Random Stuff

[Tom22]

http://www.dailynews.com/environment-and...r-district

Yanni...are you ripping up your lawn?

I've started a "donate a gallon of water" campaign for all our LA Haliens in need.

If we all contribute...well, you can probably save a patch of grass the size of a Monopoly board...which is just enough to massage your feet!

Haley Reinhart inspiring others to action!

I haven't ripped out the lawn yet Buzz. It is a possibility though.

As it stands now, we are required to cut our water usage by at least 25%
from what we used in 2013. Lawn watering is currently allowed 3 days a week, for no more than 8 minutes, although they are considering lowering that to 2 days a week. They recommend only washing your car at a car wash, but you are still allowed to wash your car at home if you have a shutoff nozzle on the hose. Also, they are considering requiring all homeowners with pools to use a pool cover to help prevent evaporation.

I did manage to reduce my usage by around 30%. To achieve that, I decided to retire the jacuzzi, and also I let the lawn on the side-yard die out. I do still water the front lawn twice a week. We're in our cloudy/overcast time of the year right now (May Gray and June Gloom), so that has helped also.

My water and power provider is the DWP, and the rebates they are offering for lawn removal are pretty high right now, $3.75 a square foot. There are companies that will come rip out your lawn and landscape it with rock and drought resistant plants at no charge, all you have to do is sign over the rebate to them. A few of my neighbors have done it, and the results look pretty weak. I would be better off doing it myself, and collecting the rebate.

Buzz, I appreciate you taking charge and starting the "donate a gallon of water" campaign, we can use all the help we can get.

The artificial grass is actually beginning to look really good (cosmetically as well as practically)... its not the roll of cheap plastic carpet it used to be...

... if anything it looks too good lol. but I seriously don't recognize it as artificial on peoples lawns unless I get up within 10 feet and even then its just because it's a little too perfect or the installer screwed up with a seam somewhere.

Its not exactly like roofs because looks far far more like real grass than rooves, but it used to be everyone had wood shake roofs and the asphalt tiles looked really cheap.. but then people got accustomed to the asphalt shingling and .. well thats what a roof is "supposed to " look like now.

It could be that natural lawns with a brown spot here or there or a few margiolds creeping in start looking sorta second rate compared to the artificial ones.. instead of how it was the other way around when the artifical ones looked like .. manure they didn't need.

Im in one of the few counties in california where we actually have full resevoirs and aren't connected to the main water system where it can be easily .. err "requisitioned" by the state.... but we're still cutting back by law even though we'll need to release water again in the rainy season as our resevoirs can't nearly store the rain..we were at 93% of normal a few weeks ago..... forced to wear a hairshirt by the state government even if it really doesn't make sense.

Still.. I've been leasing a house the last number of years and I really think I'd replace the lawn areas with something that stayed nice and green and didn't require work... and spend more effort keeping the roses pruned and fertizized etc... the roses have looked great this year anyway...enjoy them more than I do taking care of my small lawn...but they take time too.