- Author: Clyde Elmore
- Posted by: Gale Perez
After four years of drought, turfgrass has taken a beating. Some people have turned off the water—the turf has turned into a few patches of grass, but mostly weeds, if anything is growing at all (Figure 1.) Others have reduced irrigation amount or frequency resulting in sparse grass and more weeds (often perennial weeds and/or drought tolerant weeds such as bermudagrass, dallisgrass, field bindweed, dandelion, narrow or broadleaf plantain, knotweed, hairy fleabane, star thistle and others.) Other people of course have removed the grass and replaced the landscape without turfgrass. There also has been a concerted effort to get people to reduce the grass in the landscape by painting with a broad brush that grass is a heavy water...
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
On April 1, 2015 Governor Brown mandated a 25% water reduction in urban water use. While you may have seen the news articles about some private citizens or even some public areas being irrigated like water is an unlimited resource, my observation is that most homes and public areas are in fact reducing their outdoor water use.
However, there were some problems that are coming along with that. I first noticed it when I was walking to the UC Riverside campus on April 14. The landscapers had cut off the water to the medians so all the turf was dead but now some drought tolerant weeds were growing. I think the campus had cut off irrigation to “non-essential” areas so that they could maintain adequate...