Published in the September 17-30, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
Photo by Marty Cheek
Stu and Debbie Nuttall set up a Brown is the New Green sign on their lawn with a plastic Halloween skeleton and a cow skull at the base.
The Santa Clara Valley Water District and the city of Morgan Hill are encouraging residents with rebate incentives to replace their water-dependent lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping.
On April 22, the Landscape Conversion Rebate increased to $2 per square foot of converted intensive water using landscape such as a irrigated lawn or a functional swimming pool to low water using landscape. The rebate amount within a cost-sharing partner area increased from $3 to $4 per square foot.
Morgan Hill residents Stu and Debbie Nuttall decided that intensive care of the front lawn on their San Pedro Avenue home was not worth the time and the money, especially as California’s drought entered its third year and with an uncertain prospect that the state will get enough rain to end the drought this winter.
Stu works for Sports Basement as a manager in the ski department and said that’s a big reason he pays attention to the long-range weather forecast.
“Forever and a day we have not liked watering our lawn and getting basically nothing out of it except curb appeal,” he said, standing on the barren front yard. “When you think about what you spend your money on and your time on, you have a lawn that you fertilize, you water, you grow it and then you mow it down and you throw that stuff away. You don’t eat it. And this is all for people driving by who I don’t know.”
For more information about the SCVWD rebate program, call the Water Conservation Hotline at (408) 630-2554.
