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10 | Four Seasons Hemet Herald | MAY 2022 | After being blessed with a wet December, the following three months have been extremely dry. As expected, our water allotment has been cut once again. Unfortunately, much of our state water sources are currently being sent into the ocean. The Landscape Committee is in the process of testing ground covers as a replacement for the grass in an effort to save water. It behooves each of us as citizens of this community to be water wise wherever we can. If you are in the initial or replacement phase of designing your property, keep in mind the benefits of using water wise plants. I much prefer the phrase "water wise" plants rather than drought tolerant plants, because it is more accurate. There are a large variety of water wise plants available for your choosing. Most well established shrubs and trees are over-watered rather than under-watered. Depending on your soil, watering trees and shrubs every seven to 10 days, should be adequate, with lawns being watered every two to three days. The trick is to water less often, but deeper in order that your plants develop a strong root system by forcing the roots of the plants to search out the water. Don't bottle feed them! I suggest that you set your landscaped area into plant zones. For example, you should not water lawns with shrubs or high usage water shrubs with low water usage shrubs. By doing this, you may drown some shrubs while neglecting others. When you modify your irrigation system, be sure to use drip wherever possible because it makes better use of your water. Drip systems and sprinkler head apply water at a different rate. For instance, a drip system can produce one half to five gallons of water per hour, while a sprinkler head puts out approximately one gallon of water per minute and above. We must expect that water will always be a concern due to the fact that we live in an arid part of the state. I hope this information is useful as you plan and implement your landscape so that you are able to enjoy all the beauty that surrounds you! Thank you to Artistic Maintenance for helping to keep costs down in ways that help us stay within budget, and to Greg Rockvam for his service to our committee and community. Welcome Yvonne Maurais-Shimko for joining and working with our committee! Landscape Committee Social Committee Did you know that May 24th is National Scavenger Hunt Day? Well we are going to celebrate on Sat., May 21 with our own Community Scavenger Hunt. It will be from 11 am to 2 pm and it is free. Bring a pencil and your friends. You can be in a car, a golf cart, bike or just walking (but remember this will encompass our whole community). We will meet in the small parking lot. Hope you will join us for some outdoor fun. Please let the office know if you plan to join us so we can get a count of how many vehicles. I would like to thank a couple of my committee members whose events were canceled. First is Donny Brown and his Mardi Gras committee. As you know, our community was shut down for January, February and March because of the virus spike. His committee was ready to go with bands, food and decorations. It was supposed to be a whole day of fun. I am hoping we can do this next year and that he will be willing to head this event again. The second member is Linda Negrete and her Cinco de Mayo committee. They were just in the early stages of planning this event but were uncertain if we would be able to have it so they canceled this one. And again, I hope this will be back next year. Remember to keep Sat., June 11, open for our annual tribute concert. This year Elvis will be here!