There Oughta Be a Lawn : While Some Have Switched to Gravel and Ground Covers, Others Can Make a Pretty Good Case for Grass

THE PICTURE being painted for the future is not a pleasant one: dry, sand-colored lawns, prickly underfoot, dead from lack of water. Is this, as some experts believe, the inevitable fate of lawns in Southern California?

During this fourth year of drought, with reservoirs drying up throughout the state, it is crucial to cut back on the use of water. Lawns, considered by many to be the thirstiest element in a garden, certainly seem the logical place to start.

“It’s pretty hard to justify that big slab of green when you run out of water,” says Santa Barbara nurseryman Ray Sodomka. “The lawn is an easy sacrifice, compared to trees and shrubs--or taking a shower.”

Sodomka should know; his lawn has been brown for months. In Santa Barbara--where special pumps are being installed in the reservoirs to suck water from the very bottoms--lawns are as dry and crisp as native grasses. Those who tried to keep their lawns alive in early summer found in their mailboxes water bills for as much as $500, just one penalty for wasteful water use.

So far, in Southern California, Santa Barbara’s case is unique. But many people believe it’s a preview of California’s future: To save precious water, some say, Californians will simply have to get rid of their lawns. Incredible suggestions are being made as water-saving alternatives. Some seem ridiculous, such as filling entire front yards with artificial plants and dyeing lawns green. Others sound sublime, such as replacing water-needy plants with Mediterranean and California natives that can survive almost entirely on natural rainfall. There is talk among city and county officials not only of limits on how much area around a home can be planted with turf and of “official” plant lists that would mandate which plants can and cannot be grown, but of outright bans on lawns.

Although only Santa Barbara has banned the watering of lawns, other areas have come up with incentives for cutting back of the amount of lawn in a yard. The North Marin County Water District, for instance, offers rebates of as much as $300 to those who limit their new lawns to 800 square feet or who tear up their existing lawns and plant ground covers, or any other plant for that matter, in their place.

Not everyone believes that dooming the lawn--our symbol of suburbia and the good life--will solve the water shortage or help the environment. “Whenever there is a problem, people are told to kill their lawns,” says Beth Rogers, of Pacific Sod, who is involved in the newly formed Green Industries Council, a group representing nurseries, landscape contractors and designers. “We had a federal water officer in Northern California say that the sign of a good citizen is a dead lawn. Are lawns and gardens that unimportant?”

California’s estimated 1.38 million acres of lawn are thought to use the bulk of the water applied to the landscape. Studies done by the North Marin County Water District indicate that, at least in that region, lawns soak up about 90% of all water used outdoors in suburban areas. But researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have given us a new, and more complete, water-use breakdown for the entire state: Almost 80% of the water in California is used for agriculture, 12% by homes and industries and an additional 4% for landscapes--which sounds like a drop in the bucket. In fact, Rogers and other lawn defenders consider this an inequitable distribution of water in a state that is rapidly becoming more urban than it is agricultural. “We need to protect the garden as a priority water use,” says Rogers. “Plants are one of the few things that mitigate the urban environment. We don’t live in a pristine natural environment but in an asphalt jungle. Plants are one of the few things that make it habitable; they cool and clean our air, hold down dust and runoff, and,” she adds, “grass does these things better than most plants.”

Victor A. Gibeault, University of California Cooperative Extension environmental horticulturist at UC Riverside and an authority on turf grasses in Southern California, agrees. In an as-yet-unpublished report on California turf grass, he writes: “Turf grasses directly influence our immediate environment in many positive ways. Actively growing turf grasses have been shown to reduce high summer surface temperatures because of transpirational cooling. Turf grasses, often with trees, shrubs and ground covers, reduce discomforting glare and traffic noise and increase infiltration of water in the soil and the water quality.”

The actual amount of water that lawns require is also debatable--not all grasses are created equal. “A lot of the information about lawns is not based on fact,” says Gibeault. “Ten years ago we had no facts. Now we have some, and they show that, in Southern California at least, lawns may not use all that much more water than other commonly used plants.”

