Knowing how politicians in California think, once a trend starts in California it won't be too long until the local government starts trying to MAKE everyone do it. It might be taxpayer-funded subsidies, it might be mandates. Hopefully I am wrong about this.

I'm not a big fan of the "drought tolerant" yard thing, but it's better than many of the bland "landscape" yards with ugly bushes I see in many yards around here.

Sharing my drought resistant grass I put in May of this year. UC Verde buffalo grass, requires around 12 inches of water a year. The brown or bare spots are where the devil bermuda grass is rearing its ugly head. I absolutely LOVE it! Downside, if you will, cold winters the grass will go dormant. I had marathon before and I calculated my water savings for the summer months for this one area to be 70%. Works for me... :-)

We have one neighbor who has just had his grass replaced with red rock and smallish succulents, which may be OK when it grows some. Another had a designer/landscaper installed version with a tan sand/gravel surface, and interesting drought plants which is very attractive even before it fills in. Several of us, including me, have had grass replaced with artificial lawns, in our case only in the front yard. The better ones have gotten quite realistic and are only given away because of lack of bare spots and weeds. I'm now looking for low water plants to redo some of the front planters, although I know they'll need regular irrigation until established.

The tan stuff is most likely decomposed granite which is what you just call dirt if you live in the hills but that is more of a comment on the soil in the hills than anything else.

Unfortunately, planting buffalo grass won't qualify for any turf removal rebates.

But aren't the turf removal rebates over anyway? I saw something on the local news...shoot...maybe two months ago?...saying that the program had been so wildly popular that all the funds had dried up. I know when my neighbors had their yard done last week it was not Turf Terminators, the company that I kept seeing on all the local newscasts, but I can't say definitively (because I haven't asked them) whether there were any rebates involved.

Great pics of your buffalo grass, akarinz. Thanks for sharing. It sounds like a very good choice for lawns, and may be something [else!] for me to consider down the road.

Just a side note, which has nothing to do with anything except gardening in general: people keep walking through the flower bed in my front yard! Like delivery people. They just stomp right through it like it's nothing. I even had my gardener put some decorative fencing along its front border to dissuade people from marching through it, but it hasn't helped. The few steps it saves them from having to walk AROUND it is a big deal to them, apparently. Perhaps a brick wall is in order next?!

There are still some municipalities offering rebates, the state funds however have dried up.

My city said they would not offer a rebate because it had the word "grass" in it. Of course I couldn't let it drop, because not everyone wants a rebate but some want a lawn. Well the next excuse was that it takes too much water to get established. Yes I did have to water it a bit in the beginning to get it rooted but now I am watering every 4 days for 15 minutes. Sometimes you have to put in up front to get the benefits later. But of course that is idea that is too complicated for government.

Current restrictions only allow watering for 10 minutes Tuesdays and Saturdays here.

One neighbor applied for the rebate just before we did, but they'd already removed their lawn and had only dirt and so were disqualified. The rebate is for replacing thirsty grass with artificial. No grass - no rebate.

Just wondering if you're in Arcadia, too, Maureen! Your current restrictions are exactly like my new ones. One thing to note in my case is that it's stationary sprinklers which are limited to 10 minute cycles. I'm now using oscillating sprinklers and, obviously, they can't be limited the same way stationary sprinklers can. I had to switch to hose-connected, oscillating sprinklers because the existing in-ground sprinklers no longer worked well after all the changes I've made to the landscaping. I've added so many things that some areas just weren't getting any water--it was blocked. At some point I'll think about having the sprinklers replaced, taking into consideration how the landscaping has changed on the property.

Nope, not Arcadia. We're in Huntington Beach.

Huntington Beach, nice! Did your watering restrictions change recently, or are they the same as they've been for a while now? As noted earlier, mine LITERALLY just changed; we were on Tues/Thurs/Sat...but no more.

The restrictions are really just for the really inefficient popup sprays. If you have drip or another low precipitation rate emitter, there is no way you could only water for 10 minutes. Just make sure your neighbors don't turn you in because it's Sunday or something. As long as you are saving the required amount you're good.

Most of the gardens with lawns removed look horrible to me. My lawn is dead due to lack of watering, but hopefully it will return when we get more rain. I read somewhere that people might be taxed for those rebates.

eloise_ca, I'm glad you're brave enough to say what I'm sure a lot of others are thinking! I agree that many of the properties I've seen with their lawns removed look...well...horrible. (I understand that we have to allow time for the new plants to grow/spread/mature. But I'm talking about right now.)

Nil13, I have a lot of soaker hoses around my property, and no one can tell when they're being used except for the neighbors closest to my driveway. And they can only see one part--the bottom part of my property--so I make sure I don't run that hose until after dark. :) You make a really good point, too, about saving the required amount--after all, as I've said, the proof is right there in black and white on my water bill, down 35% from the same cycle in 2013.

