• Home
  • About
  • Advertising
  • Digital Archives
  • Contact
    • Letter to Editor
  • Find us
Saturday, February 16, 2019
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
La Mesa Courier
  • A&E
    • Art
    • Books
    • Music
    • Theater
  • News & Features
    • News
      • La Mesa News Briefs
    • Features
    • Politics
      • Elected Official Reports
        • Dianne Jacob
        • Summer Stephan
  • Food & Drink
    • Bars & Happy Hours
    • Recipes
      • What’s cooking with Julie
    • Restaurant Reviews
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Letters to the editor
  • Lifestyle
    • Fashion
    • Gen-X in a Millennial World
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Travel
  • Business
    • Finance
    • Real Estate
    • Expert Advice
    • Sponsored links
  • Community
    • Community Updates
      • La Mesa Foothills Democratic Club
      • Navajo Canyon Republican Women
    • Village Voices
    • Best Of La Mesa
  • Education
    • Grossmont High School
    • Helix Charter High School
  • Calendar
La Mesa Courier
  • A&E
    • Art
    • Books
    • Music
    • Theater
  • News & Features
    • News
      • La Mesa News Briefs
    • Features
    • Politics
      • Elected Official Reports
        • Dianne Jacob
        • Summer Stephan
  • Food & Drink
    • Bars & Happy Hours
    • Recipes
      • What’s cooking with Julie
    • Restaurant Reviews
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Letters to the editor
  • Lifestyle
    • Fashion
    • Gen-X in a Millennial World
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Travel
  • Business
    • Finance
    • Real Estate
    • Expert Advice
    • Sponsored links
  • Community
    • Community Updates
      • La Mesa Foothills Democratic Club
      • Navajo Canyon Republican Women
    • Village Voices
    • Best Of La Mesa
  • Education
    • Grossmont High School
    • Helix Charter High School
  • Calendar
No Result
View All Result
La Mesa Courier
No Result
View All Result
Home News Features

When in drought, landscapes count

April 24, 2015
in Features, News, Top Stories
0
When in drought, landscapes count
0
SHARES
4
VIEWS

By Jeremy Ogul | Editor

With Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent emergency decree restricting water usage and no sign of the drought letting up, the pressure continues to mount on local homeowners to do what they can to conserve.

At the Water Conservation Garden on the campus of Cuyamaca College in Rancho San Diego, chief horticulture specialist Clayton Tschudy works to curate what is essentially a living museum of water-efficient plants and landscapes.

One of the most important messages Tschudy tries to convey to visitors is that the San Diego region has a xeric, or Mediterranean, climate. As hot as it may get in La Mesa in the summer, homeowners here have many more options beyond the traditional rock-and-cactus layout common in true desert areas such as Palm Springs or Yuma.

“It doesn’t have to look like a desert,” Tschudy said. “You can replicate any style of garden you want — there are no stylistic or aesthetic limitations.”

IMG_2037web
The flowers of the “New Gold” lantana plant attract an anise swallowtail butterfly at the Water Conservation Garden in Rancho San Diego. (Photo by Jeremy Ogul)

Of course, the Water Conservation Garden features succulent and cactus habitats, but it also shows off plants common in Australia, South Africa and similar Mediterranean climates. There are examples of formal gardens and native gardens. One area shows the different species of grass and groundcover and compares how many gallons of water each one needs to survive.

Asked if people should be scared by dramatic photos of empty reservoirs and aerial shots of dry mountain ranges, Tschudy had a reassuring but firm answer.

“People shouldn’t be afraid, because there’s a lot we can do to conserve water and make our water stretch,” he said. “People do need to accept that they must adapt their lifestyle to our climate. We currently do not garden like we live in a Mediterranean climate. We garden like we live in the Midwest, and that’s a profligate use of our most precious resource: water. We need to change that.”

The urgent drought messages caught the attention of Roman Jimenez, a homeowner on Violet Avenue in West La Mesa. Jimenez and his husband decided to convert their front lawn to artificial turf with the assistance of a rebate through SoCalWaterSmart.com.

The rebate — up to $2 per square foot — is helpful, Jimenez said, but it certainly does not cover the entire cost of replacing a thirsty grass lawn with artificial turf.

Horticulture director Clayton Tschudy points out the false esparto grass, which has a low need for water, at the Water Conservation Garden. (Photo by Jeremy Ogul)
Horticulture director Clayton Tschudy points out the false esparto grass, which has a low need for water, at the Water Conservation Garden. (Photo by Jeremy Ogul)

“The installation is where the real cost comes in,” he said.

