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ANN ARBOR: Rain barrels touted as way to save water and money

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Ann Arbor Journal News

Published: Sunday, November 03, 2013





Using a rain barrel can save you money and benefit your garden and landscaping by taking advantage of rain water, a resource you may not have thought of before.

Rain barrels collect and store rain water from roof areas that would otherwise be lost as runoff to storm drains and streams. Water stored in a rain barrel can be used for such things as watering flowers, gardens, trees and shrubs, rinsing tools or muddy boots. Use of rain barrels conserves water resources and reduces the amount of water used from municipal water supplies.

A rain barrel can save most homeowners about 1,300 gallons of water during the peak summer months. Saving water not only helps protect the environment, it also saves you money because of decreased demand for treated municipal water for plant watering. Rain water is also naturally better for plants and gardens as it is soft water, devoid of minerals, chlorine, fluoride and other chemicals. Plants respond better to rain water than municipal or well water.

The Washtenaw County Conservation District offers rain barrels for sale which are made from recycled, food-grade plastic barrels. They are available in a 55-gallon size in black, blue, grey and terra- cotta; and a 30-gallon balcony size in blue.

The District also offers tumbling and stationary composters, also made from recycled food-grade plastic 55-gallon barrels. The composters only require a 3 foot by 4 foot area, so they are ideal for a location with limited space. They are low maintenance, fully-enclosed and reduce odor problems by controlling moisture and aeration.

Orders for rain barrels and composters are accepted year around. A limited stock of rain barrels and composters are available, but if what you want is not on hand, they are generally available in two to three weeks.

Order forms and additional information about both the rain barrels and composters is available at the Conservation District office and on the District web site at www.washtenawcd.org. Click on the “Rain Barrels” link in the What’s New box on the home page.

For more information about the Washtenaw County Conservation District, or its other programs and services, contact the District office, 7203 Jackson Road, Ann Arbor; call 734-761-6721, ext. 5, or visit www.washtenawcd.org.

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Using a rain barrel can save you money and benefit your garden and landscaping by taking advantage of rain water, a resource you may not have thought of before.

Rain barrels collect and store rain water from roof areas that would otherwise be lost as runoff to storm drains and streams. Water stored in a rain barrel can be used for such things as watering flowers, gardens, trees and shrubs, rinsing tools or muddy boots. Use of rain barrels conserves water resources and reduces the amount of water used from municipal water supplies.

A rain barrel can save most homeowners about 1,300 gallons of water during the peak summer months. Saving water not only helps protect the environment, it also saves you money because of decreased demand for treated municipal water for plant watering. Rain water is also naturally better for plants and gardens as it is soft water, devoid of minerals, chlorine, fluoride and other chemicals. Plants respond better to rain water than municipal or well water.

The Washtenaw County Conservation District offers rain barrels for sale which are made from recycled, food-grade plastic barrels. They are available in a 55-gallon size in black, blue, grey and terra- cotta; and a 30-gallon balcony size in blue.

The District also offers tumbling and stationary composters, also made from recycled food-grade plastic 55-gallon barrels. The composters only require a 3 foot by 4 foot area, so they are ideal for a location with limited space. They are low maintenance, fully-enclosed and reduce odor problems by controlling moisture and aeration.

Orders for rain barrels and composters are accepted year around. A limited stock of rain barrels and composters are available, but if what you want is not on hand, they are generally available in two to three weeks.

Order forms and additional information about both the rain barrels and composters is available at the Conservation District office and on the District web site at www.washtenawcd.org. Click on the “Rain Barrels” link in the What’s New box on the home page.

For more information about the Washtenaw County Conservation District, or its other programs and services, contact the District office, 7203 Jackson Road, Ann Arbor; call 734-761-6721, ext. 5, or visit www.washtenawcd.org.

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Vienna’s top five

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Vienna Landscape

PICTURE PERFECT: Visitors stand on a specially built bridge mounted in the hall of Kunsthistorisches Museum to better view the wall paintings of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt in Vienna.

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Vienna looks good and tastes even better. Explore monumental palaces and energetic art spaces then relax in your favourite coffee house over a Wiener Melange and a slice of apple strudel.

1. Schloss Schonbrunn

The magnificent rococo former summer palace and gardens of the Habsburgs are a perfect place to experience the pomp, circumstance and gracious legacy of Austria’s former monarchs.

