Took a walk through my neighborhood last month and noticed something weird about the lawns

I live in a suburb outside Denver where pretty much everyone has a sprinkler system that runs at 6 AM every day like clockwork. Last month I was walking my neighbor's dog at like 7 AM and counted 14 houses all watering at the same time on a Tuesday morning when it had literally rained the night before. I'm no expert but it felt like such a waste of water. Then I saw a guy down the street watering his concrete driveway because the sprinkler head was aimed wrong. So I looked up our local water usage stats and my city uses about 40% of its water on residential lawns during summer. I switched to a rain sensor for my own system and added a simple smart controller that checks the weather. Has anyone else in a dry area tried convincing their HOA to let people ditch grass for native plants?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_julia5d ago

Read an article that said something like 30% of household water use in the West goes straight to lawns, which is insane when you think about drought restrictions. Did your HOA give you much pushback on swapping to natives?

troy_owens8d ago

Used to be one of those guys with the 6am sprinklers running no matter what because that's just how it was done. Then my water bill hit 200 bucks one month during a dry spell and I realized I was basically paying to soak the sidewalk. Swapped to a smart controller that skips rainy days and my lawn looks just as good for way less money and hassle.