Regulating Landscaping Trend

As water use issues become more and more urgent due to weather shifting and sustained droughts, cities are taking the gloves off when it comes to landscape water use. This is a rising trend landscape contractors need to be aware of. For example, unincorporated areas in the Santa Clara County, California, now must adhere to low-water use landscaping rules. Drought or no drought, the ordinance is designed to save water in the county.

Property owners in unincorporated Santa Clara County now have three options to conform to a new ordinance for landscaping new single-family dwellings and those that are substantially rehabilitated:

?EUR??,,????'?????<Water budget option: The total landscaped area and its water savings needs to be 25 percent less than if the landscaped area were 100 percent grass or sod.

?EUR??,,????'?????<Plant restrictions option: Within the non-turf area (which must be 75 percent of the landscaped area), at least 80 percent of the plants must be native or low water use.

?EUR??,,????'?????<Native plant emphasis option: At least 60 percent of the plants and trees must be native with no turf grasses.

If the total landscaped area is less than 5,000 square feet, the turf area is less than 1,250 square feet and the majority of plants are either native or low-water use, property owners are exempt from the ordinance.

Although there is no specific water-saving goal in the ordinance, it was put together with the intention that the county will conserve water consistent with the state?EUR??,,????'?????<

Native Plant Choices

Native plants are plants that existed in a region prior to the arrival of European explorers and colonists. California itself is home to more than 5000 species and more than a 1000 subspecies or varieties of native plants.

Native Plants for Coastal Northern California

• Trees:
  Red Alder (Alnus rubra); Willows (Salix spp.):
  
• Shrubs:
  Manzanita (Arctostaphylos spp.); Ceanothus (Ceanothus spp.); Twinberry (Lonicera involucrata); California Wax Myrtle (Morella californica); Currant & Gooseberry (Ribes spp.)
  
• Herbaceous Perennials:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Clarkia (Clarkia spp.)
  
  Aster (Aster spp.)
  Wild Buckwheat (Eriogonum spp.)

Southern California Natives

These are native plants adapted to Mediterranean climate, drought-resistant plants, that can survive in coastal California zones on natural rainfall in winter alone.

• Coreopsis maritima?EUR??,,????'?????<
  
• Encelia californica
  
  
  
  Encelia californica
  
  
• Encelia farinosa
  
• Chrysanthemum coronarium
  
• Dudleya lanceolata?EUR??,,????'?????<
• Dudleya edulis?EUR??,,????'?????<
• Dudley brittonii
  
• Agave americana
  
  
  
  
  
  Agave americana
  
  
• Fremontodendron ?EUR??,,????'?????<
  
  
  
  
  Fremontodendron ?EUR??,,????'?????<