A visit to 40 of the palace’s lavishly appointed rooms reveals the lifestyle and the eccentricities of Europe’s most powerful family, right down to Empress Elisabeth’s obsession with her figure.

Beyond the palace, Schloss Schönbrunn Gardens invite a stroll past pseudo-Roman ruins, along bucolic paths winding through leafy woods and a stopover in Gloriette.

2. Kunsthistorisches Museum

As well as accumulating vassal lands, the Habsburgs assembled one of Europe’s finest collections of art and artefacts.

The majestic highlight of this museum is the Picture Gallery, an encounter with a vast and emotionally powerful collection of works by grand masters, such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s evocative and ‘industrial’ Tower of Babel from the 16th century, or the bright plenitude of Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s Summer.

3. Schloss Belvedere

Living up to its Italianesque name ‘beautiful view’, this palace and garden ensemble is deceptively close to Vienna’s centre while still creating a feeling of being worlds apart. Symmetrical, finely sculpted and manicured gardens inspired by France’s Versailles connect two exquisite palaces dedicated to Austrian art, complemented by design interiors so stately that these are worthy of a visit in their own right.

Altogether, Schloss Belvedere and gardens bring together an astonishing who’s who of Austrian art with the finest of 18th-century palace architecture and landscaping. Not to be missed here is Gustav Klimt’s painting The Kiss.

4. Ringstrasse Tram Tour

Jump on a tram and explore the Ringstrasse, one of Europe’s most unusual streets.

This circular boulevard of magnificent state buildings, palaces and majestic hotels was carved out of the space once occupied by fortifications protecting Vienna from Ottoman Turk attack in the 16th century.

Today, monumental 19th-century architectural masterpieces boldly rise up along the flanks, encircling most of the central Innere Stadt and separating the centre from the gritty, character-laden Vorstädte (inner suburbs).

5. Prater the Ferris Wheel

There are larger and more hair-raising Ferris wheels, but this icon in Vienna’s Prater has the most character. Graham Greene sent his fictional character Harry Lime up here for a slow rotation in The Third Man, the film from 1949, and little about it has changed since then.

A ride takes you high above the beautiful green open spaces of the Prater, giving you a bird’s-eye view of the city and the expanse of wooded parkland and meadows that you can explore on in-line skates, by bicycle or on a walk after hitting ground level.

This is an extract from Lonely Planet Vienna (7th Edition) by Anthony Haywood, et al. © Lonely Planet 2013.  Published this month, RRP: $39.99.




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Near Sabino Canyon, clever backyard features catch the eye

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Landscape designer Paul Connolly hated the wooden utility pole that dominated the backyard view of his Sabino Canyon-area clients.

Connolly, owner of Sundrea Design Studio, couldn’t chop down the pole, so he designed a landscape that essentially forces visitors to ignore it.

By creating several focal points and inviting gathering spaces, attention is diverted from the transformer-topped pole to the landscaping, including the weathered teal gate and the built-in fireplace.

“You really don’t see it,” Connolly says of the pole, which is further hidden by a new patio roof that helps block the sight.

Connolly’s design led the Association of Landscape Designers to name him in August as the 2013 Landscaper of the Year.

He earned the title because his gold-award design in the International Landscape Design Awards scored the highest among all entries.

The estimated 3,000-square-foot backyard at the home, whose owners did not want to be identified, was undeveloped except for the seven-foot-wide patio that ended with a three-foot drop-off into the yard.

That drop-off remains to accommodate a manmade drainage system that now looks like a natural dry creek, although it’s now covered with Carolina jessamine.

The land then slopes up into several terraces and ends at the property fence with patios around an above-ground spa and the fireplace. Gardens and pea-gravel or stone paths weave through the spaces.

“I really like to blend the natural elements with the patios so the plants and hardscapes work together,” Connolly says.

He also likes to create several small gathering places that provide a sense of “coziness” within a large space.

Here are some other features:

— Elevation changes help hide the above-ground spa. It sits wrapped in synthetic stone on a lower level. Steps lead to the gathering space at the next terrace, which provides easy step-in access into the spa.

— The large gate with hacienda-evoking sconces is used only as access to a neighborhood hiking trail. Making it look like a major entryway adds another focal point to the back of the landscape.

