Image Up Advertising & Design

COMMUNITY NEWS | FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | FEBRUARY 2015 5 By Len Tavernetti A decade ago our developer believed that by building nice, affordable housing infused with lush landscape and great vistas, home-buyers 55 or better would flock to semi-arid San Gorgonio Pass for their Golden Years. Build they did and buy we did. Unfortunately, Mother Nature's design for this oasis did not favor Orange County or eastern woodland landscapes from whence we immigrated. Faced with this reality our association began investigating investments that would accommodate our landscape desires and Mother Nature's master plan. The question we face today is "If we were attracted by lush plant life, are we now willing to pay for and change to a more arid environment?" And, since new homes being built still promote lush plant life, would we ever be populated with enough homeowners to make these changes? The Inland Empire is an ever-changing environment of coastal fog and desert winds. Four Seasons is situated on the western shoulder of the San Gorgonio (or Banning) Pass — a 2,500 foot saddle between 11,000 foot San Gorgonio Mountains on the north and 10,000 foot San Jacintos on the south. Air moving through the Pass is squeezed and accelerated giving us the nickname, "Blowmont." As the air blocked by the peaks awaits its turn to move or reconsolidates after squeezing through the Pass, it swirls in eddies, so it "breezes" over us in varying directions. Two wind chutes, Mesa Verde Park and Plymouth Rock, feel the brunt of moving east-west winds over Four Seasons. Southern California is a semi-arid, Mediterranean climate. The cold Aleutian current that flows south off the California coast produces fog and impedes rain storms from April to November from moving inland. Our rainy season is December through March and native plants have adapted to this watering cycle. Four Seasons plants are immigrants accustomed to a different watering cycle and volume. During these four months Beaumont's annual average is 18.5 inches. Only once during Four Seasons' existence has Beaumont achieved this average. This was during an "El Niño" year. El Niños are weather phenomena spurred by Pacific Ocean temperatures rising 1 to 2 degrees and occur on an average cycle of seven years. Currently, we are overdue. The converse, is La Niña, fosters drier than normal years. While heavy rains during winter do little for our plant life, they are very necessary to restore our ground water aquifers and the water storing dams in northern California. There is an extensive irrigation system to augment water needs for our plants year-round. As new homes are added to our community, the builder transfers responsibility for this system to the HOA. Currently this system includes over 60,000 emitters (sprinkler heads). We employ two landscape contractors to constantly monitor and repair this system. In 2009, with the prospect of ever- increasing irrigation costs, the association created a water sub-committee to explore ideas for reducing water consumption. The committee investigated artificial turf, satellite controllers, alternate plant life, drip systems, and plant removal proposals. All of these ideas showed promise of reducing water needs. But, because the builder previously installed and paid for existing irrigation and plants, the already-spent costs for existing landscape far outweighed the gains that could be realized by making changes. A detailed briefing on these studies was presented at a town hall meeting on Dec. 16. A copy of the briefing is on the Four Season's web site under Community Information. Four Seasons Adjusts to Mother Nature's Landscape Design New planting at The Summit. Photo by Susan Wilson

• Cover