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Sweetwater Authority-Landscape Makeover-Native Plants-Drought

Native Plants Highlight Sweetwater Landscape Contest Winner

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Chula Vista resident Paul Rodriguez gave up struggling to maintain his thirsty green lawn in favor of a new landscape design featuring California native plants and shrubs. The Sweetwater Authority Board of Directors selected Rodriguez’s makeover as its 2021 Landscape Makeover winner.

The Rodriguez home before its landscaping makeover. Photo: Sweetwater Authority

The Rodriguez home before the landscaping makeover. Photo: Sweetwater Authority

The WaterSmart Landscape Contest is an opportunity for homeowners to showcase landscape designs focusing on beautiful alternatives to traditional turf-oriented designs. Entries in the makeover competition are judged on five qualities:

  • Overall attractiveness
  • Appropriate plant selection
  • Design
  • Appropriate maintenance
  • Efficient irrigation methods

Native plants and a natural habitat

A trail lets visitors stroll through the property. Photo: Sweetwater Authority

A trail lets visitors stroll through the property. Photo: Sweetwater Authority

Rodriguez and his wife participated in a free Water Authority WaterSmart Landscape Makeover Series course. It provided the foundation allowing them to embrace a design replacing the lawn. They also attended several native plant workshops hosted by the San Diego Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. The family were attracted to gardening with native plants due to their low water and no fertilization needs. They also liked the added benefit of creating a natural habitat for pollinators and birds.

Winning entry a pollinator paradise

Milkweed provides food for endangered Monarch butterfly caterpillars. Photo: Sweetwater Authority

Milkweed provides food for endangered Monarch butterfly caterpillars. Photo: Sweetwater Authority

The transformed landscape now includes several manzanitas and large Ceanothus shrubs in the back yard, which reminds Paul Rodriguez of hikes in Mission Trails Regional Park. The front yard adopted a California Coastal Sage scrub garden habitat. It only requires hand watering twice a month during the dry season.

It is a pollinator’s paradise with sages, buckwheats, and verbenas that attract birds and bees. Milkweed provides a food source for endangered Monarch butterflies. Milkweed leaves are the only food monarchs will eat. They also lay eggs on the undersides of the leaves. Striped caterpillars feed on the leaves as they develop.

The new landscaping features native plants. Photo: Sweetwater Authority

The new landscaping features native plants. Photo: Sweetwater Authority

As the winner of the 2021 WaterSmart Landscape Contest, Sweetwater Authority presented the Rodriguez family with a certificate of recognition and gift card as a thank you for setting a waterwise example for other residents.

(Editor’s note: The Sweetwater Authority is one of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across the metropolitan San Diego region.)

Wildfires Threaten Urban Water Supplies, Long After the Flames Are Out

/in , , /by /The New York Timesby Henry Fountain

Wrangling a 25-foot-long tube of straw up a steep hillside studded with charred pine trees, three volunteer workers placed it in a shallow trench that had been dug along the slope.

Locked in place with wooden stakes, the sausage-like tube was part of an effort to avoid a potentially large and long-term problem with the drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people to the east. The tube, with others above and below it, should help prevent the hillside, made unstable last fall by a large wildfire, from choking the water supply with sediment when the thunderstorms known as monsoon rains arrive as expected this summer.

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Valley’s Westside Farmers are Angling for a Water Lifeline. Federal Water Officials Could Cut it Off.

/in , , /by /The Sunby Alex Tavlian

As farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley struggle to irrigate crops and weather an ever-worsening historic drought, a bit of relief could be on the horizon courtesy of farmers in the north Valley.

But it could be all for naught if Federal water managers don’t sign-off.

What’s at stake? A proposed transfer of 100,000 acre-feet of water from the Southern San Joaquin Irrigation District (SSJID) and Oakdale Irrigation District to farmers utilizing water from the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority.

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Tulare County Takes Over East Orosi Water System

/in , , /by /The Sun Gazetteby Ben Irwin

Help may be on the horizon for the about 700 residents of East Orosi dependent on bottled water. The Tulare County Board of Supervisors has directed county staff to begin negotiating the scope of work and a budget with the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water for the county to take control of the East Orosi Community Services District public water system.

Of the thousands of water systems in the state, East Orosi CSD is one of just seven California water systems under a mandatory consolidation order by way of Senate Bill (SB) 88, which enables the state water board to order consolidations for water systems in disadvantaged communities that are consistently out of compliance.

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Helix Water District Logo Square officers for 2021

Helix Water District Announces 2021 WaterSmart Landscape Contest Winner

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Once an unused pool, now a water-wise backyard oasis. Helix Water District announced Rosalie Dosik of Mt. Helix as the winner of its 2021 WaterSmart Landscape Contest. The annual competition recognizes outstanding water-wise residential landscapes based on overall attractiveness, design, efficient irrigation and appropriate plant selection and maintenance.

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Helix Water District Logo Square officers for 2021

Helix Water District Announces 2021 Lake Jennings Spring Photo Contest Winners

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Helix Water District is proud to announce the winners of the 2021 Lake Jennings Spring Photo Contest, with this year’s first place in the adult category going to photographer Johnathan Bradley of Lemon Grove for his image titled Open Field.

Now in its 10th year, the contest drew 61 entries from throughout the county. This year’s theme was Life at the Lake, and each of the entries highlighted the unique beauty of camping, fishing, hiking, spotting wildlife and enjoying the view at Lake Jennings.

 

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Rosalie Dosik-Helix Water District-Landscape Contest-WaterSmart

Unused Pool Transformed into Helix Water District 2021 Landscape Contest Winner

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Mount Helix homeowner Rosalie Dosik turned her unused pool into a waterwise backyard oasis and the winning project in the Helix Water District 2021 WaterSmart Landscape Contest. The annual competition recognizes outstanding water-wise residential landscapes based on overall attractiveness, design, efficient irrigation, and appropriate plant selection and maintenance.