— Connolly chose plants that won’t get unruly at maturity. Valentine emu, blackfoot daisy, bulbine and blue elf aloe stay trim without much maintenance.

— Because of the house’s orientation, the patio didn’t need the roof for shade. Instead, the covering visually extends the interior living space to the outdoors.

— The kitchen hides a wall that separates private and patio gathering spaces. Behind it is an artful private space, which is at a different level and that has access only from the master bedroom.

Master Gardeners offer tips for growing winter vegetables – Midland Reporter

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Rocks, brush piles and tumbleweeds once covered the east Odessa property of Mary Ann Miles.


Now, after 10 years of planting and experimentation, her yard is full of flower and vegetable gardens — some shaped like circles with holes in the middle for compost.

These “keyhole gardens” save water, said Miles, who made a presentation about the method at a Saturday winter gardening workshop held by the Master Gardeners of the Permian Basin.

After creating the circular base with fencing and cardboard, Miles said to layer soil and manure with “green stuff” such as plants, leaves and flowers. Gardeners only have to water a composting basket in the middle, which stresses the plants and forces their roots down, she said.

“It’s glorified recycling. And the plants to do great,” Miles said.

The Master Gardener of 10 years welcomes anyone interested in gardening to visit her yard, located at 6828 Ector Ave. in Odessa. She also recommends joining Master Gardeners, an educational organization offered by the Texas AM’s AgriLife Extension Service.

“You learn the little things. You learn from other people,” Miles said.

 In addition to offering tips on growing and protecting winter vegetables, the Saturday workshop also showed gardeners how to make planters out of straw bales, which are gutted to hold soil and seeds.

Bales cost about $11, and absorb moisture and naturally make compose material, said Master Gardener trainee Debbie Roland.

“You get your crop, and you get your composting material, as well,” said Roland, noting the method is good for growing tomatoes, bell peppers and potatoes.

But Roland said the bale has to be wheat hay — or bedding for animals — or else the garden will look like a chia pet.

Growing and protecting winter crops

A National Weather Service seasonal outlook predicts above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation levels in West Texas for the months of November, December and January.

Still, Master Gardener Bob Schuler said vegetables could benefit from frost protection.

“It’s hard to imagine sitting here … on a warm afternoon that we’re going to have frozen winter nights soon,” he said.

Temperatures below about 25 degrees are dangerous to plants, and frost cloths — which can be purchased in large rolls — can be draped over gardens, Schuler said.

“It’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s effective, and it will last the whole growing season,” said Schuler, noting that frost cloth can be added to fencing for more structure.

Broccoli, cauliflower and lettuces grow best during the winter months, and herbs such as basil, mint and chives also do well, said Manny Sandico, Master Gardener trainee.

Sandico recommends growing plants in small, portable gardens instead of large outside ones.

“Don’t plant anything you don’t need,” he said. “I only grow what I eat.”

Sandico also warned to be mindful of watering. Gardeners can test the moisture of the soil with their fingers; plants look “sleepy” if they need water, he said.

 “The water is very precious in Midland and Odessa. It’s good not to overwater,” he said.

Tips on lighting a room well

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Your choice of lighting has a huge impact on how your home looks and feels. But how do you choose when the options include everything from retro Edison-style bulbs with glowing filaments to compact fluorescents, plus lamps and fixtures in every shape and size?


“Lamps are one of the most important factors in a room’s design,” says designer Brian Patrick Flynn of Flynnside Out Productions. Yet homeowners often give lighting less attention than they do furniture or wall colors.

Here, Flynn and designers Betsy Burnham of Burnham Design and Molly Luetkemeyer of M. Design Interiors share tips on choosing the perfect lamps, lampshades and light bulbs to achieve maximum style and function.

If a room has no overhead lighting or wall sconces, these designers say it’s worth hiring an electrician to add them.

Flynn recommends using 2-inch or 4-inch recessed halogen lights overhead, rather than brighter 6-inch can lights.

“They instantly fill a room with the much-needed illumination,” he says, “but without looking tacky or heavy.”

Wall sconces also cast a flattering glow, and can serve as striking decorative pieces.

But don’t light a room exclusively with overhead lighting: Light from above that isn’t balanced by lamplight can be “prison-like,” Luetkemeyer says. “It casts a bunch of shadows and makes you look like a cadaver.”

Instead, create “pools of light” at different levels for a warm, layered effect, she says.

