14 Aug La Canada Homeowners tackle the drought

I think most La Canada Home Owners have heeded the warnings and do take the drought that we are all experiencing in Southern, California very seriously. I know as a community, we all are up to the challenge when it comes to doing our part to help.

As we drive around, we can see the steps that a lot of residents have taken to lessen their water usage. The driveways that we used to see with the kids washing the cars weekly seem to be a thing of the past.

We asked around and found out what some of our community members were doing to scale back their water usage and we wanted to share some of those tips here.

Obviously not everyone is ready to rip up their lawn in favor of turf, but here are some things we can do in the yard to save water.

1. Talk to your gardener about whether aerating or punching little holes through the compacted soil can help you cut down on the water it needs..
2. Make sure your sprinklers are hitting the lawn and not the sidewalk or front porch by accident.
3. Use mulch or composte around the plants as this will reduce the amount of water they need.
4. See if you can get away with watering the lawn just once a week.
5. Make sure you have a water thrifty sprinkler head that is water-efficient.
6. Be sure that your water hoses have efficient spray nozzles as hoses that don’t have nozzles can waste over eight gallons of water by the time you walk back to the shut off to turn them off.

We use water in our home for other things than just our yards, so we wanted to know other ways that people were saving on water usage. One resident mentioned stopping servers in restaurants from bringing water automatically if you know it willl go to waste- tell them you would like to pass on the H2o. Another neighbor told us about taking your pets to a self-serve pet wash or groomer as they recycle the dirty water. And another brave La Canada resident told us about a “Dirty Car Pledge” where you vow not to wash your car for at least 60 days- the payoff is a blue sticker to put on your very dirty car but I think the water savings is payoff enough.

We are a community that works together to make sure our schools are top notch, our roads and neighborhoods are safe and now, we see how we are all coming together for the greater good of our entire State to help this issue that affects all of us and once again we are proud to say we live in La Canada Flintridge.