We’re in the midst of an historic drought here in California and, as a result, cities have instituted mandatory landscape watering restrictions and cut off irrigation to parks and other city properties. Lawns are brown and trees are dying.

Back in May, two University of California Cooperative Extension horticulturalists, Donald Hodel and Dennis Pittenger issued a provocative position paper “9%: Perspective on the California drought and landscape water use” that argues that these restrictions have been short sighted.

In addition to the amenities and benefits we would lose by letting landscapes go dry, many hidden costs are associated with this strategy, and little, if anything, is ever said about them. Letting landscapes go dry will lead to damage and even death of plants. For trees such damage could mean dropping branches and even tree failures, leading to significant property damage and human injury or even death; lawsuits would certainly follow. As landscapes go dry, the risk of fires would increase. In changing over landscapes to low-water using plants or to non-planted, non-irrigated areas, labor and material costs for plants, installing or retrofitting irrigation systems, and other materials could be significant. Converting lawns to artificial turf is also expensive.

Hodel and Pittenger’s main point is that if we cut off landscape irrigation entirely, we’d only save around 4.5% of all water use in the state and that we should have thought more carefully about the restrictions we put in place.

My own two cents is that our elected officials used landscape irrigation as a convenient scapegoat to direct our attention away from powerful agricultural interests. The result has been dead trees, melting synthetic grass and shady contractors installing ugly heat generating gravel landscapes with lawn rebate money. Part of the problem is that, to many political leaders, plants are just a kind of background material like the sad potted ficus trees on the set of a public access TV show. Who cares if you pull the water? Never mind that insects, animals and people call those landscapes home.

Two ways out of this: a focus on long term solutions in our civic discourse and instilling a love of plants (we could call it horticultural literacy) in the next generation. Both are tall orders. In the meantime, I recommend reading Hodel and Pittenger’s paper. They are, perhaps, more enamored of the lawn than I but their call for thinking before we jump is necessary and refreshing.

What do you think?