Flynn accomplishes this by choosing lamps at various heights. “It’s all a game of scale and proportion,” he says. “If the lamps are going on a tall console table with a super long piece of art hung above it, I’m definitely going to be looking for tall, slender, maybe candlestick-style lamps. On low-to-the-ground end tables, I’m most likely going to aim for something squatty, which is balanced with the proportion of the table and its nearby seating.”

A vintage option is the globe light that first appeared in the 1950s. Their “milky white finish and perfectly round shape” can cast a flattering glow, Flynn says. “I use these a lot, especially in kids’ rooms due to their fun shape and nostalgic appeal.”

Buy plastic globes rather than glass if you’ll be hanging them in rooms where kids may be roughhousing.

Another option: vintage Nelson pendants, which are made of wire and vinyl in many shapes and sizes.

“One of the best investments as far as lighting is concerned is to invest in classic George Nelson bubbles,” Flynn says. “I love to group them together and hang them above beds or dining tables.”

Don’t feel obligated to use the lampshade that comes with a lamp, Burnham says. You can replace it with another of similar size but a different shape, style or color. Or keep the shade but add piping or ribbon to change its look.

Another bit of rule-breaking: “Chandeliers should not be limited to living rooms and dining rooms,” says Flynn. “I use them in bathrooms a lot simply to bring more of a decorative look to an otherwise task-oriented space.”

His trick for making chandeliers appear less formal? “Swap out flame bulbs for globes. It modernizes an otherwise traditional, heavy element.”

Dimmers, too, aren’t just for dining rooms. The designers suggest adding dimmers in every room of the home. Installation is easy enough that you may want to do it yourself, Luetkemeyer says, and “it’s a complete game changer” in how the home is lit.

Also, consider using a floor lamp as a bedside reading lamp. Many floor lamps have bulbs that sit between 4 and 6 feet above the floor — perfect for illuminating a book when you’re propped up in bed — and they take up little space.

Some lamps come with warning labels advising owners to use only low-wattage bulbs. Think of these lamps “more as accessories than true light sources,” says Flynn. “Many times, I’ll add a few to a built-in so the wall becomes somewhat of a dramatic feature at night. I think accent lamps offer a great opportunity to play with color and texture.”

Luetkemeyer agrees: Think of low-wattage lamps “almost as sculpture.”

Once you’ve chosen the right lighting, it’s important to select the right bulbs.

Luetkemeyer likes frosted bulbs and soft pink ones, and she favors three-way bulbs for the same reason she loves dimmers: They let you choose soft light when you want it and bright light when you need it.

Progress is being made in making compact fluorescent bulbs that give off warmer, more appealing light, but many now on the market produce a cold, blue-tinged light.

Durie tells how to design with edibles

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Parsley

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE: Parsley can also make a great garden border, Jamie Durie says.

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Parsley makes a fabulous border, artichokes are a great accent plant and apples can create the perfect aerial hedge.

These are some of the tips that Australian landscape architect and TV lifestyle expert Jamie Durie shares in his new book, Edible Garden Design: Delicious Designs from the Ground Up.

Durie, a horticulturist by training, says he’s discovered how stylish edible plants can be by seeing them through the eyes of a designer.

“I’m not looking at it like a gardener would, I’m a designer first and foremost,” he said.

When I look at a blueberry the first thing I think is “Wow I didn’t know they had these incredible blue-green leaves, that’s an incredible hedging plant.

“When I look at artichoke and broccoli, both of those plants have excellent architecture, they’re one giant flower in themselves, you can use those in the central part of the bed as a accent plant.”

In his gorgeous 300-page hardback book, Durie shows us a myriad ways we can get our fruit, vegetables and herbs out of the standard vegie patch and into the limelight.

“Rather than look at your edible plants as something that should sit in a vegetable patch, it’s about being creative with our plants and getting the extra added bonus of food,” he says.

In the book he features a range of projects that have inspired him, including Stephanie Alexander’s home garden, community gardens in Chicago, produce markets in New York City and Mama Durie’s vegie patch.

He describes how he transformed his mother’s garden in Queensland’s Coombabah by tearing out her old lawn, to her horror, and replacing it with a matrix of pathways and raised garden beds.

“If you replace your lawn with a garden that is ornamental, productive and interactive, your kids, and the planet, will love you for it,” he says.