The original backyard with the unused pool. Photo: Helix Water District

The original backyard with the unused pool. Photo: Helix Water District

Dosik’s bright and textured landscape represents years of dedicated passion for gardening and water-efficient plants. The garden features an Asian-fusion theme complete with wooden structures, pathways, rock, and vibrant color. It uses many drought-tolerant plant species well adapted for the San Diego region’s semi-arid region climate.

The transformed backyard with the unused pool filled in. Photo: Helix Water District

The transformed backyard with the unused pool filled in. Photo: Helix Water District

When the Dosiks bought their house in 1997, a large pool filled the backyard. The pool evaporated quickly in the summer and overflowed towards the house during winter rains.

Rosalie Dosik wanted a landscape she could enjoy more than the rarely used pool. So in 2012, Dosik decided to have the pool demolished and filled with decomposed granite. After adding topsoil and completing her landscape design, she now enjoys it daily.

Water Conservation Garden provides inspiration

The garden includes meandering pathways, each offering different scenery and views. Photo: Helix Water District

The garden includes meandering pathways, each offering different scenery, and views. Photo: Helix Water District

Several rock streams flow down the landscape into a gravel rock pond. The gravel area creates negative space, allowing the eye to rest so visitors can better sense and appreciate the landscape. True to its Asian theme, the garden includes meandering pathways, each offering different scenery, and views.

“Now, one can meander through the garden and enjoy the scenery,” said Rosalie Dosik. “There are birds and wildlife galore. The entire backyard is cooler and more serene. I have rabbits who visit each day, and I am even seeing monarch butterflies.”

The Asian-theme garden attracts birds and butterflies. Photo: Helix Water District unused pool

The Asian-theme garden attracts birds and butterflies. Photo: Helix Water District

Rosalie Dosik volunteers as a docent at the Water Conservation Garden. She discovered the garden in 2004 after visiting the adjacent Heritage of the Americas Museum at Cuyamaca College. On Dosik’s many return visits, she wrote down the names of plants she liked and started gardening with them at home.

Efficient irrigation uses gear-driven rotors to apply water to the densely planted areas. Narrow areas and potted plants use drip irrigation. A weather-based irrigation controller automatically adjusts for rain and weather.

The Dosiks enjoy inviting guests over to enjoy their new outdoor space. Photo: Helix Water District

Dosik loves to have her friends over and entertain on the patio, where they can all enjoy the views of the garden.

“You can look left and right and just look at what is flowering,” said Dosik. “Of course, right now, everything is flowering.”

Dosik was recognized as the 2021 landscape contest winner at the Helix Water District’s virtual board meeting on June 23.

(Editor’s note: The Helix Water District is one of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across the metropolitan San Diego region.)

Sewage, Water Rate Hikes Proposed for San Diego City

/in , , /by /KPBS-FM/TVby City News Service Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

San Diego residents and businesses could see their sewage rates rise four years in a row, starting with a 5% hike in January 2022, under a package of proposed water and sewage rate increases that the City Council’s budget committee send to the full council Wednesday.

The council will hold hearings and vote in September on a package that also includes a water rate increase from the San Diego County Water Authority.

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Vista Irrigation District Logo

Vista Irrigation District Adopts 2020 Urban Water Management Plan and Amended Water Supply Response Plan

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Vista, Calif. — Vista Irrigation District Board of Directors adopted its 2020 Urban Water Management Plan (2020 UWMP) and amended its Water Supply Response Plan (WSRP). The 2020 UWMP details the district’s long-term planning efforts to ensure sufficient water supplies to meet existing and future water needs of its customers. The WSRP specifies water use efficiency and water conservation measures to be implemented during water shortage conditions resulting from drought and other emergencies.

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Hydrozones-Conservation Corner-landscaping

Know the Hydrozone Game Rules

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Hydrozones are the different areas of your landscaping where plants with similar irrigation needs are grouped together.  This allows you to apply water as efficiently as possible through rainwater catchment, supplemented by irrigation, while avoiding unnecessary and wasteful overwatering.

Sun exposure, slopes, and plant root depths need to be taken into consideration along with plant water needs. All these characteristics create specific hydrozones. Even when the soil is the same, a full sun area is one hydrozone, full shade areas are another, and mixed exposure areas create yet a third. Shade from buildings or trees can also raise or lower temperatures.

Each irrigation valve should water its own separate hydrozone populated by plants with similar water needs, living conditions, and root depths. Plants with high water needs such as vegetables or lawns need to be grouped into their own hydrozone. Sprinklers or emitters on this zone shouldn’t overwater anything else.

Don’t overdo it with your irrigation

Inspect your sprinkler heads regularly to make sure they are not obstructed or watering onto pavement or other hardscapes. Photo: Irrigation Association

Inspect your sprinkler heads regularly to make sure they are not obstructed or watering onto the pavement or other hardscapes. Photo: Irrigation Association

Each hydrozone must be able to handle enough water volume for every emitter to work properly. Hydrozones should have individual sprinklers or emitters delivering only the required amount of water, spaced out so every plant in the hydrozone receives an equal and accurate amount. If two sprinklers cross over one another, plants receiving water from both will receive more water than needed. In this example, sprinklers should be turned away from each other, or be reset farther apart. Professional landscapers call this “matched precipitation.” 

This article is part of a year-long series inspired by the 71-page Sustainable Landscapes Program guidebook available at SustainableLandscapesSD.org. The Water Authority and its partners also offer other great resources for landscaping upgrades, including free WaterSmart classes at WaterSmartSD.org.