Letter: It’s possible: less water, more beauty

La Cañada Valley Beautiful, which presents monthly awards to outstanding gardens, will continue to encourage our community to landscape yards wisely, preserving our trees as we all work together to cut back on water use. As we all transition during our acute drought, our landscape awards will reflect this trend. We believe landscaping can be lush and beautiful using more drought-tolerant plants.

We have been working with the Foothill Municipal Water District and other experts in our community to help educate ourselves and others in ways to transition away from thirsty lawns. Last month we commissioned the production of more prestigious Green Award signs. We will be able to recognize more Green Award-winning homes because increasing numbers of our La Cañada neighbors are planting drought-tolerant yards. Hooray for all of you who do!

For you who are transitioning your gardens and grounds so they use less water, check out the La Cañada Library Demonstration Garden. We planted it 10 years ago. Visit the library any time and you can see labeled plants that are compatible with our weather conditions. In addition to the library gardens, visit our low-water installations at Lanterman Auditorium and at the trail head on Foothill Boulevard next to St. Bede Church.

We are working on a website that will be up and operating soon. We hope the website will be an important resource for our community as we all work together to make La Cañada even more beautiful with less water.

Linda Fults and Carolyn Hanna

La Cañada Flintridge

The writers are members of the board of La Cañada Valley Beautiful.