Durie says his mum now loves her green spaces and is living proof that gardens provide a sense of wellbeing and balance.

“She’s always laughing, full of energy and excited about what the next season will bring,” he says.          

Jamie Durie tells us some ways he has used edibles over the years:

– Bay trees or pomegranate for screens

– Rosemary for hedging

– Parsley and sage for borders

– Quince for espaliers

– Apples and pears for raised pleached (entwined) aerial hedges

– Dill and parsnip for fine foliage movement in the garden

– Artichokes for accent

– Pumpkins for ground covers

– Grapes and passionfruit for trellises and walls

– Fig trees for shady canopies or garden ceilings

– Citrus and stone fruits for topiarised ornamental trees

– AAP



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Hydrangea Hyperbole at New York Botanical Garden

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The hobby of cultivating yard plants will “develop that attachment of the citizen to his home, which is one of the strongest safeguards of society against lawlessness and immorality,” a Detroit supplier wrote in its 1875 catalog.

The New York Botanical Garden has begun digitizing its holdings of about 56,000 catalogs for a searchable database. Enthusiasts can already scroll through every mention of nicotine pesticides and prizewinning dahlias and explore what the Floral Park neighborhood in Queens looked like when it was still covered in greenhouses.

The booklets’ luscious drawings and photos depicting the likes of passion vines and mulberry trees were products of company owners trying to put one another out of business. “They were ruthless,” said Susan Fraser, director of the garden’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

When too many misleading color illustrations of overabundant plants began appearing in catalogs, a Philadelphia seed company warned about its competitors, “The attractive features are in some cases grossly exaggerated.”

The texts are full of references to delicate petal veins and velvety textures, in keeping with the era’s view of the refined sensibilities of female consumers. The target audience “was always the women,” said Thomas J. Mickey, the author of “America’s Romance With the English Garden” (Ohio University Press), a recent study of how seed catalogs shaped landscapes.

Through Nov. 20, the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum in Pelham Bay Park, the Bronx, is displaying planting how-to and philosophy books from its library, which was assembled a century ago for the International Garden Club. Early club members, mostly women, left signs of heavy wear and tear on the spines of guides to raising violets and magnolias and arranging sundials and playground equipment.

The Bartow-Pell exhibition’s curator, Joseph Disponzio, uncovered biographies of the volumes’ lesser known authors, like the fern specialist Grace A. Woolson. Amid the fern groves on her Vermont property, she also raised tree toads; a 1911 obituary reported that her pet amphibians were “trained to perform several little feats.”

SAVE THE WIG!

 

What are the most endangered artifacts in the United States? Advocacy groups in Oklahoma, Virginia and Pennsylvania are asking the public to help devise Top 10 lists of deteriorating antiques in institutional hands.

Recent contenders include early 1900s glass-plate photos of Oklahoma prairies, a minister’s 1750s grave monument in Richmond, a bust of Lincoln carved from Pennsylvania anthracite coal and a tattered wig worn by the Pennsylvania abolitionist congressman Thaddeus Stevens.

The Pennsylvania contest ends at midnight on Friday. The wig’s owner, LancasterHistory.org, needs a few thousand dollars to build a shock-resistant travel case for it, to prevent further hair loss and stabilize the underlying mesh. Related exhibitions are being planned for a brick townhouse in Lancaster that Stevens occupied with his mixed-race housekeeper and mistress, Lydia Hamilton Smith. (Artifacts related to her will also go on view, including the servant bell that he used to summon her.)

“Each year, we’ve been increasing our interpretive efforts towards Stevens,” said Barry Rauhauser, a curator at LancasterHistory.org. Other institutions frequently ask to borrow the wig, which resembles its rumpled counterpart worn by Tommy Lee Jones playing Stevens in the 2012 movie “Lincoln.”

To draw attention to the current contest, the museum has held a competition for Stevens look-alikes wearing a variety of unflattering hairpieces.

Winning the ranking of antique most at risk does not necessarily entail any cash prizes, but it does attract sympathy. At the Norfolk Botanical Garden in Virginia, eroded white marble statues by the Virginia sculptor Moses Ezekiel received the most votes in the state’s 2011 endangered artifacts contest. Fund-raising is underway to cover $500,000 in restoration and future maintenance.

