Water ConservationDrought Tolerant Archives

10 May 2018

Drought Tolerant or Artificial Grass Lawn

By Sunset

California may be out of its drought, but there is no guarantee things will remain this way. With a lack of rainfall, California is a perfect place to have a lawn that does not rely on water. Even if you love a classic grass lawn, perfect lawns are almost impossible to achieve hence why you see yellow and brown lawns all around the neighborhood. Drought tolerant and artificial grass lawns are two great alternatives that allow you to minimize water use while maximizing aesthetic appeal.

Drought Tolerant

Variety of plants that rely on little water including:

You can ask your local nursery about drought tolerant plants as well! Drought tolerant plants go great with hardscape designs. Hardscape has a lot of flexibility and allows you to tailor your yard in several ways. Hardscape has become more and more popular due to its aesthetic appeal and practicality.

Artificial Turf

Benefits

No watering, mowing, or feeding while still maintaining traditional front lawn grass look.
Life expectancy can be upwards of 25 years making investment worth it in long term.
New artificial grass can often fool most into looking like real grass.

Drawbacks

Provide no food or habitat for local birds or insects. Biological zero meaning you are not promoting biodiversity.
Feel is just not the same as regular grass.
Often made with recycled materials but not biodegradable.

10 Mar 2016

Water Wise – How to Save Water with Your Landscaping

By Sunset

We here at Sunset pride ourselves on being as water efficient as possible, so we thought it would be best to share some of our landscaping water savings wisdom with our clients and friends.

When looking to conserve water you need to look at the total water consumption of a residential property.

Everybody seems to know that landscaping consumes a majority of a household’s water, yet people are hesitant to get rid of their grass and lush plants because they fear their yard will look barren without it. In actuality, restructuring your yard to make it more drought tolerant is simple and often times the ‘Outdoor Living’ will end up looking better than it did before. If you need an example just check out my house below and if you want to know what drought tolerant solutions are available for your yard just give me a call at (562) 881-6000. If you still aren’t hooked on remodeling your ‘Outdoor Living’ then check out a few simple tips below that will help to save water without a major reconstruction of your yard.

Water Savings Tips for Landscaping

Reposition and Re-time Your Sprinklers
- How often do you walk by a house and see their sprinklers on in the middle of the day? You should water your lawn in the early morning or at night in order to prevent excessive evaporation and thus conserve water.
- How often do you walk by a house and see the water from the sprinklers draining straight into the gutter? Sprinklers should be positioned so that the water lands on the plants and not the hardscape and paved areas.
- Try slowly cutting back on the number of times you water a week or the duration of each watering to see which plants thrive and which ones do not. It’s up to you to decide to keep the delicate ones or replace them with something more drought tolerant.
Add Organic Matter and Mulch Around Trees and Plants
- The addition of mulch or organic matter can help slow evaporation of moisture from soil and plants. It also allows these plants to better retain water.
- This also adds the needed nutrients for the plants to thrive on less water.
Recycle Water from Other Areas of the Household
- Try watering your plants with that half drunken glass of water or putting a bucket in the shower to collect the cold water.
- If you’re really persistent you can try putting a barrel underneath your rain gutter to collect rainwater and use it at a later, during a more arid time.
Install Artificial Lawn
- I’m not much into plastic anything these days; however, I will say that artificial turf as improved drastically. It looks more real than ever with various heights, textures and colors.
- An artificial lawn will greatly reduce the overall water usage of a property based on how much lawn you removed.