By the time landscape workers have ripped out the grass, removed up to four inches of top soil, laid down decomposed granite and installed the new turf, the final price can range anywhere from $6 to $10 per square foot, depending on how expensive the artificial turf itself is, Jimenez said.

For a 900-square-foot yard, that adds up to an investment of somewhere between $5,000 and $9,000. A $2 rebate per square foot reduces the cost by about $1,800.

Depending on how much water was used to keep the grass alive and well, artificial turf could pay off for some homeowners in the form of lower water bills.

“We don’t anticipate a large water savings, but we do anticipate a significant upgrade to the curb appeal of our home, and we do anticipate a significant return on investment in the value of our home,” Jimenez said.

For homeowners considering a switch to artificial turf, Jimenez suggests doing as much research and comparison as possible, because there are a lot of options out there across a wide range of price and quality.

“They have different grasses that have different heights,” he said. “They have one that looks like it’s been freshly mowed and they have some that looks like it could use a mow. We went to a showroom that had it up in Miramar. We took our flip flops off, we walked around on it, we felt how it feels on our toes.”

In addition to rebates from water agencies, there are also special financing programs available that allow homeowners to add the cost of a water-efficient landscape to their property tax bill. The Property Assessed Clean Energy program (PACE) allows homeowners to pay off clean energy investments in periods of five, 10 or 20 years.

Even if homeowners don’t have the ability to invest in an entirely new landscape, they can still dramatically reduce the amount of water they use in their existing landscapes, said Bob Bradshaw, a master gardener and vice president of the La Mesa Beautiful organization.

Bradshaw said he has cut back the frequency with which he waters potted plants and has also reduced the frequency and length of watering cycles on the sprinkler system that he uses to irrigate his small lawn.

Lynlee Austell-Slayter, a master gardener and sustainable landscape expert, said many people are giving their plants more water than they really need. Though plants may thrive at certain watering levels, many plants in typical landscapes can survive with far less water than we’re giving them now.

“In ornamental landscapes, we don’t want maximum yield as we do in agriculture,” Austell-Slayter said. “In agriculture, yield equals nutrition. In residential landscapes, excess yield equals waste and pollution.”

In a drought like the one California is now experiencing, homeowners don’t need landscape plants to grow as much as possible, so watering should be reduced to the low or moderate levels.

For more ideas and resources on what you can do to reduce the amount of water in a residential landscape, check out the following websites: TheGarden.org, MasterGardenersSanDiego.org, SoCalWaterSmart.com and WaterSmartSDlandscaping.org and whenindrought.org.

Screen Shot 2015-04-24 at 9.02.43 AM

—Email Jeremy Ogul at jeremy@sdcnn.com.

Next Post

Music Notes – May 22 – June 25, 2015

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


More from SDCNN:
Uptown News: Into the Uptown jungle
Downtown News: ‘Thar she blows!’
Mission Times Courier: A holistic approach to fitness
Mission Valley News: Church celebrates 150 years
Gay San Diego: ‘Trans’formation

Like us on Instagram!

  • The 2019 Best of La Mesa ballot is out  Vote for your favorite local restaurants and businesses through March 3  Link in bio
  • Hot off the press  Pick up the latest issue of La Mesa Courier on newsstands or head on over to our updated website to read online  Link in bio            lamesa  lamesacourier  lamesanews  localnews  localnewspaper  hyperlocal
  • La Mesa Friday Farmers Market has been a boon for residents  but a bust for some brick and mortar businesses since it moved to La Mesa Boulevard  Get the full scoop in our latest La Mesa Courier cover story  out in print and up online  Website link in bio
  • Happy new year  Here at the La Mesa Courier were ringing in 2019 by reviewing our Best of La Mesa 2017 winners which were announced this year  Visit our website to check out who readers voted for best barber  best new business and more  Link in bio   LaMesa  LaMesaCourier  BestofLaMesa2017

Like us on Facebook:

Thomas Tony Vance

3 hours ago

Thomas Tony Vance

An Economy and a Future That Includes All Our Citizens!

