. She continues to seek out exceptional plants for California gardens and to share her knowledge of plants native to California and other mediterranean regions through her writing, teaching, and design work. David Fross is the founder and president of Native Sons Wholesale Nursery, a grower specializing in plants from mediterranean-climate regions of the world. He teaches horticulture at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and is the co-author of "Ceanothus." Bart O'Brien is the Director of Special Projects at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, an educational institution dedicated to research, conservation, and horticulture of California native plants. A fifth-generation Californian, he is an authority on the native flora of the state and of northern Baja California and is an accomplished collector, grower, lecturer, and author. He was named the Horticulturist of the Year in 2005 by the Southern California Horticultural Society and was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in Southern California by the Los Angeles Times in 2006.