Ultimately, as water becomes an ever-more-precious resource, lawn watering
will have to go, or will have to be significantly reduced in areas which are
too dry to support them naturally. In many parts of the west, it would be
possible to plant buffalo grass or some other native grass which could
survive on 10-15 inches of rain a year. It won't look like or feel like the
bluegrass lawns we are used to, but if it starts to cost $600-1000 summer
just to maintain a lawn, lots of families and individuals are going to
consider it......
Some upscale developments in my area are going for the natural open
ponderosa forest/bunch grassland mix common here. I think it's very pretty -
if they want to have a minimal lawn and garden immediately adjacent to the
house (which is also a good plan in case of forest fires), it's much more
practical and much lower maintenance than large swaths of lawn.
"sylvan butler" wrote in message
rnal...
On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:14:34 GMT, Travis M.
wrote:
If someone is watering their lawn/grass in the summer just to
keep it green they are wasting water. Let the grass/lawn go
dormant in the summer and when it starts raining again the grass
will green up.

Oh, now you assume everyone lives in your climate. That is a great
"north of seattle, WA" plan. Not for me.

Around here if you do that you will end up with cheatgrass (classed as a
noxious weed and you will be fined if you have it), bitterbrush, ragweed
and various other things, not lawn.

You see, with only 12" annual precipitation, which occurs almost
entirely november to march when grass is dormant because of cold, a lawn
will not just "go dormant" in the dry season, it and the roots will
entirely die and blow away before it rains.

sdb

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