“It didn’t lead to a grant, but it led to the garden going, ‘Golly-day, people care,’ ” said Patricia Rawls, a former board president at the garden.

Eryl Wentworth, executive director of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, said in an interview that endangered artifacts contests are beneficial, even when no money changes hands. Curators can rethink possibly tired existing displays as they sift through their collections for candidates that could captivate the public. Ms. Wentworth said that they could stumble upon something forgotten and wonder, “What are the stories this could tell, if it were in good enough condition to show?”

JEWELRY FIT FOR ISIS

Ronald Kawitzky, a Manhattan jewelry dealer, has long been keeping anything inspired by ancient Egypt in a collection not for sale. He has found works made over the last two centuries in places like Russia, Italy and Brazil that feature winged scarabs, tapered temple columns and sphinxes in gold and precious stones.

In imperial powers like France and England, the fashion for Egypt-inspired jewelry reflected the countries’ role in northern Africa. “Everyone was trying to reinforce their own connection,” Mr. Kawitzky said during a tour of “From Here to Antiquity,” a show of acquisitions from his store, D K Bressler, now for sale at the S. J. Shrubsole gallery on East 57th Street in Manhattan (and through 1stdibs.com, with prices between a few hundred dollars and six figures). He added, “It’s a jumping-off point for fantasyland.”

At the gallery, images of ibises, deities and pharaohs, surrounded by fake hieroglyphics, bask in sun rays on pins and bracelets. Necklace beads are shaped like ankhs and lotus flowers, and gold snakes are twirled around ceramic and carnelian scarabs.

A forthcoming book, “Egyptomania” (Palgrave Macmillan), by the historian Bob Brier, devotes a subchapter to 19th- and 20th-century jewelry based on archaeological finds at pyramids. Victorian and Art Deco metalworkers applied pharaoh and sphinx motifs to containers for cigarettes, perfume, pencils and scissors. Brooches made from preserved beetles and charms shaped like sarcophagi also became popular.

Mr. Kawitzky has also found a beetle brooch with entomologically correct gold legs and a coffin charm with a lid that pops open to reveal a mummy figurine.

City of Sacramento strives to lead in water conservation

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The city of Sacramento is positioning itself to become the capital region’s water conservation leader, a dramatic shift after decades of opposition to even basic conservation ideas like water meters.

On Tuesday, the City Council unanimously adopted a 150-page water conservation plan that will invest millions of dollars in a host of new measures, some normally associated with thirsty desert cities.

Within two years, if the plan is carried out as proposed, the city for the first time would offer homeowners cash incentives to remove lawns. It also would extend conservation programs into thirsty commercial sectors, such as restaurants and laundries, and punish heavy water users with steeper water charges.

“Anybody who wants to look to Sacramento and say we’re not doing our share is just simply not paying attention,” said Vice Mayor Angelique Ashby.

The new direction is an outgrowth of several factors, including a new generation of city leaders and a growing statewide awareness that water conservation is everybody’s business, even in cities such as Sacramento that are relatively wealthy in water. The city has its own water rights in the American and Sacramento rivers, so is not dependent on allocations or purchases from other entities.

Yet, in recent years, Sacramento also has moved more decisively to embrace its rivers for the esthetic and recreational pleasures they provide, from swimming and kayaking to habitat for a unique and robust salmon run. All those assets require water, and local recreationists and environmental groups have pressed for conservation to protect the rivers and the benefits they provide.

“There’s been a sea change, and I think they’re making a major shift in their conservation programs and the dedication of funding to it,” said John Woodling, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Water Authority, which promotes collaboration on water issues in Sacramento, Placer and El Dorado counties. “It’s a good thing to see. They’re working against a lot of past perception, and they need to be aggressive to overcome some of that.”

Another incentive comes from the state: The city is being nudged down the road to more aggressive conservation by two different California laws.

Sacramento faces a state deadline of 2025 to install water meters on all its residential customers or it could face penalties. The city resisted metering for decades: The city charter dating to 1921 actually banned water meters, and every City Council member in 1991 opposed a new state law that required meters on new homes.

The city got a slow start complying with the 2025 deadline, partly because the City Council resisted rate increases to pay for it. It agreed last year to begin increasing rates, also needed to repair aging waterworks. But 53 percent of homes remain unmetered, and the city may now depend on state grants to get the work done in time.

The city must install about 110,000 meters by 2025, at an estimated cost of $350 million.

