If you are a busy person with a lawn and worry about water shortages — and the size of your water bill — this article is for you.

Lawns consume a lot of water and time, and the chemicals often used to “treat” them can be bad for the environment. Lawns themselves are also known as “green deserts,” as they do nothing to support wildlife.

But there is a better, and easier, way to landscape your yard: Replace your lawn with drought-tolerant natives and other Mediterranean zone plants that are adapted to summer-dry climates like ours. You might even qualify for a water district rebate. (Visit montereywaterinfo.org for details.)

But, you might ask, isn’t it difficult to remove a lawn? Won’t drought-tolerant plants be higher maintenance — and also brown and ugly in summer? And will I have to become a native plant geek to figure out what to plant?

Happily, it’s pretty easy to replace a lawn, and with a little planning, your drought-tolerant garden will offer year-round color and interest. You don’t have to become a native plant expert, and your new yard will take much less maintenance than a lawn.

Does this sound too good to be true? The city of Santa Monica’s Garden/Garden Project put it to the test. In 2004 (and again in 2013), the city installed landscaping in two similar gardens — a traditional lawn-based landscape and a sustainable, drought-tolerant native landscape. Then they tracked the costs and benefits over the years. In round figures, compared to the traditional garden, the sustainable garden uses about one-fifth of the water, takes a quarter of the maintenance and creates about three-fifths of the green waste.

How to lose your lawn

The easiest way to rid yourself of your pesky lawn is called sheet mulching. You can do it in a weekend. You lay double layers of overlapping newspaper, cardboard or builder’s paper over the entire lawn, wet it down to ensure good contact, and add three to four inches of mulch on top of that. Builder’s paper is a good choice. Available at large hardware stores, it is heavy kraft construction paper and comes in long, 3-foot-wide rolls. You can plant through the mulch immediately. For this method to succeed, you must deprive the lawn of all light so that it decomposes. To make sure that no light seeps in, you must remove a little bit of the lawn — cut back the sod six to eight inches from all walkways, and sheet-mulch this area, too.

Another way is to cut the turf to a depth of about six inches using a rented sod cutter and turn it root side up. You can pile the sod up to create one or more planting mounds, which add visual interest to a garden. Mounds are generally around a foot and a half to three feet high and can be (for example) oval, kidney, or teardrop shaped. Compact the mounds and add soil as needed to grade the sides to a smooth slope. Then add three to four inches of mulch, such as small sized redwood bark, over the entire area (including the mounds), and add plants.

For larger lawns, you can use a combination of these two methods. For Bermuda grass, however, you may have to resort to more drastic methods such as solarization, covering the lawn with black plastic sheeting until grass and seeds “cook.”

If you plan to replace your lawn with a patio, you’ll have to remove the sod and prepare the ground as you would for any patio project. In her Soquel garden, Lynda Haworth used widely spaced field stones with tough ground cover between, using Dymondia and creeping thyme. She piled up the sod to decompose. Sod is mostly soil and can’t be recycled at the county landfills, so it’s best if you can use it on-site.

What to plant

What to replace your lawn with can be a daunting question, but fortunately many local landscape designers and even some nurseries can provide a drought-tolerant planting plan for your garden at a reasonable cost. The most eco-friendly gardens use local native plants in the mix, so if that’s appealing to you, be sure to let the designer know. Plan in hand, you can then buy and install the plants with confidence, or pay for those services, too, depending on your budget.

When planting through the mulch, dig holes not much wider or deeper than the root ball. Loosen up the roots and plant so that the root crown (where root turns into stem) is at or slightly above grade (ground level) for good drainage. Fill around the plant thoroughly and firmly to ensure you don’t leave air holes. Keep the mulch a few inches away from the root crown to avoid problems with fungus. Water the plants in well, so the entire root area gets a good soaking.

If you have an interest in gardening, you can create your own planting plan. There are a lot of great books to help you, such as “California Native Plants for the Garden,” “Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates,” “The Western Garden Book” and (most pertinently!) “Reimagining the American Lawn.”

