I Fought The Lawn...(Reprise)

When I lived in Northern California, I had a beautiful Fescue lawn that I watered, fertilized and mowed faithfully.  (See I Fought The Lawn).  It was beautiful, but it did suck up a lot of water.

Southern California is a different climate, one that has been experiencing a fairly severe drought for the past several years.  Native grasses in this area tend to spring to life in the fall and winter, go to seed rapidly and then die off or at least turn brown in the Spring when the rains stop.  Unfortunately, this cycle doesn't sit well with a lot of people who have been conditioned to the idea that every house MUST have a green lawn, an idea derived from the landscapers of 17th Century English estates and  fostered today by the companies that sell grass seed, sod, endless varieties of fertilizer and weed control products*.

San Diego is currently under fairly strict water restrictions governing how much, how often and when lawns can be watered.  So I did a little informal survey the other day to see how our neighborhood, where the streets are named after English counties and every house has space for a lawn, is coping with the drought.

Some people have gone to plastic grass, which looks pretty good most of the time.  The down side to plastic grass is that it's not permeable by water, so a hard rain like the one we had a couple of weeks ago just has to run off into the storm drainage system and can't get down to water tree roots underneath it.  It also tends to be hot and may end up baking those tree roots and ultimately may kill the trees.

Plastic.  Needs to Be Dusted

Other people have tried painting their lawns green.  I kid you not, paint.  Green paint.  The only problem with that is that the paint fades in the sun and has to be redone periodically.

Green Paint Over Bermuda Grass

Some people have gone with drought-tolerant ground covers, such as the silver-gray Dymondia, although that plant seems to work best where it won't get a lot of foot traffic.  It also takes a while to get established and spread out, and it does need at least some water.

Dymondia

Some have gone with rock or bark as ground covers.  I think this one is very attractive because it incorporates succulents and different sizes of rocks.

Rocks and Succulents

And then there are those who seem to be pretending that there are no water restrictions anyway.

It's Pretty Obvious Who's Still Watering

We live in a Mediterranean climate; we need to adapt to it.



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*The ads I find particularly irksome are those featuring the phony Scotsman, conveniently named "Scot", who relentlessly pushes his company's products, shaming those whose lawns look less than perfect because of their lack of devotion to the ideal lawn.  Enough, already.