Eco-Friendly garden tour highlights gardens designed for climate change - The Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Eco-Friendly garden tour highlights gardens designed for climate change - The Press Democrat

A Santa Rosa garden that drinks like a camel

Eco-Friendly Garden Tour

What: Self-guided tour of 26 private and public gardens and landscapes in Sonoma and Marin counties designed for sustainability. Experts and additional information at many of the gardens.

Sponsor: Sonoma-Marin Saving Water Partnership

When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 18

Cost: Free

Information/Registration: savingwaterpartnership.org/eco-friendly-garden-tour/eco-friendly-garden-tour-2024.

Information on Santa Rosa rebate and incentives: srcity.org/834/Rebates-Services

Emmi Koivunen and Hunter Scott felt thrilled and fortunate to be able to buy their first home at a time when so many of their fellow millennials felt priced out of The American Dream.

With help for a down payment from their family, the 30-somethings landed a modest, 1,150-square-foot rancher in Santa Rosa’s Roseland area for $630,000 in late 2021.

The house was equipped with solar and the interior was fresh and functional. But the yard? It was nothing but a dull runner of Bermuda grass that screamed 1965.

But with so many of their resources going into the house alone, the couple decided to redo the landscape themselves. They killed the grass and replaced it with low-water-use plants. They created a rain garden to capture runoff and keep water in their own water table. They laid a permeable path of decomposed granite and in the backyard, installed a series of tanks to capture water on the roof to use for irrigation.

Taking advantage of rebates through the city of Santa Rosa for rain barrels and lawn replacement, they spent less than $10,000 front and back for materials. The hours of labor can’t be quantified.

But the pair are proud of their accomplishment and will show it off May 18 during the annual Eco-Friendly Garden Tour sponsored by the Sonoma-Marin Water Saving Partnership.

It’s been dubbed “The DIY Daydream” and is one of 26 public and private gardens in Sonoma and Marin counties participating in the event, which is billed as a showcase of sustainable landscaping practices, with a particular eye on gardens that will be resilient during a time of warming temperatures due to climate change.

Tour goers can map their own course, stopping in at gardens that feature low-water plants and California natives, water catchment systems, fire-resilient features, organic gardens and habitat for birds, pollinators and insects that keep the land healthy.

There will be several, like Koivunen’s and Scott’s home, that have benefited from government incentive programs, like the city of Santa Rosa’s cash-for-grass rebate, and rebates for purchasing rain barrels.

Koivunen and Scott took advantage of both programs. They were able to shave $700 off the $5,300 they spent to buy water barrels to capture rain off their roof. They now have the capacity to store 2,800 gallons of rainwater, which so far, has been enough to provide all their irrigation needs through September. They got $1,500 for killing their lawn and replacing it with low-water plants.

To replace the lawn they first let it die by stopping watering. Then they sheet mulched over that with cardboard to complete the deed. Over that they spread wood chips, which they sourced at ultra low cost through Chipdrop (chipdrop.com). The website connects landscapers and homeowners with arborists who have extra wood chips they would otherwise have to take to the landfill. They got 1 1/2 truckloads for $20.

In the 15 years since it was launched, the city’s cash for grass program has resulted in the conversion of 4.2 million square feet of grass into landscapes that need far less irrigation, said Thomas Hare, a water resource specialist for the city of Santa Rosa.

The conservation efforts have resulted in real water savings. In the last 30 years, he said, water use in the city decreased by 14%, even as the population increased by 64%. The number of gallons per person used each day dropped by 44%. The estimated amount of water saved by the cash-for-grass program alone is 1.3 billion gallons.

“This is incredible,” Hare said. “Some of this savings is due to code changes statewide, but a lot is also due to local conservation efforts, including the efforts spurred by the conservation program established 30 years ago at Santa Rosa Water.”

The city figures it is saving 2.3 billion gallons of water a year through all of its rebate and incentive programs. It also offers a rebate for installing laundry to landscape grey water systems.

“I did their post inspection and I was impressed they had done the work themselves and I thought it looked really appealing. One of the things that’s really lovely, when these projects were done well, is that other people see them and say, ‘I want to do that.’ You get this multiplier effect.”

Koivunen, who works for an international company that provides beneficial insects for agricultural use, and Scott, who works in homeless services, were both big believers in natural landscaping.

“I’m definitely a plant lover,” said Koivunen, who worked for a nursery in San Jose before moving to Sonoma County a few years ago. “Up until now we’ve had rentals. The joke is, I kept collecting things in pots. When we moved here I had over 100 plants in pots we had to move. We simply invested way too much in our rentals. Too much into the landscape and everything. It’s really nice to have our own space where we can actually put stuff in the ground and leave it there.”