A lush green lawn has long been a symbol of the perfect American home. But as a prolonged drought reshapes life in California, many residents are rethinking what a beautiful yard should look like.
In Los Angeles, which imposed sweeping restrictions on outdoor water use this year, thirsty lawns are out – and California native plants are in.
The hottest days this summer pushed California’s power grid to its limit. People were asked multiple days to conserve energy to avoid rolling blackouts.
In 2016, the City of San Francisco was the first American municipality to ban the sales of water that comes in plastic bottles. At the time it was called a bold move that was building on a global movement to reduce the huge amount of waste from the billion-dollar plastic bottle industry.
South Lake Tahoe was an early adopter of the single-use plastic bag ban, as well as bans of single-use plastic, styrene, and straws.
If you’re looking to upgrade your landscape or just love gardens, it can be challenging to choose the right plant that will thrive within your WaterSmart Living landscape plans for your specific conditions.
The online plant finder WaterSmart Landscaping in San Diego County can assist you through a comprehensive database of choices well suited to this region’s Mediterranean climate.
Pollinators and birds are attracted to native plants like this Stonecrop (Crassulae). Photo: City of Escondido
This interactive gardening tool has thousands of pictures of plants and garden designs. Take visual tours of beautiful, water-efficient landscapes through photographs that include hotlinks to plant information screens.
Photos are organized by landscape category to make them easy to find. Explore galleries of ideas for back yards, front yards, hillsides, patios, planters, and other outdoor living areas.
If you’re simply looking at plants, the online guide offers more than 1,000 plants and search tools that make plants easy to find.
Beach strawberry makes an attractive lawn substitute. Photo: Flickr
Most native Southern California plants do well in hotter temperatures, so summer plant care is easy with a little planning. Photo: Annie Spratt/Pixabay
Click through the navigation bar to see the lists and available resources.
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(Editor’s Note: The San Diego County Water Authority and its 24 member agencies offer programs, resources, and incentives to improve water-use efficiency for residential, commercial, and agricultural users. WaterSmart choices are a way of life in the region. Stay WaterSmart San Diego! For more water-use efficiency resources, go to WaterSmart.SD.org.)
A controversial Southern California water pipeline project has hit another snag, with a federal judge’s ruling that allows the Bureau of Land Management to withdraw key approvals granted during the Trump administration.
As the unprecedented drought continues to affect California and the San Diego region, homeowners can still balance the need to conserve water as efficiently as possible while preserving valuable landscaping, including trees.
“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need,” Rolling Stones (1969, Let It Bleed album)
The ongoing California drought has many lessons for water managers and policy-makers. Perhaps the greatest lesson is how unimportant a drought can be if we manage water well.
Rules for thee but not for me?
Residents across the state including those in San Diego County are being urged to reduce their water use in response to a protracted drought, but some big celebrity names are being called out for allegedly not doing their share.
Chula Vista, Calif. – The new Water Efficiency Partner Program recently launched by Sweetwater Authority (Authority) aims at helping businesses save money by assisting them to reduce their water use.
Through the program, businesses gain access to a free water use audit and personalized recommendations. Businesses are also offered exclusive incentives to help offset the costs of installing new water-efficient fixtures.
Aug. 16, 2022 – Sandra L. Kerl, general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority, issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s 24-month projection for water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
“Today’s announcement by the Bureau of Reclamation is a reminder of just how important it is to increase water conservation across San Diego County and the rest of the arid West. An increasingly hot and dry climate is creating unprecedented challenges for water supplies that will impact life in the Southwest for the foreseeable future.
“The San Diego County Water Authority continues to participate in discussions about the future of the Colorado River. We also continue to highlight the value of the conserved water transfer agreement between the Water Authority and the Imperial Irrigation District, the cornerstone of the landmark Quantification Settlement Agreement, or QSA, negotiated in 2003, as well as our investments in concrete lining sections of the All-American and Coachella Canals to conserve water previously lost to seepage. Through the QSA, the Water Authority funds critical conservation efforts in the Imperial Valley that provide the San Diego County region 277,700 acre-feet of highly reliable, cost-effective conserved water supplies each year. Further, the QSA enables California to live within its historic 4.4-million-acre-foot annual Colorado River apportionment while providing a roadmap for current efforts to balance the complex economic, agriculture, environmental, most notably the Salton Sea, and water-use needs in the Colorado River Basin.
“The Water Authority has not been asked to make any voluntary reductions to Colorado River water supplied by IID under Reclamation’s call for additional basin-wide conservation. If cuts were deemed mandatory to IID through an official Secretarial declared shortage to Priority 3 water in California, the Water Authority would take a pro-rata reduction of its IID transfer supplies.
“Investments by San Diego County residents in other water sources and storage facilities will continue to shield the region from the worst effects of the drought. At the same time, the potential for mandated water-use reductions should inspire every San Diegan to decrease their water use, for instance, by taking shorter showers, reducing irrigation of decorative grass, and upgrading to efficient appliances.”
— Sandra L. Kerl, General Manager, San Diego County Water Authority
Sweetwater Authority Logo 2019