Posted on 08/24/2014 10:58:22 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Rick Blankenship was tired of an insatiable lawn he couldn’t keep green, no matter how he watered it, so he decided to tear it out. […]
As California faces an historic drought, more residents are following in Blankenship’s footsteps and tearing out thirsty lawns to cut down on water use. Water agencies across the state have been encouraging the change by offering thousands of dollars in rebates to help homeowners make the switch to a drought-friendly landscape with better odds of surviving dry spells common to the local climate.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which covers 19 million people, received requests to remove 2.5 million square feet in residential lawns in July, up from 99,000 in January, said Bill McDonnell, the consortium's water efficiency manager. …
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Something should have done a long time ago; lawns don’t belong in the middle of a dessert.
“Something should have done a long time ago; lawns don’t belong in the middle of a dessert.”
Decades ago during water restrictions one of my neighbors expensively and artfully zeroscaped with rock paths and pretty clumps of drought tolerant plants. He even had a couple of shade trees with a drip system. The homeowners association went nuts. They sued him. I’m telling you, what he did looked GREAT. But it was not a lawn. (I moved away, so I don’t know how it eventually worked out. But my suspicion is he either moved or put in a lawn.)
Yup. Overpopulating a coastal desert was a bad idea: bad for California, bad for Californians, bad for the whole country because a lot of “green” ideas that are actually sensible in the context of an overpopulated desert have been foisted on the whole country (and in some instances the whole world) as ways to “save the planet”, when they are pointless and costly in areas with abundant water supplies.
I wouldn’t eat a lawn for dessert myself. A cow or a horse might.
But for the love of Gawd, don’t try to grow any FOOD on your property, or they’ll burn your house down!
Morons. Less Lawn. More Food.
You ever notice that the same people that pay illegal Guatemalans to maintain their lawn and gardens are the same ones that pay membership fees so they can go to the gym to work out every day?
It’s called xeriscaping!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeriscaping
Hopefully it’s not just California where this takes hold. The idea that a green lawn is a requirement should be dead by now. Even in Florida I spend way too much watering this !@#$& St. Augustine grass. Would love to let the whole thing go native.
Golf courses don't either.
>>Something should have done a long time ago; lawns don’t belong in the middle of a dessert.
It’s even a bad idea in nearly-tropical Florida because most HOAs won’t allow natural grass. You have to use water-wasting grass because it looks uniform.
Manicured lawns should never be mandatory.
>>Hopefully it’s not just California where this takes hold. The idea that a green lawn is a requirement should be dead by now. Even in Florida I spend way too much watering this !@#$& St. Augustine grass. Would love to let the whole thing go native.
+1
Doesn’t the frequent afternoon pop_up thundershowers in Fl supply sufficient moisture to the lawns whereas Ca gets like near zero chances of any rain in summer.
This must happen every few decades. I remember an old friend in SoCal painting his yard back then....
I have rural north central Texas land where I’m building my house. My lawn is a 30 acre hay field.
This is extremely common now in SoCal. Nearly all commercial business’s landscapes are draught resistant. As well as many private homes.
EXACTLY....nor in Most neighborhoods....and, NO I’m NOT an environmentalist....I just HATE lawns...too much work and resources for something you cannot eat.
Don’t tell anyone, but there are people in the Sausalito (S.F. Bay) area spray painting their lawns to keep them green. From a distance of driving through the neighborhood, you WOULD be fooled. Can you blame them? The Home Owners Associations around here are going Batty with their power struggles even during this drought.
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