As I hear about all the warnings of cut-backs on water usage and fines, it makes me wonder when the city representatives will conform to their own requests. As I drive around Agoura Hills, Malibu, Oak Park and the neighboring communities, I can’t help but notice the huge swathes of lawn, ice plant of varying types, annuals, and non-native plants being dowsed with water in the middle of the day, just to keep them alive.
There are lawns being maintained that are never walked upon. These areas would be just as, or even more, beautiful with native grasses, and flowering native plant and trees. People, start noticing, as you drive around your communities, the water that is being wasted by the city you live in to maintain non-native and invasive landscaping. Start noticing and give a tip of the hat to all the people in your neighborhood who go against the grain and change their front lawns to drought resistant, mini wonderlands of depth, color, texture and movement using stone and gravel to accent the native or drought resistant plants.
Pepperdine, transform your “majestic and dramatic” hillsides into a sustainable, drought tolerant, educational community showplace you can be proud of. Agoura, Westlake, Calabasas, enough with the water- dependent, frilly, silly, fragile flowers lining the entrances to city buildings, malls and public places. We all need to get real and be part of the solution.
Eileen Culligan Carney