So people like me that worked hard to reduce water usage before 2013 are penalized. My water usage is NOT down from 2013 because I reduced it a decade ago. I put in two 330 gallon water recovery tanks, grey water recovery, and save water during the winter storms. I removed my grass parkway in 2002, reduced the amount of lawn, and started a process of using a rational amount of water.

What happened? The city attorney took me to court on criminal charges. He explained that JUST the removal of the grass was criminal and having more than 25% of the surface ground "not green" made me in violation of the law. The 30 days notice to fix the "problem" was just a courtesy and just the removal of lawn to be replaced the next day by sod put me in technical violation of the law. Planting grass seed or small plants and waiting for them to fill in did not qualify.

Here we are today, 13 years later and the city is PAYING, or paying sub contractors, to do what I did proactively back then. My parkway and my next 5 neighbors parkways pretty much look the same except I paid for mine, had to go to court, get convicted of a misdemeanor, pay a fine, have a criminal record, and mine is established so it looks better. Is there any bigger piece of garbage than someone who works for government? One of those 5 neighbors is a former City Councilman, who is pretty reasonable, so he isn't part of our government any longer.

Here we are at Oct 1 and I'm just about to run out of rain recovery water for my potted plants. I added 2 tons of Turface to my remaining lawn, like golf courses do, and have made it through summer without any regular sprinkler watering at all. I'm waiting for their idiotic penalty because I haven't reduced my water usage from 2013.............

gregbradley i am so sorry!! I have never sued anyone in my whole life and I detest sue happy people but I think I would consult an attorney on that one. Likely it's too late (just my Luck). Sooooo frustrating!

Boggles the mind, doesn't it gregbradley.

Whoa, gregbradley! SERIOUSLY?! What law did you violate? I mean, was it a city law, an HOA law, what?! It just boggles my mind that you could actually be sued, AND found guilty, for doing something that should've been recognized as a GOOD thing.

I absolutely agree with you that you're being penalized now because you took proactive measures years ago to save water, so there's no way your recent water usage can be a big reduction from a year or two ago. Amazing.

There's a short, but helpful, article in the LA Times about watering during the drought: http://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-watering-myths-20151003-story.html It dispels a few myths!

That article has some great information.

I was penalized by the city because government is so arbitrary in their laws. I stated that to show how silly some governments can be when there is no logic behind the regulation.

HOAs don't have laws and can only fine you. An extreme violation could result in them suing you in civil court. That is way different than criminal charges. FWIW, I was president of the HOA in my last home a few blocks away. 8 years of that was enough politics for me!

My rainwater recovery was completely refilled by this rain - 330gal. Too bad I wasn't done getting another 330 gal Tote installed or I could have had 660. 2 maybe the limit and still be completely out of sight.

I finally grabbed a few pics of my neighbors' newly redone yard. It's hard for me to tell, but I think they've used bark as the filler.

Anyone know what the bright green plant is? I have one--a VERY BIG, very mature one--by my house that my mom planted some years ago:

It looks like a work in progress... I don't want to be too judgemental just yet

Is that a giant foo dog? please circle what you are calling the bright green plant.

This:

That is an Asparagus Fern. I planted one by choice long ago and my neighbors have a few. I've found it to be invasiive and hard to keep from migrating into my yard.

Ah, thanks...Asparagus Fern. But, invasive?! Not in my yard! There's just the one that my mom planted years ago next to the house. It's quite large, but it's the only one on the property. I see that my neighbors have planted several of them in their front yard. I wonder if their results will vary from mine!

ilovegardening, asparagus fern can be invasive, but that looks like a myers variety. It does not seem invasive like the kind with the long scratchy stems, and keeps a bright green color with a minimum of water.

My lawn was replaced in 2007 predating rebates, so my water use was already reduced when restrictions went into place. Fortunately, in my city, if you use less than 18 ccf for a 2 month period you are off the hook. My use is 6 - 7 ccf for 2 months.

Glad to hear there is an improved variety.

I'm curious about rain barrels, what with our much-anticipated, MONSTER El Nino coming soon! Any advice from those who have them as to what to look for? My property is 10,000 sq ft.

Most rain barrels are 55 gallon drums. You will fill those in minutes of your collecting roof water. I have 4 275 gallon totes on the side of my house that catches 1/2 of my roof water. With heavy rainfall I can fill up all 4 within a couple hours!

Sabine is exactly right. I placed extra 42gal trash barrels at the inside corners of my roof (places that are not visible) and filled them all in this small rain this weekend. I will use that water first for potted plants and then use the water stored in Totes later. If you use trash barrels, use good ones, and be aware you aren't moving them afterward since 42 gal is 300 pounds.

