From lawn to CPR

I’ve been in my home for 9 months now. I had almost revived my lawn when my battle with weeds won. I stupidly used a weed killing product that claimed not to kill grass. Well guess what, it does kill grass. I now have a golden lawn.
During this time I also took a closer look at my water bill comparing the last 9 months. There was a dramatic increase from the moment that we started watering, specially that first month when we gave the seeds a little extra water. This is where I decided I needed to start my gardening project.
My house is quite simple and looks very flat and boring. Adding flat and boring grass to it doesn’t help. The problem is that I don’t know anything about plants. Designing a garden for me is beyond difficult. I simply don’t know what to put where. Aside from adding some privacy for the window, I don’t know what else to do.
Like any projected, I began doing research. Flipping through magazines, driving around town looking for gardens I like. I also went through photos of home I had visited from the Dwell On Design and CA|Boom home tours. Most of these photos focused on the house and not the plants as they were not my interest before.
I happened to come across an Ocean Friendly Gardening class that was taking place at the Torrance Civic Center. Weekend classes are difficult for me, with family and all, but I planned it out and made the effort. This was by far the biggest eye opener for me. The 3 or 4 hour class only spent a few minutes on plants. Instead they talked about water management. Conservation, Permeability, and Retention (CPR). The first is simple enough, however when you see the number of gallons that are being used in the front lawn alone, the sense of urgency really stands out. Permeability and Retention were surprises for me and a solution to a much bigger problem that I have.
Whenever it rains, water accumulates under my house in the crawl space. I had considered just buying a pump, but what I preferred setting up a proper drain. This of course attacks the problem after the fact. Correcting the permeability in my soil and directing the retention of the water to a more appropriate location address the issue before it even becomes an issue.
The great this out of all of this is that it will help me design my garden. The design will be based on the functionality rather than just aesthetics like I had previously thought. All of a sudden, designing my garden is starting to look like fun.