So far we have been under our restriction amount, but it is difficult to guess from month-to-month, because we don't find out what our amount was until after we get our water bill. The allotment varies from month to month with our water company.

The truth is, I am loosing many hundreds of dollars more in plants than we would be set back if I just paid the fines. The large Clematis montana 'Grandiflora's death broke my heart, because they are nearly impossible to find in the local nurseries (I have seen them only twice in 20+ years). The orchids are most likely not going to fully recover--I don't even want to add up those $$$.

Strangely enough, many of our losses are considered to be fairly-to-strongly drought tolerant: daylilies, Salvia leucophylla, thyme groundcover, and many of the New Zealand Flax plants. Looking weak, are the Iceberg roses, leptospermum, Salvia 'Hot Lips', Echium wildpretii and E. simplex, Beschorneria yuccoides, some of the manzanitas and alstroemeria. But many of our garden plants are drought tolerant and not missing a beat. Some plants have surprised me by their adaptability: Barleria repens and lace fern, to name a couple.

Our soil is sandy. Once it dries out, the drip irrigation does not wick properly, and the plants suffer. So these recent rains will help with hydrating the soil so future irrigation functions better.

3 out of 4 lawn areas gone. I don't miss them, the kids are grown and no one uses them anymore. They came with the house. We're only still watering the 4th one because of two large old orange trees we don't want to lose are planted in/next to it, but still cut down on the amount by at least half of what it was getting.

The huge magnolia is suffering a bit, it's compensating by sacrificing it's older leaves and gave hardly any flowers this summer. I have deep watered it twice since May, but it was getting deep watered every other week before. It's over 50 years old, don't want to lose it. The squirrels will miss the cones this fall.

Put in no annual flowers, nor veggie garden, or any hanging baskets. I'm trying to save the potted Red Bananas but they may not make it. Oh well, not rare and replacements grow fast, if we ever get rain again.

Everything else is mostly native or survives like a native. There are high water use plants only close to the house, and those were mostly the lawns.

The outer edges of the lot are oaks, toyon, ceanothus, CA peppers, CA palms, olives, oleander, myrtle and cotoneaster. All get along just fine with no supplemental water most years. I have noticed this year though, even they are suffering somewhat. Little or no blooms or fruit or acorns, etc. and losing older leaves at a greater rate than normal. All the small animals, squirrels, jays, etc. depend on the fruits and nuts from these old trees and shrubs. Those populations will be smaller come next summer. They've already stripped most of the fruit meant for humans this year, even while still green. The animals are hungry!

Haven't had any problems at all. The greywater keeps the water hungry trees happy, and everything else we have doesn't need a whole lot of water. We keep creeping up on our usage, but we aren't really doing all that much extra to conserve and we are still at 40% below our allotment. Besides, July/Aug or our highest ET months so we are almost over the hump.

Gyr, what sort of drip are you using? Drip tape or spaghetti lines with individual emitters?

My tomatoes were a disaster this year, so once I've harvested the winter squash, I'm going to yank everything out of the vegetable garden, spread mulch, and shut off the water. I have to water the dymondia in the back a little because the dogs use it for their, uh, "purposes" and I'll keep hand watering the things that were planted last spring to fill in various holes, but everything else can just go to sleep until the rain comes in the fall.

My rain tanks were magically refilled this week!

I planted a row of toyons last winter. I have "Tree-gators" on them and they are thriving.

There were many existing trees on this property when we purchased it as a many years of neglect short sale two years ago. Nothing had been watered for years, so they all must have deep roots. We had one tree die, but that was due to a disease. New trees we added are drought friendly, like many fig and olive trees are.

We got a 25% cutback mandate which allows us to water on 3 select days per week at certain times. The automatic drip system with 12 stations turns on for 45 minutes on those days. Depending on the size of the shrub or tree, we use 1/2 gallon to 2 gallon emitters.

We got a few peppers from our Jalapeno, and a couple tomatoes from the Tomato plant prior to gopher attacks, so I can't blame that on drought.

We do take fewer showers, and let the DW completely fill prior to turning it on. We all conserve in different ways, but we seem to be in a better area than many of you. We are in the foothills, and have had several days of rain this year in Southern California, where Northern California has not been so fortunate.

