Wow, don't remove your lawn in Orange County!

jehan

DH passed me this story from the LA Times on a couple in Orange County who are being sued for removing their front lawn and planting drought-tolerant plants in an effort to save water.  What really got me in that article was this: "Meanwhile, the couple said they had reduced their water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009."

I wouldn't say that their yard is beautiful or anything, but seriously?  They would mandate that sort of water waste, in an area that is practically desert?

xnickerx

But by not having their yard planted, they are prone to stirring up dirt in windstorms, and erosion. Plants also help clean the air and provide oxygen. Yes they are saving city-water, but it's at an expense to everything else. While it is commendable they want to save water, this probably wasn't the best way to go about it. Quickest and easiest, sure. But not the best.

If they would have planted native plants they would still not have to rely on water (or very minimal amounts of water), but kept the benefits of having their yard greened out. Or they could have used grey water to water their yards and/or rain barrels.

Alisha_A

My initial reaction was to be on their side, but reading the article and seeing the photos, I'm not.

#1 Their yard is ugly. Xeriscaping fail.

#2. Their yard does increase dust and erosion.

#3. They are violating the law. This has been ongoing for years. They knew the law required 40% live ground cover and yet they 'installed' a yard of wood chips.

Its great they dropped their water use, but no one is requiring them to have grass. They've had years to come up with a reasonable plan.

SuperGreen

I'm with Alisha on this one.  At first I was like, WTF, how can the county mandate having a lawn?  That's not what they're doing.  They're trying to prevent dust, erosion, and runoff when there is rain by mandating that yards have to be 40% covered by live plants.  That doesn't mean grass. They had a long time to get this right, and they should have started with submitting a site plan to the county before trying to xeriscape, rather than doing a horrible job at xeriscaping then asking "is this okay?"  The county has had enough, so they're finally sueing.

*speedracer*

i would have used a succulent type groundcover thing, like iceplant.  it's very common to use in yards in san diego.

we use a lot of xeriscaping here in az, but even still, when people use the bigger crushed rock it creates heat islands.  those people could have done a way better job, both aesthetically and waterwise.

if they don't want a big lawn, they should downsize their property.

jehan

I guess I was more shocked by the water use numbers than anything else.  And I am always surprised at how much people care about yards that don't belong to them.  Although, I hadn't thought of it from an erosion/dust point of view.