The research he is talking about, carried out at the Southcoast Field Test Station in Irvine, shows that some lawn grasses can get by on as little water as can Australian saltbush, a plant whose very name suggests its ability to survive in hostile environments. Common Bermuda grass and the hybrid Bermuda named ‘Santa Ana’ actually outperformed tough ground covers such as various saltbushes, yarrow (frequently suggested as a drought-resistant substitute for turf) and the rangy O’Connor’s legume (a cultivated clover).

Unfortunately, many lawns in Southern California are planted with cool-season grasses such as bluegrass and ryegrass. With shallow roots and almost unquenchable thirsts, these are not tough or drought resistant. They do not spread, and they do most of their growing in winter and spring. Keeping them happy during the California summer is nearly impossible.

Gibeault champions warm-season grasses, which grow in the summer and may be dormant in winter. Bermuda grass, sometimes called “devil grass” because it’s so invasive, is the most common, spreading above ground by ever-growing stems and underground by far-reaching roots. It is precisely this aggressive behavior that makes warm-season-grass lawns tough, and they are naturally drought-resistant--their roots are strong and deep, their blades narrow and water-conserving.

“With the warm-season grasses there’s an automatic water savings of 20%. Plus these grasses can tolerate periods of drought,” says Mike Henry, director of the Orange County office of Cooperative Extension. “You can reduce the amount of water to a level where they compare with all but the most drought-resistant plants.”

It takes about 38 inches of irrigation or rain to keep bluegrass alive. Research shows that only 18 inches of applied irrigation is necessary each year to keep warm-season grasses looking their best, but to be only reasonably green, they can survive on a mere six inches of irrigation for the whole year. These tests show that warm-season grasses can survive minimal watering and temporary drought.

“Nobody is addressing the issue: Does it really take more water to keep a lawn a moderately green, dense cover than it does to keep some of the alternatives being suggested alive?” Henry says. “So far, our tests say no.”

Henry and others have found that warm-season grasses are in the same water-use ballpark as citrus and deciduous fruit trees and most ground covers.

“It’s not true that lawns are using all the water in the garden and that ground covers use 80% less. They’re actually quite close. The implication is that you can save a lot of water if you tear out your lawn, but to tear out a Bermuda-grass lawn and replant it with gazanias is a waste of time and will not save water,” Henry says. “I’m not an advocate of wall-to-wall turf grass, but people should make a decision based on facts before they develop a garden that is lawn, coyote brush or pansies.”

But it is not Bermuda-grass lawns or the tough new university-developed zoysia grass that people are planting. The current favorite is tall fescue, a cool-season grass that uses quite a bit of water but looks very good. Sold under a variety of brand names, such as Marathon, tall fescues were unheard of 10 years ago but today account for 80% of all sod sales. Homeowners have taken to tall fescues not only because they look more like Eastern lawn grasses and do not go dormant in winter but also because they’ve heard that tall fescues are deep-rooted and drought-resistant. Which they are, up to a point.

“They have a better range of drought tolerance and can survive the missed watering,” says Mike Henry. “But they can’t survive on 10 inches of water a year like the warm-season grasses.”

In most cases, these new tall-fescue lawns look better simply because they are new, and owners, careful of their investment, are watering them more often. It’s quite easy to keep a new lawn looking good for three, five, even 10 years, but then the soil becomes compacted, thatch (dead grass and runners) begins to build up, water begins to run off, and fertility drops. At that point, no amount of water is going to make it look good. A lawn of redone Bermuda grass or of newly planted warm-season grass would look as good as a new tall-fescue lawn but would require less water.

One thing all experts agree on is that midsummer is not the time to make radical changeovers. If you are thinking of uprooting your lawn, or a portion of it, wait until the cooler weather in the fall, when new plants need less frequent watering to become established. Otherwise, you use more water beginning a new garden than you would maintaining an established one.

Even without threats from city governments, some gardeners have already said their farewells to front lawns, the least used of lawns. “I got sick and tired of pushing a lawn mower for almost 80 years,” says Robert A. Mitchell of Los Angeles, who tore out an aging Bermuda-grass lawn and replaced it with various succulents and ground covers, including gazanias and red-apple ice plant, and shrubs. “All that mowing, edging, fertilizing and weeding got to me. But I finally did it because I think it’s important to save water. I think lawns are passe now.” His new ground covers are irrigated (with the old lawn sprinklers) only once every two weeks; the lawn was watered two or three times a week.

