This is the first in an ongoing series of articles about how local readers re-landscaped their yards to make them more drought-resistant, cost-efficient and easier to maintain. Got a water-wise landscape makeover you're proud of? Send an e-mail to "home@nctimes.com" with a description of the size, scale and inspiration for your project, the cost and type of materials, and the amount of money you've saved since then, along with before and after photos (if you have them). If you don't have e-mail, mail the above to: Pam Kragen, North County Times, 207 E. Pennsylvania Ave., Escondido, CA 92025.
Name: Rob and Nancy Robinson
Hometown: Valley Center
Project size: 1.5 acres
Project cost: $1,000
Monthly water bill before makeover: $300 (in summer months)
Monthly water bill after makeover: $130
The Robinsons' story: We live in Valley Center on 2-plus acres, of which about 1 1/2 acres are landscaped. You can imagine the water usage costs in the summer. We had about 3,000 square feet of lawn. We decided to downsize our lawn for three reasons: water conservation, maintenance, and cost.
We love to garden, so we didn't want to have just bare dirt. We needed results that blended with the rest of our landscape. We decided to move last May to water-wise plants and rock, and mulch to soften the hardscape. We kept one-third of the existing lawn and installed plant beds and paths. We have experimented with native plants, succulents, drought-resistant plants and cactuses, because we already moved to a water-wise landscape on other areas of our yard.
Many local North County nurseries are moving to waterwise plants (Design II/ Daylily Hill, Tropic World, Plant World, Las Pilitas) and we took advantage of their diverse inventory. We selected plants based on a diversity of color, form, and texture as well as price. We like the results, and the garden blends with the rest of the yard, maintaining a San Diego "tropical" appearance without the "Arizona desert" look that cactus alone can provide.
On average, we spent $300 per month on water in previous summers (which was even before the current rate increases). After the makeover, which was completed in May, we decreased our water consumption by more than 50 percent. Our bill dropped to an average of $130, which means in the six months from May to October, we saved more than $1,000 in water this year. This doesn't even count what we're saving in maintenance costs for the old lawn ($80 per month in mowing, and $30 every other month in fertilizer and other treatments). That's just about what the switch-over cost was, so moving forward we're saving water and money every month.
