Limiting turf, removing turf, developing better turf, devising alternatives to turf – all are part of the ongoing debate.

Plans & Policies
A landscape ordinance recently approved in Georgetown, Texas, limits the area of a yard that can be irrigated to 2.5 times the structure's foundation to a maximum of 10,000 square feet; and requires six inches of topsoil under new turfgrass to help retain water.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California doubled the incentive for turf removal from $1 to $2 per square foot. They also launched a program to help property owners pay for converting from potable water irrigation to recycled water irrigation.

Property owners in Mesa, Ariz., can get a $500 rebate if they remove at least 500 square feet of grass and replace it with desert-adapted plants. Tempe, Ariz., offers a $250 rebate for converted lawns, front or back.

In spite of being in a drought, the city of Murphy, Texas, decided that the detriments of artificial turf outweighed the benefits when its city council voted unanimously to ban synthetic lawns.

"Landscape designers and landscape architects should be in a position to make decisions as to the best use of competing groundcover solutions for any given project, and to legislate, stipulate, regulate, and codify policy that would treat all sites with a broad brush does a great disservice to communities."
– Ralph Egues, National Hispanic Landscape Association

Optional Strategies
The National Journal reports that lawn-painting companies are cropping up all over California. Their efforts last from three to six months.

To win more xeriscape projects, Donna DiFrancesco, a water conservation specialist in Mesa, Ariz., advises to become certified in water conservation through programs like Smartscape (https://www.smartscape.org).

SeaStar Paspalum, developed by Dr. Paul Raymer, at the University of Georgia, and in testing and development for nine years prior to its release, was found by the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program to have a high level of salt tolerance and short-term drought tolerance.

Richard L. Duble, extension turfgrass specialist at Texas A&M University, agrees that seashore paspalum as a species survives prolonged dry periods, but it shows moisture stress before bermudagrass. Duble noted that its drought tolerance is similar to that of centipedegrass.

Defensive Tactics
The National Hispanic Landscape Alliance has successfully lobbied against turf limitations such as the 40 percent turf restriction in the EPA's WaterSense program, and continues its efforts.

"Certainly the challenges continue - mostly because the discussion isn't about an equation of environmental outputs vs. inputs." – Egues, NHLA

"(People) don't realize that there are resources like TPI and the Lawn Institute." Melanie Stanton, executive director, Turfgrass Producers International, pointing out that the training, information and scientific research found on their websites can be used to counter turfgrass limitation and removal policies. https://turfgrasssod.org/ https://www.thelawninstitute.org/

The Greenscape Alliance, a recently formed coalition of the NHLA, TPI, OPEI and PLANET, aims to increase awareness of the numerous turf-related issues in the works. https://masverde.us/index.html