Encinitas, Calif. — Olivenhain Municipal Water District invites the public to attend a free virtual workshop on landscaping with native plants on October 14, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. The workshop is designed for individuals who are interested in incorporating native plants in their gardens to increase water efficiency and support local ecology.
When you’re beginning a sustainable landscaping project, it can be challenging to remember all the things you need to research, measure, and decide along the way. But it’s not a good idea to overlook these details. They all contribute to the success of your new sustainable landscaping project.
WaterSmart San Diego’s Sustainable Landscaping Guide has a helpful Project Checklist to help guide your effort, allows you to stay on track, and make good decisions to achieve your goals.
This beautiful landscape makeover winner from the 2021 Otay Water District content can help guide your own efforts. Photo: Otay Water District
Taking the steps you need to prepare your property.
Making all your plans before you start digging.
Choosing your plant palate and creating your plant design.
Beginning your project installation including your new plants.
Updating and adjusting your new irrigation system
Establishing and stewarding your new landscaping.
And most of all, taking time to admire and enjoy your new yard. You’ve worked hard to accomplish your goals and should celebrate your success.
Instructional videos on demand are available on the WaterSmartSD website. The example below explains how to shape your space.
Many home landscapers also return for refresher sessions by returning to WaterSmart Landscape Makeover classes. You can also consult local gardening organizations for help, or visit the Water Conservation Garden in El Cajon for inspiration, like many of the winners in annual regional landscape makeover contests.
The Water Conservation Garden in El Cajon can help provide inspiration and advice for your landscaping plans. Photo: Water Conservation Garden
This article is part of a year-long series inspired by the 71-page Sustainable Landscapes Program guidebook. The Water Authority and its partners also offer other great resources for landscaping upgrades, including free WaterSmart classes at WaterSmartSD.org.
Three homeowners in the Vista Irrigation District won recognition recently from the VID board of directors in its 2021 WaterSmart Landscape Contest.
The annual contest recognizes outstanding water-wise residential landscapes based on overall attractiveness, appropriate plant selection, design, appropriate maintenance, and efficient irrigation methods.
It takes time to learn about the concepts behind the watershed approach to creating a healthy and sustainable landscape. Once you have these concepts mastered, the most important step of all comes next. Consider the goals you want to achieve in your garden for landscaping success.
It might be difficult to know where to start. Many people accept an ocean of green but thirsty lawn and never give much thought to landscaping goals. Consider one of these worthy objectives.
Most native Southern California plants do well in hotter temperatures, so summer plant care is easy with a little planning. Photo: Annie Spratt/Pixabay
Well designed and operated irrigation systems can reliably deliver the water your landscaping needs without waste or excess. Photo: AxxLC/Pixabay
Building healthy living soil that will act like a sponge, even if it rains a lot
Capturing all the rainwater from the roof and re-routing downspouts to fill rain barrels instead of running onto hardscaping
Converting spray irrigation to micro or drip irrigation, with the intention of turning it off after establishing your waterwise landscaping
Making pathways and driveways more permeable
San Marcos resident Jeff Moore’s landscape makeover including artistic touches won recognition in the 2018 Landscape Makeover Contest. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority
Making room for a small patio with room for an outdoor table or seating
Adding pathways, Zen gardens, and interesting materials and patterns
Integrating beautiful objects such as an art piece, interesting container collection, or items like sundials
One goal we can all support: creating a beautiful sustainable landscape that reduces your water use by 70 percent or more. We can all agree on this definition of landscaping success no matter your individual goals.
This article is part of a year-long series inspired by the 71-page Sustainable Landscapes Program guidebook. The Water Authority and its partners also offer other great resources for landscaping upgrades, including free WaterSmart classes at WaterSmartSD.org.
Frank Edward’s Santee home is bursting with bright colors and textures. Vibrant yellow, orange, red, green, and purple flowers, and drought-tolerant, native plants spring to life where there was once just dry and patchy grass.
“It was a lot of hard work but it was also a lot of fun,” said Edward. “It was great to see all of my labor come to fruition.”
The transformation from high maintenance lawn to vibrant design is the winner of the 2021 Padre Dam Municipal Water District Landscape Makeover Contest.
As California experiences another drought cycle, homeowners in the San Diego region continue to makeover their landscapes with native plants that need less water. An Escondido couple recently transformed their landscape to save water and won the City of Escondido Landscape Makeover Contest too.
Escondido homeowners Michael and Teresa Everett first learned about the 2021 Escondido Landscape Makeover Contest from Escondido family-owned El Pantio Nursery. It was the motivation they needed to makeover their landscaping with native plants.
As California experiences another drought cycle, homeowners in the San Diego region continue to makeover their landscapes with native plants that need less water. An Escondido couple recently transformed their landscape to save water and won the City of Escondido Landscape Makeover Contest too.
Escondido homeowners Michael and Teresa Everett first learned about the 2021 Escondido Landscape Makeover Contest from Escondido family-owned El Pantio Nursery. It was the motivation they needed to makeover their landscaping with native plants.
“As concerned Californians, we wanted to do our part to lessen our impact on San Diego county’s water resources,” said Teresa Everett. “We decided to switch to a waterwise landscape using all California native plants. Landscaping with native plants can reduce water usage by 60% or more. There is also a reduction in one’s carbon footprint as there is no need for mowing or trimming lawns.”