We are using the brown tubing with intermittent holes, (Not sure the brand but similar to Lowes' Mister Landscaper 1/2-in x 100-ft Polyethylene Drip Irrigation Emitter Tubing) which allows us to add spaghetti tubes with end emitters in-line or attach some 1/4" black spaghetti tubing with drip holes. For a few specific areas, we use regular (non-drip) tubing with micro-sprays. The less expensive soaker tubing proved worthless after a short amount of time, because the minerals in our water would plug up the hose's seeping ability.

Most of my front yard plants are gone due to major house repairs so I'm using much less water. I read my water meter weekly so I know how I'm doing. What amazes me are the few plants that didn't have to be removed. They went two months with little to no water and are doing great. They must have gotten their roots down deep enough to find some. They are an azalea, an aucuba, a Simplicity rose and a polygala myrtifolia.

I have a suggestion that might help a little for your poor drought stricken plants. If you have any humidity at all, get a dehumidifier. Turn it on in your house. You won't believe how much water you can get from one of these to water your plants. I can pull at least 2 gallons a day from mine. Although I am in the south. But you never know. It could give you the extra water you need daily to keep your plants alive. It would be worth the small investment. I use a 70 pint that I got from Amazon. Your air conditioner alone will produce some humidity. I dump it all the time on my outdoor plants. Free water. From the air.

Here is how much I drew in from just this morning. This can water a lot of plants.

We are allowed to water 2X a week. Honestly, the worst of summer has not hit yet as the worst heat can drone on through October. We have mulched heavily. The St. Augustine in the sun is looking poorly, but the shady spots aren't too bad yet. I give an occasional shot of water with the hose to some rose bushes and some other shrubs I'd hate to lose. Some shrubs are decades old and should survive ok. But I do water the 4-year-old magnolia tree. We bought it as a 36" box which wasn't cheap, and I have no desire to lose it. So far we have been way below the 28% mandated.

Stan, from what you are saying, I think you'll be cutting back way more than the 8%. Are you trying to overcompensate for those who aren't participating? Or are you just a water-wise guy?

Gyr, the brown tube with periodic holes is drip tape. That's pretty much all I use for drip in landscapes. The trick in sandy soil is that you have to water an area with it more than individual plants. On sandy soil you need to have the tubes (with .9gph emitters) spaced between 12" and 16" apart. Then you can get a precipitation rate high enough (between .6" and 1" per hour) to evenly wet sandy soil. The major commercial brand is Netafim and they have a lot of design resources on their web site.

I understand. I feel so bad for you all and all the wildlife that depend on the landscape and trees and water. Wish I could send water your way.

Socks,if they are allotting the same as 2013,5 more people showering is something that forces me to cut by 50% of what I usually use for the garden. Even though I put in low use showerheads? They don't work if people don't turn the thing. I should have looked for a type that wont ever use full water pressure.

That humidity thing..hmm,that would be a great way to get all the water you need with a stronger dedicated unit. I know the Oakland Museum tapped into the air conditioner years ago as a source of free water. A mere trickle and drop in the bucket over all...but an idea.

That is the set up we have, Nil, but I didn't realize it was called tape. But we have cut both the irrigation days and the duration time of the stations, because we had no idea what our water allotment was going to be since they began the additional penalties and reduced our allotment. We actually came in way under last month, but the damage to the plants was done by the time we realized we may have made the reductions too drastic.

Even though the tube holes are that close together, when the soil is that dry, and the irrigation time that limited, it really isn't enough for some species to survive. Our potted tomatoes had a great year, I gave some of the allotment water to them, so all was not lost. Mmmmm, garden tomatoes! :)

It has been my custom to buy mostly low water plants. I lost my plants a few Summers ago. The plants I lost are thought by many people to be low water plants. One was about a ten foot bed on Shasta Daisy. The other was a much longer bed of Coreopsis. My daylilies are wanting more water than I feel like wasting on them. They had all dried up and disappeared. I know they are still alive because I watered them just enough for new leaves to begin. I only did it because I would like to give them away in Fall. That is awful about your Brugmansia. I had a strange reaction after giving up on the daisy and tickseed. It seems I had built up some resentment over having to water them so frequently. Once they were gone I felt strangely relieved.

How long are you running the drip zones Gyr? You don't have to obey the mandated 10 minute limit if you are running drip or other low precipitation rate systems. Netafim has a smartphone app that you can plug in all the info about your setup like emitter spacing and tube spacing, and it will give you the precipitation rate and the amount of time it takes to lay down .25 inches. I find that knowing the precip rate helps get your usage down without a ton of risk.