A few blocks away, Michael Dula and Alison Sowden deep-sixed their lawn because “no matter how much we watered our lawn, it was never enough--it never looked good,” Dula says. Rather than redo the lawn and its rusty sprinkler system, they planted an attractive collection of drought-resistant ground covers, perennials and shrubs. “It started out as an ecological thing but turned into a hobby,” says Dula, who, with his wife, is now tackling the back yard. Now they water every three to four weeks and are convinced that the new plantings are “definitely a lot less work and more fun.”

A lot of gardeners can sympathize with the Dulas--very few Southern California lawns look all that good. Cooperative Extension researchers found that there is about three times as much lawn in the Southern California as there should be, considering the amount of water used. In other words, most people already are underwatering their lawns.

If this doesn’t sound right, it could be because lawns in Southern California range from lush green expanses (watered every day with automatic systems) in Beverly Hills to the half-dead patches in most neighborhoods. The vast difference among climates in California also affects how much water it takes to keep a lawn healthy--obviously lawns in Pacific Palisades require less than lawns in Pomona.

Even with all the bad publicity lawns have gotten in the past few years, lawnless yards are still the exception to the rule, which seems to be “lots of lawn and birch trees,” according to Thousand Oaks landscape architect Ken Smith. The person who literally wrote the book on water conservation for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (“40 Ways to Save Water in Your Yard and Garden”), Smith designs dozens of gardens every year. Still he has found precious few customers for his water-conscious ideas. “Someone finally asked me to do a garden with no lawn. They wanted unusual, drought-resistant plants instead. It was real exciting,” Smith says. “But most clients still want a more traditional garden.”

It’s true that a broad sweep of lawn defines a “traditional” garden. Developers know this, which is why some of the most expansive lawn installations can be found in or around new subdivisions and commercial developments. In the rapidly growing “new” communities from Lancaster to Temecula, bright green sod is as prominent as banners and flags on opening day. “People want a landscape now, and sod is an instant solution,” explains Smith. “And it does have a lot going for it--you can walk on it almost immediately, it stops erosion, holds down dust, prevents weeds, and it is easy and inexpensive to install and maintain.” Unfortunately, most of the new sod around developments is the tall fescue, not the warm-season grasses; sprinklers run endlessly and water pours down the streets.

But even among developers, there are signs of change. Bob Reed convinced his partners to try a lawnless garden in front of one new house in their Riverside County tract. “It wasn’t easy. All they could think of was cactus and gravel,” says Reed. Landscape designer John DeForest did use cactus, and gravel, but also all kinds of other plants that make the front a fascinating tapestry. “It sure looks better than a lawn to my eyes,” says Reed.

It isn’t just new condo complexes and trendy tracts that commit lawn abuse. Lisa Iwata, a San Clemente landscape architect and one of the organizers of the annual Southern California Xeriscape Conference, points to lawns that serve no purpose as water-wasters--those around industrial buildings with “Keep Off the Grass” signs and lawns in median strips of boulevards. These she calls “silly lawns” that should definitely be gotten rid of.

Many homeowners have their own strips of “silly lawn”--the parkway planting between street and sidewalk. Little, narrow strips of lawn like this have been outlawed in North Marin County because they are impossible to water efficiently. Most city ordinances, however, require that these parkways be grass because any other plant would get in the way of an opening car door.

Randall Ismay, primary consultant for Landscape and Water Management Consultants in Los Angeles and Laguna Niguel and a strong proponent of xeriscape, concurs with Iwata on silly lawns: “What the heck is a lawn doing in the middle of the street? Nobody can even walk on it. That’s misusing it.”

Xeriscape, a term coined by the Denver Water Department in 1980, means water conservation through creative landscaping. Says Iwata, “Water-saving gardens require more careful thought and planning and initially are more expensive to install, but they pay off down the road.” Iwata sees xeriscaping as a sensible, and necessary, next step for California gardens. “Many think xeriscape means you have to get rid of lawns,” says Ismay. “Wrong. Xeriscape does not mean no more turf; it means we stop abusing and misusing it. Grass is not appropriate in the middle of the street. But it certainly is appropriate in parks and in play areas--you can’t ask your kids to go play on the coyote brush.” That tough, drought-resistant, shrubby ground cover would provide an uncomfortable play area indeed.