In order to figure out how much cistern capacity you need, you should calculate your water budget for the dry season. Most people aren't going to be able to install containers that will be anywhere near that however. You can calculate how much storm capacity (ability to capture a full typical storm) by looking at how many inches you typically get and multiplying that by the square footage of your roof multiplied again by .61 which is the number of gallons per square foot per inch of rain. So if you have a roof that is 1000 sqft and you get an inch of rain, you'll need 610 gallons of capacity to capture it all.

So can I use free-standing barrels placed around the property? With so much area getting drenched, I'd like to capture as much of that as possible, not just what comes off the roof of the house and the garage (they're both fully guttered).

Direct the water from the gutters into the containers. Takes a little work to set up the system, but not difficult. Just setting out barrels won't catch enough water.

I realize that barrels, on their own, wouldn't catch much water, but I guess I'm assuming someone else has thought about this and invented some...contraption!...to funnel water into free-standing barrels. :) Actually, something like a giant funnel would work...and it wouldn't be that hard to put together.

yes, the contraption is a roof with a gutter and downspout.

I guess I'm missing something! There are only so many downspouts and so much gutter. Once those are all accounted for, what about the OTHER thousands of square feet of property rain will be falling on?

The other thousands of gallons of water go into the ground and replenish our depleted groundwater water supplies. Unless you have lots of concrete - then it runs down the gutter to the ocean. If you are putting in a new driveway, you can add a slot drain which will take the water running down the driveway to the sides where it can be absorbed into the ground, or go into an underground tank which slowly releases it.

Historically in arid climates, cities were constructed so that every impermeable surface drained to an underground cistern. The roofs would drain to the plaza which would drain to a cisturn. The rain that fell on the bare ground would be slowed down with swales or terraces to infiltrate as much water into the ground as possible to recharge the aquifer. Then they would pull the water from the aquifer out with wells.
These days we tend to just get water off the property as quickly as possible. This makes a lot of sense from a structural standpoint but not a water resources one. You could drain patios and driveways to an underground cistern or if you have a lot of land and some slope, a pond.

But if you had 10,000sqft and wanted to collect all the water that fell on that, the easiest way would be to concrete over the whole area, drain that to a sump, and pump the water into a huge holding tank. Or build a roof over the 10,000sqft that drains to the tank. Then of course you have wind loads to deal with and they are not trivial.

If you wanted to fill a 55 gal drum with an inch of rain, you would need a funnel that was 29 feet in diameter.

edit: ignore the above math it's wrong. You need a funnel with a diameter of 11 feet.

Nil,

Can you show me your calculation? I was working on 0.6 gal per square foot per inch of rainfall.

Each inside corner is draining a roof area of approx 15' x 15' = 233 Sq Ft. So 1 inch of rainfall would give me 139.8 gal of rain into the barrel. Even with loss of wetting my tile roof and splashing, I know I fill the 42 gal barrel with less than an inch of rain.

A 29' funnel is 660 Sq Ft. Radius of 14.5' squared times Pi.

Oh you're right, I used the wrong formula. It would be a funnel 11 feet in diameter.

That's what I get for trying to do math after a long day of work. Lol

I definitely wouldn't want to capture *ALL* the rainwater falling on the property, as I understand about the need for replenishing not only our groundwater tables but also for the immediate watering of my big, mature trees. I'm just thinking that with a 10,000 sq ft property, there's a lot of space to put a few additional barrels. I have this big, basically unused area behind my garage where X number of barrels could sit and do their thing without being an eyesore for me or the neighbors.

BTW, and this is purely a guess, but I think about 2/3 of the property is earth vs some man-made material. Also, my patio and the walkway from it to the driveway slope at, I believe, 9 degrees toward the driveway. The driveway slopes down to the street naturally, following the slope of the property. I could theoretically reroute the runoff from the patio somehow to save it, although it doesn't really get much water of its own during a rain, because it's covered and its cover is also fully guttered.

A 1000 square foot house collecting rainwater from the roof, gathering an estimated 625 gallons for every inch of rain, fills a 10,000 gallon catchment tank with 16 inches of rain. Roof and gutters is the way to go. Rain is the only source of water for a property I have in Hawaii. The water goes through several filters and -ta da!- world's best tasting drinking water. Of course it rains more there, but supposing El Nino brings an exceptional amount of rain in the coming season, you could probably fill that tank to overflowing. Wish I had one here in San Diego.

Oh my goodness...I just had a flashback...it was 30 years ago and I was in my college calculus class... :)

This is just basic math. Calculus was far tougher and was more like 40 years ago for me. However, I do still have a kid that just graduated high school, so I've had to keep up.

Ha! My daughter graduated from college ~20 years ago, so I'm LONG done with helping with math homework. I loved math, though. I even kept all of my college math textbooks. I see them once in a while...and think, "Wow. I'm glad I don't have to do that now!" The brain's not quite as sharp as it used to be, you know?