Our water districts didn't give days or irrigation time restrictions, which is a big plus over the previous droughts' and water company's inflexibility of certain days and station time limits. Their water allotment was calculated by the number of people in the household, the amount of sq ft of landscaped land you have (which I think is odd, but that is what they do), and the temperatures and transpiration rate for the previous month. There were multiple tiers--the more over the allotment you went, the higher the cost for that water.

The reason we were so overly careful is because the tiers were changed to just two (your water budget and hefty fees for any amount over), and the reduced allotments fell when the (typically) June gloom month is used to calculate the allotment amount of water for (typically) scorching July.

No fancy phone app needed: I usually just look at the ground and plants to determine irrigation. I supplemental water some needier individuals rather than run the entire station. We just chose to go with acceptable plant loss.

Well, that clematis excepted. But I am not certain a lack of irrigation killed it. We have some soil organism imbalance issues, due to our soil having been covered with concrete for decades. Some nasty fungal organisms bounced back quicker than the "good guys".

I find that knowing what you precipitation rates are for a given zone helps considerably when attempting to irrigate the bare minimum. An ET chart and a soil core probe are pretty helpful too.

We use a soil core probe, but an ET chart would just waste my time. Eyeballing the plants and familiarity with the garden's microclimates are much quicker. ;) Our landscape is varied, and not always perfectly grouped in the individual stations by water needs, partly because it was phased in and retrofitted as we removed concrete and added beds.

Experience and a soil probe are a powerful combination.

I am in Southern California, South of Los Angeles. We do not get much rain here, and it tends to be sunny most of the time, and summers tend to be very hot. It does tend to be a rather dry climate here, but we are not too far away from the coast, so at least the humidity does not go too low. I can't stand going further inland, I can feel the dehydrating dryness in the air and it is not comfortable.

Actually we have had a past couple of days of rain, unusual for summer, and it has been unusually humid. Actually things are looking fairly lush and green in our yard, and the front yards in the neighborhood do not look too bad either. It might be because of the recent rain. It is not always this way, usually things start becoming less green in the summer here, since it is a dry Mediterranean climate and seasonal. So especially put in context, it does not feel like a bad year at all.

I do frequently water several particular plants every 2 days, but we have cut back on the sprinklers, and that is what takes up most of the water, since it just sprays water all over the place and is not very selective. The yard is not too huge either.

I think perhaps because I water so frequently and consistently, the plants do not need a lot of water. That may sound paradoxical to some, but it really is true. If you do not water very frequently, it takes more water to saturate the soil enough so that the plants will not dry out many days later.

And because I water selectively, and only get the plants that need it, not the grass or bushes. I have also been intentionally planting things to try to create a moisture microclimate, and I think that is starting to pay off too.

So a combination of several factors. I have recently gotten into gardening, and I do not think I would be able to stand having water restrictions if it started affecting the yard in any way, but fortunately that is not the case.

I will also have you all know that I hate those drought tolerant plants that are being promoted. I am trying to turn the yard into a lush temperate rainforest, even though I do not live in the climate for that. I planted a redwood, and special ordered authentic varieties of ferns.

Yes, we do have two tree ferns, but I made sure to plant them in locations that do not get full sun, because I know tree ferns often tend to turn brown in this climate. They are planted in just a little partial shade, and seem to be doing okay. I try to give the foliage a quick spray every time I am out there with the hose, to keep them from drying out.

We do have a rose geranium bush growing in the front where it gets very hot and dry. This bush is very prolific and vigorously spreads even though it does not get much water, and the soil beneath it is terrible hard clay. The bush grows 3-4 feet high, and seems to thrive where most other plants would bake in the sun and wither, it has spread to 10 feet wide. We did not originally plant it either. It was growing in planters, and wherever those planters were set on the ground, even hard dry clay soil, the roots made their way out of the little drainage holes in the bottom of the planter and established themselves into the ground, propagating a new plant. These things can get a little invasive in your yard if left unattended for a long time.

So it is possible to have a lush yard in a fairly hot dry climate that does not use too much water, without making compromises. At least that is the way it seems for our yard right now. Just throwing an optimistic report into this thread, I know many others are struggling.

Parker, how many HCF are you using per billing cycle?