A turf removal success story

Once an expanse of lawn, the front yard of the Glass residence is now an attractive landscape with low-water plants, mulch and decorative rock.

Steve Glass had already replaced the grass in his backyard with a low-water landscape. So, when he heard about rebates offered by the San Diego County Water Authority for turf removal, he and his wife decided it was time to make the switch in their Mira Mesa front yard as well.

The front yard before the makeover.

He credits the online resources of the water authority, plus information on the website of Las Pilitas, an Escondido native-plant nursery, with getting him up to speed on the process.

The guy who does the survey of your property (for the San Diego Water Authority) is quite knowledgeable, he added. Hes got good opinions.

Glass killed the 837 square feet of grass himself, using Roundup; that took about three weeks. The couple chose the plants themselves, but hired a landscape contractor to do the planting and add a permeable path of pebbles and large decorative rocks, plus gorilla hair mulch (actually shredded redwood) around all the plants.

The plants are a mix of natives and other low-water species, including purple rockrose, California buckwheat, caryx, seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus) and salvia Mrs. Beard.

Kathleen and Steve Glass chose new plants themselves for the landscape redesign.

People have weird misconceptions, Glass says. Low-water doesnt mean cactus; you can get some really good plants.

For irrigation, the home already had a 10-year-old Weathermatic weather-based smart controller. Glass capped most of the existing sprinkler heads and installed five Hunter 12-inch pressure regulating pop-up sprinkler bodies with rotator heads.

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A turf removal success story