Tamara Webster is not a fan of grass — at least not the kind she has to mow.
The Drake Landing resident is one of a growing number of Okotokians who have traded a front or back lawn (or both) for a xeriscaped garden, a low-maintenance, water-wise landscape devoid of green grass but abundant in plant life.
It’s a movement, supported by the Town of Okotoks, being undertaken in the name of the environment as a xeriscaped yard, once established, uses less water and is more hospitable to a variety of creatures than a traditional lawn.
When Webster moved to her current home six years ago, it was a typical suburban lot.
“It was just pure lawn. It had like two little plants in it and there were no trees,” she recalls. “It's a lot different now.”
Working with what she calls a clean slate, Webster decided to xeriscape her front yard three years ago, ripping up the grass and replacing it with a variety of primarily native plants.
Calling on an old friend to do the design and a small landscape company to undertake the grunt work, Webster gradually transformed the space so it’s now 85 per cent covered by plants.
“I basically have little pathways to be able to get to all my plants and the rest is just pure plants,” she says. “And once my ground cover spreads a little bit more, then it's going to be solid plants around my pathway.”
Webster took part in the Town’s xeriscaping rebate program and ended up receiving about $2,800 to help offset costs.
Although not needing to mow the lawn is a nice byproduct of a xeriscaped yard, she says she was driven by the environmental benefits, adding the plant-heavy landscape is better for local wildlife and pollinators.
Webster has replaced a few plants, learning that native varieties do best, and added a load of mulch last year, but otherwise, the garden has been virtually maintenance free.
“With having more natives, I don't even have to do a ton of pruning. Well, the deer help me prune the brushes,” she laughs.
“Even with it being that hot and dry last summer, nothing got watered and everything was still perfectly fine.”
Not having watered the grass in the past, and using rain barrels and totes for any outside watering, Webster hasn’t seen a decrease in her own water bill, but says for someone that routinely pulls out the sprinkler, switching to a xeriscaped garden would definitely result in savings.
Since overhauling the front yard, she has been chipping away out back, digging up a bit of turf each year in a xeriscaping effort she calls a work in progress.
Gordon Petersen
Westmount homeowner Gordon Petersen says he wants to walk the talk when it comes to sustainability, so he and his wife Anna chose to xeriscape their back yard last September.
After moving to Okotoks two-and-a-half years ago, Petersen says he heard increasing talk about water restrictions, so upon researching the issue with the Town, he learned about the xeriscaping rebate program.
“When I talked to them, they said, ‘Did you know there’s a grant to get rid of your lawn?’ I’m going to do that anyways, so I said, ‘Sure, I'll sign up.’”
Petersen was put on a waitlist, but when someone dropped off late last summer, he had a small window to get the project completed before winter weather arrived.
He’s happy how the $10,000 undertaking — $3,000 was covered by a civic grant — turned out given the time crunch and is pleased how the process was managed by the Town’s sustainability team and undertaken by Kayben Landscaping. Forty per cent of the yard is covered in vegetation to meet the minimum threshold set out by the Town, but he plans on adding more plants over time as well as a raised garden to grow vegetables.
Petersen is a big proponent of xeriscaping's environmental benefits, specifically its reduced water use and the elimination of gas-powered mowers and blowers that he says create an unacceptable amount of pollution and should be banned.
“The more people that get into xeriscaping and reduce these vanity lawns and the lawn equipment that goes with them, the cleaner the air will be and the healthier it will be for all of us,” he says.
Petersen would also like to see the Town create another tier for heavy water users and believes water should be a whole lot more expensive to ensure people take greater care of the natural resource.
He’s also of the mind that kids are better served playing at neighbourhood green spaces rather than doing so on a tiny plot of grass in the back yard, which he says creates a greater sense of community.
Petersen says feedback from neighbours has all been positive and that there will be a return on his xeriscaping investment when he goes to sell.
“The realtor said you’re adding value, you’ll get that money back.”
The retired IT project manager jokes there’s now a bit of conflict in his back yard as a water-hungry hot tub overlooks a water-wise landscape.
“We used it that first fall but I didn’t feel right pouring all that water into the hot tub so we shut it down,” he says. “It’s functional but I don't use it, I feel too guilty. What kind of message are you sending?”
He says that type of lifestyle is changing.
“That's the old way. There’s a transition underway and I want to lead by example.”
Petersen would like to go beyond the yard and make improvements to his home to further reduce his carbon footprint, but is finding many of those projects come with big price tags.
Jinny Toffelmire
Jinny Toffelmire, the Town of Okotoks’ environment and sustainability coordinator, says research shows that a xeriscaped property, once plants have established, uses 40 to 60 per cent less water than would be typically expended on a lawn.
Toffelmire says the Town offers rebates on many water conservation items and initiatives, but specifically started the xeriscape rebate program in 2018 to get people away from the idea, brought to Canada by the British dating back to confederation, that a lawn is not only the proper way to landscape a yard, but can be considered a status symbol.
She says overall water use goes up by about 30 per cent each summer, so those incentives aim to reduce outdoor consumption.
Buy-in has been good as the xeriscaping rebate program, which started with just three properties in its first year and is now up to 20 on an annual basis, has a wait list almost as soon as applications open each year.
Another 300 and 400 households participate in the water conservation rebate program each year, getting money taken off their utility bills by purchasing everything from drought-tolerant plants to bark mulch.
“I think that the Town's water conservation rebate program can really reach anybody at whatever level they are at,” she says. “The idea of the program overall is to support environmentally sustainable landscapes, so people can start small with something like a rain barrel.”
Rachel Swendseid
Although Okotoks is a leader when it comes to water conservation, Coun. Rachel Swendseid says discussions still need to be had about the best use of potable water.
“It's not unlimited. It is a limited resource and we are using a limited resource for outdoor watering,” she says. “The discussion about what is the best use of our drinking water needs to happen more and more, in my opinion.”
Swendseid, who was the driving force behind a recently adopted regulation that mandates drought-tolerant turf in all new residential construction, says she understands some people’s love affair with their lawns, but says attitudes have to change.
“There's nothing to say that we can't continue to have them, we just have to think differently about those lawns: what kind of grass species are they, are they drought tolerant, how much of the lawn should be turf, how much should be xeriscaped? So, I do think we can find a balance.”
She says as much as she’d like a wholesale conversion to xeriscaped gardens, she understands there are challenges so that change needs to happen slowly but surely.
Swendseid says living in a semi-arid region with a closed basin means water conservation will always be an issue.
“We're going to be talking about water conservation in Okotoks, honestly, forever.”
