COUNTYWIDE : Contest Cites Gardens That Save Water

Drought-resistant landscapes do not have to be dominated by cactus and rocks if the more than 50 entries in Ventura County’s Water-Efficient Landscape Contest are any indication.

Almost all the gardens nominated in the just-completed event were “lush, attractive and colorful,” said Lorraine Timmons, water conservation assistant for the county’s Water Conservation Program.

The contest was created “to emphasize that we need water-efficient landscaping, given our semiarid environment, and that the landscaping doesn’t have to look desert-like” to accomplish this, Timmons said.

As an example, Timmons, who coordinated the contest, pointed to the year-old home of Ken and Pixie Belch of Ojai. The property on South La Luna Avenue won first place in the residential tract home landscape division.

The Belches’ most water-stingy plant is probably the lippia, a thick, attractive ground cover with tiny white and purple flowers, Timmons said. Instead of a thirsty lawn, lippias, which flourish in the desert, decorate the entire front of the property.

Other drought-resistant plants in the garden include two Australian natives--red flowers called kangaroo paws and 30-foot trees called melaleuca leucadendra , which are related to the eucalyptus.

There are also alstroemerias --South American native flowers with pink-purple blooms--and anisodontas , bushy plants with heart-shaped leaves and small brown blossoms.

“It’s not only beautiful, it’s also easy to maintain,” Pixie Belch said.

The Belches’ landscaping was designed by Martin Fletcher, a Santa Barbara landscape architect, and Mae Barnett, a vice president of Bay Colonies, a Santa Barbara company that developed five homes in the Ojai neighborhood.

In another water-saving move, Bay Colonies also installed low-flow sprinkler heads and a drip irrigation system.

Fletcher and Barnett will be honored with other contest winners at the California Landscape Contractors Assn.’s Beautification Awards Banquet on Friday at the Oxnard Lobster Trap Restaurant.

Other first-place division winners include William Worthington of Camarillo, residential custom home landscape and best use of native plant materials; Sam Williamson, superintendent, Ojai Valley Inn and Country Club Golf Course, large turf area; Imre and Lisa Rozsa of Ojai, hillside planting in a native oak setting.

In other categories, first-prize winners include Mary Strum of Ventura, creative use of hardscape; the Casitas Municipal Water District, water conservation demonstration garden, and Beada Gamulski of Ojai, best use of cactus in a commercial landscape.