Change is in the air–and on the ground when it comes to landscaping on Colorado’s Front Range. The era of large, heavily watered lawns is shifting as hotter temperatures and tighter water supplies are leading water providers and their customers to emphasize more native and climate-appropriate landscapes.
Homeowners and HOAs alike are seeking landscapes with less bluegrass and lower water demands as irrigation costs climb and environmental concerns rise.
Denver Water is at the forefront of these changes, encouraging its customers to consider Coloradoscapes, landscapes that take design cues from Colorado ecosystems. Utilities are promoting a shift toward yards that feature water-wise plants, prairie grasses and cooling shade trees, creating richer habitats for birds, pollinators and wildlife. Once established, such landscapes can require just one-third as much water as a bluegrass lawn consumes.
“In the last 10 years, average temperatures in Denver have been 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th-century average,” says Greg Fisher, manager of demand planning for Denver Water. “That means our community’s landscapes, including a healthy urban tree canopy that provides cooling shade and native grasses and plants more acclimated to our semi-arid climate, need to adapt to warmer temperatures while also conserving our precious water resources.”
Denver Water sees the landscaping community as partners in this effort, with opportunities to collaborate on work that ranges from implementing smarter, more efficient irrigation to greater use of prairie grasses and, where practicable, lawn removal to make way for more diverse and drought-tolerant plantings.
We really see this as a partnership with the landscaping contractors,” Fisher says. “They have a lot of knowledge and know-how to share when it comes to developing and implementing the kind of changes we all need to consider as we grapple with warmer temperatures and a more constrained water supply.”
Much of this kind of work is happening from the ground up, as homeowners, HOAs, 27 Fall 2024 Colorado GreenWater Wise municipalities and local parks departments and the landscaping experts they work with look for ways to reduce water use, head off rising water bills and develop landscapes better able to withstand more erratic weather, hotter temperatures and less consistent irrigation.
Aligning with this shift is a change in direction from utilities and governments recognizing the need to create goals and policies that reflect a changing climate and less dependable and predictable water supplies.
A Better Fit
In late 2022, more than 30 water utilities across the U.S. Southwest signed an agreement initiated by Denver Water that pledged to reduce decorative or “non-functional” turf by 30 percent across their service areas. This is the kind of turf often found in office parks and street medians, turf that sees only lawn mower blades and no human activity, serving purely an aesthetic purpose.
That Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, signaled one of most public steps yet for utilities in the arid West coming together in agreement on the need to find more ways to cut water use in the Colorado River Basin. It included not only major water providers in Colorado but the districts serving Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Salt Lake City.
Big changes have also come via state legislation, with bills providing options to bluegrass lawns emerging for several years. Those include bills that have reduced HOAs’ ability to require grass landscapes and, most recently, legislation banning turfgrass in road medians and commercial properties.
That most recent bill will have big impacts for commercial, industrial and institutional properties, which traditionally have some of the largest “nonfunctional” turf landscapes, and those serving primarily an aesthetic purpose—property types that ALCC members maintain on a daily basis.
"There are places where grass is useful, where it serves a community or recreational purpose, like on parks and playgrounds, sports fields and picnic areas,” says Andrew Hill, a government affairs manager for Denver Water. “We’re shifting the thinking about where water-thirsty grass serves a purpose, like public parks, and where it doesn’t, like the middle of the street. While the status quo has long been to simply plant bluegrass everywhere, we know there are better, more water-wise plants that can thrive in our climate, are beautiful and provide a larger benefit to our communities.”
Even as new laws and agreements are landing, work on the ground has been moving forward.
In 2023, the Denver Parks and Recreation Department took aim at 10 acres of thirsty Kentucky bluegrass on Quebec Street just south of Interstate 70, replacing existing grass with more than 60 species of prairie grasses and wildflower seedings.
On the south side of the metro area, three acres of decorative, unused Kentucky bluegrass at the front of Arapahoe County’s Administration Building in Littleton is being transformed into a rolling prairie meadow. Work on that project began in 2022.
Denver Water is transforming some of its own properties, including a project to Colorado Scape 12,000 square feet of what used to be water-thirsty turf at its Einfeldt pump station at the corner of South Buchtel Boulevard and South University Boulevard.
The new landscape, planted in 2023, includes a native grass mix of buffalo grass, blue grama and inland salt grass, plus additional water-wise and native perennials.
Additionally, a 2022 Colorado law created a state program that offered financial help to local governments, nonprofits and other entities to replace irrigated turf with more water-efficient landscaping.
“Those projects are aligned with a larger, statewide and regionwide push to create landscapes that offer a better fit for the climate and communities,” Fisher says. “At Denver Water, we look forward to working with the landscaping experts in our communities, and their clients, to build a community that’s more sustainable and resilient in the face of limitations imposed by water and weather.”
Read more in this issue of Colorado Green Now:
ALCC celebrates excellence and honors leaders at the 2024 ELITE Awards reception
Tools to grow crew communications
Do your clients have larger containers actively planted out in the garden or around the property? Perhaps you are involved with planting and tending those compositions throughout the year. Don't neglect the opportunity to promote customizing these containers by offering the creative service of preparing them for that fourth season of interest. Far too many containers are abandoned, literally from November through March, as they await attention in the spring. With the right materials, technique and creativity, there are unlimited opportunities to provide the service of creating these container arrangements as additional income before snow removal and other winter projects become priorities.