Let Me Explain What I Was Doing in Rene Russo’s Yard

The afternoon light is different, the birds are going nuts, and Dodger stars have pulled up lame before even picking up a bat. It can mean only one thing. Spring is just about here, so now would be a good time to rip out your lawn.

Surely you don’t want the hassle of pouring water and chemicals into the ground for the next eight months, and you certainly don’t want to waste perfectly good time mowing it.

Right? I asked Rene Russo, the famous actress.

She gave me a shrug and changed the subject, which I found surprising. But let me explain what I was doing in her Brentwood backyard.

Not long ago, when we were about to have our share of the Colorado River cut back, a local water official told me Southern Californians could compensate for the loss by re-landscaping with drought-resistant plants.

He asked if I was interested in seeing what the Metropolitan Water District director had done in his own yard, or if I’d like to see what Rene Russo was doing in hers. Russo has volunteered to help promote water conservation.

Her last big movie was “The Thomas Crown Affair,” in which she seduces an art thief on a dance floor, a staircase and a table.

Maybe I’ll visit the MWD director next year.

Russo greeted me in her driveway. I promise not to do that annoying thing you always see in stories about movie stars, where the writer feels a compulsion to describe every article of clothing, the hair, whatever, and claim that it either reflects an earthy self-confidence or belies an on-screen persona.

Russo looked darn good in jeans. How’s that?

The yard looked good too, with a spectacular northwest view that plunges into a canyon and then races up to the backbone of the Santa Monica Mountains.

“I couldn’t see the mountains when I moved in,” said Russo, who grew up in Burbank and moved here almost five years ago from Laurel Canyon.

Back then, she couldn’t see the mountains because the yard was a towering jungle of willows, crape myrtle, liquidambar and pittosporum. Those trees, some of them nonnative, demanded so much water, nearby native trees were drowning. Russo was losing California buckeye, oak, Catalina ironwood, California bay, toyon and mountain mahogany.

“I slaughtered 75 trees,” she said of the nonnatives she chopped down, clearing the way for a drought-resistant gardening project she’s still working on.

Russo, who asked neighbors in Burbank if she could rake their leaves when she was a mere lass, told me she wants to be the Lady Bird Johnson of California.

“I’ve been a lot of different places in the world and seen all kinds of landscapes, but I’m a California girl,” she said. “People say there are no seasons in California, but they’re wrong.”

She pointed out a dozen plants and trees I don’t remember the names of (you can find out what to plant and when at TreeOfLifeNursery.com). Year-round, depending on the season, something is in bloom, even though Russo is pouring far less water into the ground than she used to.

“I’m glad we’re not getting that water [from the Colorado],” Russo said. “It’s time for us to learn to live within our means.”

That’s when I asked if it was a little silly for everyone in this desert metropolis to have lawns that suck up a gazillion gallons of water. You don’t have to look too hard to find homes with more grass than the Riviera Country Club.

Russo said she didn’t care to pass judgment.

I let it go. But a few minutes later I found out what was going on.

We were in a dirt patch behind the house, and I asked how she was going to landscape it. As she began to answer, her husband, Dan Gilroy, a writer, came over to introduce himself.

“We’re going to have a lawn here,” he said.

Oh no we aren’t, Russo said with a sweet smile.

“It’s going to be a lawn,” Gilroy said with a little more timber.

Looks like Lady Bird’s got a problem.

I eyeballed Gilroy and thought, all right, I can understand a man’s need to have at least a small patch of grass. I like the idea of going native, but you can’t toss a football or practice your chip shot in a toyon tree, and you wouldn’t want to crack open a cold one in a cluster of Baja fairy duster shrubs.

On the other hand, the guy’s married to Rene Russo. How much of a fight is this worth?

Russo later called to tell me there’s a “natural lawn movement,” and she’s heard about someone who’s experimenting with native creeping sod.

I don’t think Dan’s going to like it, I said.

“Not in a million years,” she agreed. “We’ll see what happens.”

We’ll see what happens? I’ve heard that line before, and I know what happens.

You bring the football, Dan, I’ll bring the beer. Meet you in the park.

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes .com.