Lawns: Are We Loving Them or Leaving Them?

 By Lori Palmquist

Ah, the good old lawn! Whether we’re kicking around a soccer ball or backyard camping with the kids, we’ve gotta love it. Our fascination with the mean green is a much-studied phenomenon. The social and cultural perceptions of expanses of turfgrass are woven into the fabric of our lives -- especially for those of us who remember running out to the grass at recess to frolic and romp and let off steam.

At 50 million acres, lawns constitute the single largest irrigated acreage in the United States. Corn comes in a paltry second place at 12 million acres. According to UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' Center for Landscape and Urban Horticulture, California has an estimated four million acres of managed turfgrass.

The number most likely reflects the amount of commercial (including HOAs), industrial, and institutional lawns. It seems that number could be virtually doubled, if you were willing and able to count all the residential front and backyard lawns in the state.
https://ucanr.edu/site/center-landscape-urban-horticulture/turfgrass-management

Despite being so desired for its form, function, and curb appeal, turfgrass has been vilified in California for close to 20 years. The turfgrass that we favor in Northern California, cool-season turfgrass, is a water-guzzling beast in terms of the amount of water it demands to keep it happy. Because of this, you'd be hard-pressed to find a water district in this state that isn’t offering incentives to “lose the lawn” at their expense through their lawn-replacement rebate programs.

These rebate programs require that the grass be removed and replaced with low-water plantings. They also require that the sprinklers be removed and efficient drip systems be installed in their stead.

The turfgrass battleground in California has made it into law, as well. Assembly Bill 1572, signed by Governor Newsome in 2023, will be enforced in stages over the next several years. This law bans non-functional turfgrass for commercial (including HOAs), industrial, and institutional sites.

We’re already seeing vast stretches of lawns either browning out or disappearing as this law creeps slowly toward fulfillment. Click the following link for more info on AB-1572 Potable water: nonfunctional turf (2023-2024): https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1572

Cool-season turfgrasses are the preferred lawn species in Northern California because they have growth and color year round. But Jodie Sheffield, the seed and sod specialist with Delta Bluegrass in Stockton, says they’re seeing a massive shift in the market toward warm-season grasses because they’re much more drought resistant, robust, and rival cool-season grasses in their lush appearance. And the warm-season grasses vastly outperform the cool-season grasses in durability and strength.

Many sports fields and golf courses in Northern California have made the switch from water-guzzling cool-season grasses to warm-season grasses. Even Oracle Park and Levi’s Stadium, homes of the San Francisco Giants and 49ers respectively, have switched to hybridized Bermuda grass, a warm-season turfgrass. And did you know that they only require half the water their thirsty cool-season cousins do?

But switching out lawns for low-water landscapes could have consequences we haven’t bargained for.  Jessie Godfrey, Environmental Horticulture and Water Resources Management Advisor with UC Cooperative Extension, informs us there are “considerable tradeoffs” that come with lawn removal on a large scale.

The foremost tradeoff to her mind is that irrigated turf landscapes provide evaporative cooling that helps to ease climate change. And removing evaporative cooling from thermal equations has thermal consequences. There’s much research that supports the view that yards landscaped with drought-tolerant plants, in contrast, may “create an ecosystem disservice in the form of increased, localized microclimate heat.” (Chow & Brazel, 2012; Vahmani & Ban-Weiss, 2016)

As is often the case, taking actions to solve one environmental issue causes an imbalance that tips the scales toward issues of another type. Ultimately, the onus is on each of us with lawns to make informed decisions.

With respect to solving the challenge of our high-water-use lawns and using water more efficiently in the landscape, we present a few available options:

• Replace existing high-water turfgrass with a lower-water-use turfgrass or alternative groundcover.

or

• Remove the turfgrass and replace it with low-water plantings.

or

• Simply reduce the size of the lawn.

Replacing the high-water-use turfgrass with a lower-water-use turfgrass, or with groundcover that acts like a lawn, is very well explained by UC Master Gardener volunteer Henry Shaw in a webinar talk he gave in 2024. Henry does a great job of qualifying several good candidates using the desirable attributes of lawns that we’ve grown to love. If you choose this option, you can leave your existing sprinklers in place and not experience the negative trade-off consequences described above.

You can find Henry's video here: "Turfgrass Alternatives for a Mediterranean Climate" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0k9HKxrYw

The option of removing turfgrass in favor of low-water plantings is best employed by using the lawn-replacement rebate program of your water provider. In Contra Costa County, the prominent water districts EBMUD and Contra Costa Water District, both have robust programs that help ease the burden of cost. Links to their rebate programs can be found at the end of this article.

If you take any of the actions above, be careful to ensure that trees in the turfgrass area aren’t compromised. In the last drought, we saw many trees suffer or die from lack of water when the lawn irrigation was turned off or disconnected. Trees are of utmost importance in performing essential ecological services and providing habitat to local fauna and pollinators.

The impetus for writing this article was that the author is witnessing a growing number of new lawns being installed, since the last two winters were abundant with rainfall. There’s a tendency to be lulled into feeling secure about water when the sting of drought has waned. But the future of the potable water supply in California is uncertain.

We weather wild swings between drought and deluge. So, choosing whether to love lawns or leave them will help shape how resilient we can be in the face of dwindling resources and upcoming water restrictions. There’s much hope and support for preserving our precious water supply.

See examples below of turfgrass alternatives that require much less water than the standard Northern California lawn.

Low-water plantings. Photo by Lora Medina

UC Verde Buffalograss (a moderate-water turfgrass)
https://ccuh.ucdavis.edu/uc-verde-buffalograss

Kurapia (Lippia nodiflora - a low-water turfgrass alternative)
Photo by Lori Palmquist

Dymondia margaretae (a low-water turfgrass alternative)

References

California Center for Urban Horticulture - Plant Factors for Turfgrasses
https://ccuh.ucdavis.edu/wucols/water-factors-for-turfgrasses

Chow, W.T.L., & Brazel, A.J. (2012). Assessing xeriscaping as a sustainable heat island mitigation approach for a desert city. Building and Environment, 47, 170-181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2011.07.027.

Contra Costa Water District Lawn-to-Garden Rebate: https://www.ccwater.com/160/Lawn-to-Garden-Rebate

EBMUD Lawn Conversion Rebate Program: https://www.ebmud.com/water/conservation-and-rebates/rebates/lawn-conversion-rebate

UC Guide to Healthy Lawns
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/menu.turf.html

Vahmani, P., & Ban-Weiss, G. (2016). Climate consequences of adopting drought-tolerant vegetation over Los Angeles as a response to California drought. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(15), 8240-8249. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069658