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CSUF Drought story
1. 2/18/2015 CSUF spends $250,000 to implement drought-tolerant landscaping
http://www.dailytitan.com/2014/11/csuf-spends-250000-to-implement-drought-tolerant-landscaping/ 1/3
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Cal State Fullerton recently replaced several large lawns on
campus with drought-tolerant plants, like the succulent
pictured above. (Katherine Picazo / Daily Titan)
CSUF spends $250,000 to implement drought-tolerant
landscaping
BY KATHERINE PICAZO – POSTED ON NOVEMBER 20, 2014
POSTED IN: CAMPUS NEWS, MULTIMEDIA, NEWS
In face of one of the worst droughts in California’s
history, Cal State Fullerton is replacing swaths of
grass with drought-tolerant landscapes to meet the
state mandate of reducing water use by 20 percent
by 2020.
About 60 percent of the university’s water use is for
irrigation. Last year, the university consumed 111
million gallons of water at an estimated cost of about
$360,000.
Since the mid-’90s, the university has been pursuing
water conservation efforts including the installation of
low flow or waterless fixtures in some locations.
Recently, the university expanded its efforts in
drought-tolerant landscaping. Areas of grass by
Langsdorf Hall, the Titan Student union and the
Education Classroom Building have been uprooted and replaced with plants that are less thirsty.
The university has spent about $250,000 to date to replace grass with drought-tolerant landscapes, including the
cost of drip irrigation, according to Facilities Operations.
Some of the new plantings include Chitalpa pink dawn, Desert Museum palo verde, Mexican bird of paradise and
feather grass, salvia leucantha, lantana, agave, dwarf bougainvillea and geraniums.
“Succulents are the best choice for this kind of (drought-resistant landscaping) because you could water them
infrequently, they will take it up efficiently, they will store it and will remain alive and green even if you don’t water
them for months,” said Professor of Biological Science Jochen Schenk, Ph.D.
Compared to drought-resistant plants used in what is called “xeriscaping,” lawns are extremely wasteful, Schenk
said.
However, Schenk said the university went with a very “half-hearted” statement on water-saving design by using
some desert trees with roses that are notorious for water wasting.
“Our campus is really devoted to sustainability … so I think what would be a really good statement for our campus is
to have a display of real xeriscaping out there with cacti, agave and desert trees and make it beautiful,” Schenk said.
Darren Sandquist, Ph.D., professor of biological science, said the university went with a plant palette that was
somewhere in between not wasting a lot of water and still providing the beauty they wanted to have.
The new plant palette was selected based on color and drought-tolerance, said Greg Keil, Cal State Fullerton’s
landscape manager.
Drought-adapted plants have a high water-use efficiency, which means they grow better than other plants for a
given amount of water they use.
But some of the plants chosen for the new gardens—geraniums, bougainvillea and carpet roses—will need to be
watered much more frequently than the native plants, Sandquist said.
“They are making a big effort to have better water conservation on campus,” he said. “One of the things they are
doing are to create landscapes that recapture water, instead of letting it run off.”
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by creating a reservoir of water in the soil, Sandquist said.
Due to its scope, the recent expansion of drought-tolerant landscaping may bring more attention to the practice, but
it is something that the university has been doing since the turn of the millenium, said Willem van der Pol, director of
facilities operations.
The drip irrigation system coupled with the installation of weed barrier sheets below the soil should reduce the
amount of water lost to evaporation.
“Drip irrigation provides a slow feed that penetrates much deeper to establish and maintain the plants with much
less evaporation,” Van der Pol said.
It costs $5 per square foot to remove the turf and convert the area to water-wise gardens.
Of the 29 acres of unoccupied lawns, 22 are potential candidates for drought-tolerant conversion, according to
Facilities Operations.
They have yet to consider viable options for the rebate program offered by Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California for their next turf-removal project. Metropolitan Water District pays $2 per square foot of turf replacement
for commercial sites who go through the program.
Kathy Ramos, associate resource specialist of Metropolitan Water District, said a water saving analysis showed that
commercial sites who removed turf reduced their water usage on average by 23.9 percent.
The university will continue converting additional acreage as part of their outdoor solutions to reduce overall water
usage and implementing the new motto “brown is the new green.”
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TAGS: CSUF, drought, landscaping
About Katherine Picazo
Katherine is a senior journalism major with a minor in American Studies. This is her second semester at the
Daily Titan as news assistant. This Spring she will be serving as a secretary for CSUF’s Latino Journalists. She
is excited to pursue her career in journalism after graduation.
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