The Everett home before their landscaping makeover. Photo: Courtesy Michael and Teresa Everett
The new garden provides habitat for native insects, birds, animals, and people too. Photo: City of Escondido
The Everetts also reduced yard waste and the need for soil additives since California native plants are adapted to the lean clay soil in San Diego County.
While the environmental reasons were compelling, the Everetts also wanted to create a habitat garden that was both beautiful and supported the local ecosystem.
“California is in the top 25 most bio-diverse areas in the world,” the couple pointed out. “Our housing developments have crowded out native plants. Native plants have evolved to provide exactly the right food in exactly the right package to attract and feed the animals that are unique to our California environment.”
The Everetts’ landscaping shows how to create a lush yard and be waterwise. Photo: City of Escondido
The Everetts planted native trees, including Coastal live oak, Western sycamore, Western redbud, and Palo Verde Desert Museum. They added shrubs, including manzanitas, ceanothus, Mexican elderberry, salvias, desert mallow, and wooly bluecurls. California fuchsias, San Diego sunflowers, and Pacific irises add color. Grasses and vines round out the landscape palette.
“Ever since we re-landscaped, we have observed a huge increase in birds, lizards, butterflies, and other pollinators in our yard. Waterwise native gardens are also extremely beautiful,” said the couple.
Salvias and poppies provide color in the landscaping plan. Photo: City of Escondido
After the makeover, the Everetts rarely need to irrigate their landscape between late fall and late spring. During drier months, the landscape is irrigated twice monthly. The homeowners also maintain a vegetable and herb garden using rainwater collected in two rain barrels with 260-gallon capacity and by hand when necessary.
“We now spend many hours relaxing and bird watching in our yard,” said the Everetts. “Our outdoor space is now a much more enriching experience that gives us a greater sense of our connection to nature and a sense of place.”
The landscaping plan includes features like this dry riverbed. Photo: City of Escondido
“By re-landscaping our small property, we hope to take one small step in restoring San Diego county’s rich biodiversity. Sharing the successes of our garden with others will hopefully encourage other homeowners to convert their gardens to water and habitat smart landscapes.”
Find tips on how to create a WaterSmart home and garden, including details on rebates: www.watersmartsd.org/
(Editor’s note: The City of Escondido is one of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across the metropolitan San Diego region.)
El Cajon homeowner Christine Laframboise’s water-saving landscape design trading turf for a less thirsty approach was named the Otay Water District’s 2021 WaterSmart Landscape Contest winner.
The annual contest is held by water agencies throughout San Diego County to award one resident from their respective service area for their water-saving landscape. Otay selected Laframboise for her well-thought-out design, plant selection, maintenance, and methods for efficient irrigation.
Plants growing wild naturally arrange themselves into communities with other plant varieties based on their shared characteristics such as water and nutrient needs. This natural selection extends to interactions with each other, and with other species such as insects, birds, and other animals.
Plants growing wild naturally arrange themselves into communities with other plant varieties based on their shared characteristics such as water and nutrient needs. This natural selection extends to interactions with each other, and with other species such as insects, birds, and other animals.
As a result, we see the same plant communities occurring repeatedly in natural landscapes under similar conditions.
Local native plant communities evolve together over a long period of time. These plants work together to compete for nutrients, sunlight, and other resources. They flourish together, to the point of “rejecting” non-native plant varieties attempting to establish themselves. While non-native plants may be equally adapted as native plants to the climate conditions of a particular area, they are at a disadvantage.
By learning about the San Diego region’s native plant communities, and selecting plants that like to live together in communities for sustainable landscaping, homeowners can take advantage of these strengths and the resulting hardiness.
Perennial flowers outnumber the native grass species in California coastal prairies. Photo: Lloyd Waters / Pixabay
California’s coastal prairies are North America’s most diverse grasslands. Perennial flowers outnumber the native grass species. Plants include: California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica), Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium), Fern Leaf Yarrow (Achillea ‘Moonshine’), Seaside Daisy (Erigeron glaucus), and Cliff Buckwheat (Eriogonum parvifolium).
Fire-adapted, drought deciduous plants flourish in California coastal sage scrub. Photo: Couleur/Pixabay
Fire-adapted, drought-deciduous plants flourish in California coastal sage scrub. This habitat is rapidly disappearing due to urbanization in southern California. Fortunately, some areas, including the San Diego Safari Park Biodiversity Reserve, have been conserved. Plants include Grey Musk Sage (Salvia Pozo Blue), Sticky Monkeyflower (Diplacus aurantiaus), San Diego Sage (Salvia munzia), Fuschia Gooseberry (Ribes speciosum), and Woolly Bluecurls (Trichostema lanatum).
California chaparral is adapted to heat and dust. Photo: Kim R. Hunter / Pixabay
Chaparral exists in many coastal ranges and on the western and eastern slopes of the southern California mountains. It is ‘hard’ brush that doesn’t rely as much on summer fog drip that the Coastal Sage Scrub does, and it is adapted to heat and drought. Plants include Desert Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua), Bent Grass (Agorstis pailens), San Diego Mountain Mahogany (Cercocarpus minutiflorus), Bush Poppy (Dendromeconi riguda), and Clumping Wild Rye (Leymus condensatus).
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.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
