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16 | THE COLONY NEWS | DECEMBER 2022 | Holiday decorations heads-up: Please don't have any electrical cords running across your front lawn. If you do, you risk a violation notice. Decorations cannot interfere with the landscapers' duties. What's going on in the LAC: We are delighted to have so many new volunteers! They are diving right in and tackling the concerns of the day. The overarching concern for us is WATER — and the lack thereof in the future. As I wrote this in early November, our landscape is currently being watered three times a week. Greenbelt turf elimination: There is a fear that all watering of nonfunctional turf will be prohibited, and this order would be coming from the state. In The Colony, nonfunctional turf is our greenbelts. We could theoretically remove all remaining turf in our greenbelts and possibly qualify for turf removal rebates as we have done before. Front yard turf options: We are researching all options. Having already rejected using artificial turf or mostly rocks, our Front Yard Turf Committee is researching two options at this time. The first one is turf replacement with mulch, plants, and some rock. By utilizing these and also ground-water-retention features, we could apply for water district rebates. The first step is to research a new palette of drought resistant plants which would meld with the existing front yard planter plantings. The different builders had differing palettes, so each neighborhood would need special attention here. Our current list of greenbelt plants contains those most likely to grow too large for front yards. The second option would be to use more drought-tolerant turf grasses. This option would NOT allow us to apply for water district rebates, but we felt it was an important topic to research anyway since the drought, resultant reduction of water, and rabbit damage has caused some lawns to become mostly dirt. The LAC Subcommittee on Turf Grasses will be analyzing info on various drought-tolerant turf grasses. Even though our Landscape Department staff and Environmental Concepts, our landscapers, have extensive experience with turf grasses in our area, it was felt necessary to explore turf grass, especially the new drought-tolerant turf grasses as they become available, and then what would be required to redo all the lawns in The Colony with new seeds. The most common turfgrass used here now is tall fescue, which is categorized as a cool season grass. However, over the past 20+ years, invasive warm season grasses (including bermudagrass, kikuyu, and poa annua) have spread throughout some common areas and lawns here, and THEY GO DORMANT IN THE WINTER. These grasses have become mixed up with our cool season lawn grasses by wind or mowing or creeping, so in the winter, some lawns look like they have patches of dead grass. Conversely, the green lawns/greenbelts looking especially lush right now are planted with cool season grasses and haven't been invaded yet. The dormant grasses will green up when the weather warms up. We don't remove them or scratch the patches out. For this year, the front lawns which have some dirt patches will be raked, seeded with fescue, top dressed and watered. Environmental Concepts crews are extremely busy at this time, but they are doing their best to squeeze our reseeding into their December schedule (in addition to replanting dead plants). Note: when reseeding occurs, the overhead irrigation will need to be on more frequently, especially during the day as the seed germinates. There is no need for alarm if you see sprinklers on then. LANDSCAPE ADVISORY By Jan Foster, 951-698-0170

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