Long Beach offers incentives for drought-tolerant landscapes

Replacing high-maintenance grass and flowers with drought-tolerant vegetation is meant to help the city conserve water, reduce maintenance costs and set an example for residents, said Larry Rich, Long Beach’s sustainability coordinator in a story in The Gazette Newspapers.

 

“The benefits of drought-tolerant landscapes have been known for quite some time and the city has really caught on in the last 10 years,” Rich said. “There’s tens of thousands of homes in Long Beach with grass front yards, and that represents a huge water savings if we can transfer those yards to drought-tolerant.”

 

According to the Long Beach Water Department, grass lawns require six to seven times more water than the city receives annually, which is an average of 13 inches. Drought-tolerant plants, on the other hand, can thrive solely on the average amount of yearly precipitation.

Matthew Lyons, the water department’s director of planning and conservation, said homeowners are catching on to the benefits of drought-tolerant landscaping, thanks in part to the city’s Lawn to Garden Incentive Program.

 

The incentive program has provided rebates to homeowners who agree to remove grass lawns in favor of environmentally friendly landscaping. Since being established last year, Lyons said more than 200 lawns have been converted, with another 300 planned for renovation. Rebates are worth $2.50 per square foot of turf removed, with a maximum of 1,000 square feet allowed per customer, or $2,500 total.

 

Read more here.