Iwata, in fact, is waiting for autumn’s cooler weather to plant a small lawn in her own garden so that her 3-year-old has a place to play. Like most of the gardens she designs, her own garden is mostly landscaped with native and other drought-resistant plants.

“A lot of people think that xeriscape means ‘zeroscape,’ ” she says. “But that’s not the idea at all. In my garden I have all the plants people think they are going to have to give up--from azaleas to violets, and, in a few months, a lawn. But as a whole, the garden uses very little water.”

“The ideal xeriscape,” Ismay says, “and what we strive for, would use three times as many plants while also using less water. The idea is to plant more greenery, not less.”

Most of those advocating xeriscapes do see lawns as part of the landscape picture--if planted wisely and less frequently.

A key step in solving the lawn-and-water problem is to fine-tune watering and irrigation systems. People who water concrete and allow runoff to rush down the gutter give lawns a bad name-- concreto no crese (“concrete doesn’t grow” in Spanish). “Accuracy is the new word in irrigation,” says Iwata. “It’s extremely important to put the right amount in the right place,” she says. And help is on the way. There are new sprinklers that spray water in a flatter arc, so less is scattered to the wind, and that apply it at a lower rate so it can sink in and not run off. New automatic timers work in on/off cycles that also give the ground time to absorb the water.

Lawn-placement planning can help, too. “It makes no sense to plant lawns in narrow areas or on hillsides where it cannot be watered efficiently,” says Rogers.

Efficient watering is well on its way to becoming a science in Southern California. Using new calculations, experts can, for the first time, tell us how long to water as well.

By measuring evapotranspiration (ET) rates--how much water a plant loses to the atmosphere during any given period of time--you can gauge more accurately how much, and how often, the plant should be watered. The San Bernardino County office of the Cooperative Extension has recently published “The Easy Guide to Lawn Watering,” which makes ET use easy. The booklet uses what’s called “historical ET”--the average month-by-month ET rate for a specific area over the past 15 years. This information is gathered by California Irrigation Management Information System (CIMIS), a statewide system that monitors ET. CIMIS was developed for agriculture, but large urban turf users, such as golf courses and parks, are beginning to use it as well. Although home gardeners can work only with averages (golf courses and large turf installations can actually figure out each day’s ET rate), they can still water their lawns more efficiently. Not all counties have this information available yet; telephone your county’s Cooperative Extension office.

It is crucial that we begin taking personal, well-informed water-saving steps. In an April Los Angeles Times article, Carl Boronkay, the general manager of the giant Metropolitan Water District, said, “This drought is focusing attention on the fact that things will be different from now on.” Since the MWD will be supplying most of Southern California with its water, those are words to be heeded.

A few good rainy years may postpone any enforced change in lawns and gardens, but regulations seem inevitable. It is possible that there will be a vast public outcry, that people will decide that lawns are worth the water they consume. They also might demand that the state change the way the water pie is divided among agriculture and urban areas.

But it is even more likely that before anybody notices, and before all the facts are in, cities will pass ordinances that tell us what we can and cannot do in our gardens. “Already, they are planning ordinances all over the place telling you what you can and can’t plant,” Iwata says. “It’s very scary.”

“When regulation by government extends to your own back yard,” adds Ken Smith, “that’s the last straw. Imagine the bureaucrats you will have to deal with to get permits to do anything in your garden.”

Most people involved with gardening and horticulture hope that we will steer the middle course--that there will be less lawn in the near future but not no lawns--and they hope that other plants will replace our much-loved grass. The worst-case scenario, however, is that when confronted with water restrictions, most people will take the easy way out and replace living landscape with pavement or gravel, which will add nothing to the urban environment. (In fact, this is exactly what’s happened, with disastrous results, in true desert cities such as Phoenix.)

Better gardeners will most likely discover all the new drought-resistant plants being introduced at nurseries, and convert more of their gardens to non-turf areas. What lawn remains will be more efficiently irrigated and will probably look a lot better.

“I expect to see the end of the lawn as we know it,” Iwata says. “Lawns will be smaller, more useful.”

“We will have to adjust our expectations,” Ismay adds. “Gardens are going to be different. Not better, not worse, just different.”