That’s where the other state law comes in. Unless Sacramento cuts water consumption 20 percent by 2020, it could be declared ineligible for state grants.

To meet that target, the city must cut its water use to 223 gallons per capita per day, a 20 percent drop from a previous 10-year average of 279 gallons. Sacramento already has met that goal, with per capita water use dropping to 207 gallons per day in 2010. But city leaders believe much of that reduction may be due to the economic recession, and could be short-lived. By 2012, consumption had climbed back to 217 gallons and is expected to keep climbing until it exceeds the target.

William Granger, Sacramento’s water conservation administrator, said the city’s goal is to exceed the 20 percent mandate, although a specific target has not been set.

“The main hammer is, indeed, eligibility for future grants,” said Granger, who joined the city in February after 19 years of experience at Otay Water District in San Diego County, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and Marin Municipal Water District.

“But that’s not our sole reason for wanting to exceed the 2020 target,” he said. “There’s also kind of the public perception. We want to do what we can to be a leader in the region and in the state.”

The plan adopted by the City Council includes about 20 conservation measures. It includes cash incentives for homeowners to remove lawns, expanded toilets and clothes washer rebates, and rebates for “smart” irrigation controllers for large landscapes, such as in commercial areas, which can adjust watering based on the weather. The program also calls for a significant expansion of public education efforts to spread the conservation message.

Perhaps the most controversial element is so-called “conservation pricing,” which imposes a tiered rate structure to make heavy water users pay more.

Most Sacramentans still pay a flat rate for water, which allows them to use all the water they want for a single monthly charge of $30 or $40, depending on home size. Metered rates – still unknown to most Sacramento ratepayers – create a basic conservation incentive by charging customers for the actual amount of water consumed: The more they use, the more they pay.

Conservation pricing goes one step further with a structure similar to many electric utilities. Once water consumption passes an established threshold in any given billing cycle, each additional unit of water costs more and the water bill increases faster.

Altogether, the new conservation measures are expected to cost $462 per acre-foot, according to the plan. This is less than Sacramento’s cost of treated water in 2012, which was $579 per acre-foot. One acre-foot is enough to serve two average households for a year.

Many of the new programs will not be rolled out until July 2015 – assuming the City Council allocates additional money for conservation efforts. The new programs are expected to boost the annual cost of conservation efforts in the city Utilities Department from $1.5 million to $8.5 million, and the plan does not specify where the money will come from.

Still, the amount pales next to the potential cost to expand water treatment facilities. Without more conservation, officials estimate Sacramento will need to spend $150 million to expand water treatment capacity by 2030.

A cash incentive to remove lawns would be revolutionary in Sacramento, where decades of relatively cheap water created an urban oasis of lush lawns that is increasingly rare in water-scarce California.

Only two other municipalities in the region currently offer lawn-removal incentives. Roseville has done so since 2008, and Placer County Water Agency launched a program this year. Both offer residents $1 per square foot of lawn removed, up to $1,000 per homeowner.

In Roseville’s case, the incentive is not just a credit on the homeowner’s utility bill. At the completion of a lawn-removal project and inspection by the city, officials write the customer a check for the full rebate amount.

“It’s one of our most popular programs,” said Lisa Brown, the city’s water efficiency administrator, who modeled the program after one offered in Las Vegas. “I think a lot of people don’t use their lawns. What we hear most often is people don’t want to do the maintenance anymore. A lot of people are really frustrated with having to mow it weekly, and fertilize it and check their irrigation all the time.”

When Roseville started its “Cash for Grass” program in 2008, 40 people were waiting to sign up at 8 a.m. on the first day the program was offered, Brown said. The city instantly exhausted the $30,000 budgeted for the program. Now $60,000 is offered for turf rebates each year, and the city has removed at least 346,000 square feet of lawn since 2008 – equal to six football fields.

In most cases, Brown said, customers replace lawn with drought-tolerant landscaping that is easier to maintain. The city provides participants with a list of recommended plants, and also requires that they replace lawn sprinklers with drip irrigation.

So far, the program has saved enough water to serve 150 new homes in Roseville – without the need to find new water supplies.

“I need that type of sustained savings that gets me to a level that meets state law,” Brown said.

Call The Bee’s Matt Weiser at (916) 321-1264. Follow him on Twitter @matt_weiser

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