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There’s nothing like launching a gardening passion by tearing out a hilly front lawn by hand with a saw and crowbar, designing a low-water garden, and then getting it installed. But that’s just what Vista homeowner and novice gardener Robin Ziegler did, starting in 2018 and going through 2019. And all that hard work yielded not just a colorful refuge for birds, butterflies and bees, but also the Vista Irrigation District’s win in the 2020 WaterSmart Landscape Contest.
Digging deep
(Robin Ziegler)
Ziegler and her husband, Michael Goryan, bought their 30-year-old house in 2017 and, while they wanted a drought-tolerant garden, they focused first on renovating the interior. In the meantime, they turned off the irrigation to kill the 150 square feet of front lawn, studded with surprise ankle-breaking dips and holes. But, Ziegler recalled, in spring 2018, there was still growth only what came up were weeds that grew 8 feet tall. At that point, determined to turn the space