As much as we might hate it the 2020 election season started the second the mid-terms were over. Many old hats on the left were surprised that many of the young Democratic candidates won while espousing progressive policies and goals. If this is any indication then to win in 2020 Democrats need to offer the poor and middle class a new, 'New Deal'.
Damaged and disheartened, lied to and taken advantage of by the wealthy and those determined to hold power at any cost, they are yearning for relief and someone to actually do something to better their circumstances, and give them hope for a better future for them and their children. Healthcare for all, Free tuition at public colleges, Social Security at age 50 and some form of a limited Universal Basic Income to lift all our citizens out of abject poverty and give all our children a financial platform with which to begin their lives as productive adults in a thriving economy.
I watched an episode of the business program ‘On the Money’ on Sunday July 30, 2017. The first and main topic was something called Universal Income. The idea that instead of all the poverty programs and such, the Government should just give everybody a check every month for $1000 dollars. When one considers the gap between rich and poor, the rate of automation and the fact that there will never be enough jobs to go around it might be a better way of keeping our folks out of abject poverty. The drawback was the cost. One of the commentators said it would cost upwards of 3 trillion dollars. However there is a way to reach the goal of a Universal Income, eliminating abject poverty, and at a much lower cost. Here’s how.
Start by expanding Social Security. Eliminate the cap on taxable income and raise the tax to 8% from the current rate of 6.2%. Then lower the age of eligibility to 50 years.
Create a stipend that will give a check to all adults and High School Grads of $1000 a month. Those who do not finish High School should have to wait till they are 20 to encourage them to finish school. They can use this fund to support them if they go to college or to help them in getting started in life. Our wealthy students are able to go to college and do well precisely because they have a financial platform to support them. This would give all our students the same support. Every child we shepherd thru College is possibly the guy who will cure cancer or invent star drive or save the planet. Investing in our children is like buying a lottery ticket for humanity! To pay for it, go to the Stock Market and place a tax of 3% on all trades to fund the stipend. The market in 2016 did, according to the World Bank, over 42 trillion in trades and a 3% tax won’t break the bank. The payments should be set up so one gradually loses the stipend as they move up the economic ladder in a way that will encourage advancement, for example one would lose $100 of the stipend for every $10,000 in reported income so that when one is making $100,000 a year they lose the stipend entirely. A basic stipend would allow us to eliminate all those poverty programs conservatives always complain about. Currently we spend a trillion dollars on some 126 anti-poverty programs and their elimination would certainly offset the cost of the stipend.
Imagine the country with no one in abject poverty. Imagine the numbers of kids now being able to go to college because they have the financial support to do so. The economic force of all that spending would drive the economy to new heights and would certainly close the income gap between the rich and poor that is hurting our economy and country.
A basic stipend would free workers from starving or being held in economic servitude, making only enough to pay for enough food to be able to work another 40 hours. Business would have to bid for one’s labor instead of workers begging for a job! We can take back the dignity and value our labor should produce. We can boost the spending power of the poor and middle class and leave behind the failed and greedy policy of ‘trickle down’ economics which has damaged our economy and brought about the latest version of the Great Recession! Employers would benefit too. Not having to spend on unemployment or health insurance would save them money and allow them to pay better wages.
Yep, we can do this if we only have the will. We can make this country live up to the promises articulated by President Roosevelt in his famous ‘Four Freedoms” speech, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Fear and the last which always seems to be forgotten, Freedom from want! We have the power and wealth to accomplish the last of these. The mechanics are in place. The tools are available to us. Let us make a better country and thereby a better world by finishing the work set out for us by President Roosevelt some 76 years ago.
Democrats can win but not with the same old mid-center or center-left policies and platform. They must offer us an economy and a vision that really works for us all, brings us together and moves the Country and its people forward to a bright future that includes all our citizens!
...

View on Facebook
·Share

La Mesa Courier

© 2019 SDCNN. La Mesa Courier. San Diego Community News Network (SDCNN).

Navigate our site

  • Home
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact

Follow us on social media

No Result
View All Result
  • A&E
    • Art
    • Books
    • Music
    • Theater
  • News & Features
    • News
      • La Mesa News Briefs
    • Features
    • Politics
      • Elected Official Reports
  • Food & Drink
    • Bars & Happy Hours
    • Recipes
      • What’s cooking with Julie
    • Restaurant Reviews
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Letters to the editor
  • Lifestyle
    • Fashion
    • Gen-X in a Millennial World
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Travel
  • Business
    • Finance
    • Real Estate
    • Expert Advice
    • Sponsored links
  • Community
    • Community Updates
      • La Mesa Foothills Democratic Club
      • Navajo Canyon Republican Women
    • Village Voices
  • Education
    • Grossmont High School
    • Helix Charter High School
  • Best Of La Mesa
  • About
  • Contact
  • Archives
  • Advertising
  • Calendar

© 2019 SDCNN. La Mesa Courier. San Diego Community News Network (SDCNN).

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In