Group plants with similar needs for water and sun. Allow room for them to grow to their mature size. In their first year or two, drought-tolerant shrubs may stay quite small (while underground they are growing extensive roots). In the third and fourth years you’ll generally see more rapid growth. You can fill the spaces between young shrubs temporarily with faster-growing plants.

To mitigate the summer brown phase of many lovely spring bloomers and summer-deciduous shrubs, select some plants that bloom in summer and fall, as well as some evergreen shrubs.

Local nursery staffers as well as volunteers in groups such as the California Native Plant Society and Friends of the Arboretum can offer informed advice. Both organizations are holding their spring plant sales Saturday.

How to care for it

A well-designed drought-tolerant landscape will last years without a lot of attention. Avoid fertilizing and overwatering. Now and then, add more mulch, and pull weeds. You can leave seed heads on for interest and bird food, or deadhead to encourage more blooms. An annual pruning will keep the plants more attractive and healthy. Water infrequently but deeply. Avoid watering in the heat of day, to avoid problems with fungus.

A newly installed drought-tolerant landscape needs more frequent watering than a mature one. As a general rule, during the first year, water once a week in dry weather, and in the second year, once a month. By the third year your landscape may need no supplemental watering, depending on the plants you choose.

Before you know it, your garden will be alive with the sights and sounds of nature. You’ll be delighted — and all you wanted to do was save on your water bill.

Summer-blooming natives

Here are some planting ideas. These plant families feature summer bloomers that shine while your garden’s early bloomers slumber through summer.

Salvias: Ground cover (such as ‘Bee’s Bliss’) to mid-sized shrubs (such as Salvia clevelandii). Lavender to blue flowers from spring through summer, and wonderful scented foliage.

Monkeyflowers (Mimulus): Shrubby mid-sized perennials. Many cultivars with blooms from orange and salmon to rose-pink and maroon. Can bloom almost year-round in coastal gardens.

Buckwheats (Eriogonum): Very low to medium sized perennials. Rosy-red, pink, white, and yellow blooms are attractive into fall.

Penstemons: Small to medium sized perennials. Red, blue and lavender blooms.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium): Medium-size perennials. White to salmon pink blooms.

Dudleyas and Sedums: Low growing succulents. Mainly yellow, some pink blooms.

California fuchsia (Epilobium canum): Llow to mid size mounding perennial. Scarlet blooms into October.

Saturday plant sales

What: Side-by-side plant sales held by the Santa Cruz County chapter of the California Native Plant Society, and the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum

What’s for sale: California native plants, as well as ones adapted to the Mediterranean climate

When: Saturday. Society members and members of Friends of the Arboretum have access 10 a.m. to noon. Public access noon to 4 p.m.

Where: The Eucalyptus Grove at the UCSC Arboretum, access near Empire Grade Road and Western Drive

Payment: Cash and checks accepted. Arboretum sale also accepts cards.

Details: For the CNPS sale, visit cruzcnps.org. For Arboretum sale, visit arboretum.ucsc.edu.

WEST CAPE MAY – Judi Bernard and Cindy Franklin worked side by side for years with complementary landscaping and garden center businesses.

Franklin, of Middle Township, started her garden center in 2001. Bernard, of Cape May Point, ran a landscaping business for more than 20 years.

Bernard bought plants from Franklin, who, in exchange, referred landscaping and mowing jobs back to Bernard.

In 2005 they decided to join businesses with Cape Island Home Gardens in West Cape May.

“We have a lot of avid gardeners here. I just did a talk for the Cape May Garden Club,” Bernard said. “And practically everyone there has bought plants here.”

The serene setting at Cape Island does not come by accident. Bernard and Franklin work hard each winter to create a pleasing environment for customers at the acre-large garden center. By early summer, the center will be one meticulously sculpted garden full of take-home potential for Cape May County’s landscapers and homeowners alike.

Bernard said they even play classical music because the plants seem to respond well to it.

The best way to illustrate how people might make creative use of the center’s many shrubs, flowers and decorations is to show them, Franklin said.

“We have a certain niche. We try to carry more native species,” Franklin said.

To that end, they offer more than 175 native plantings for people’s gardens or flower beds among the “10,123 plants” they advertise on their sandwich board that sits on Broadway. Most of the garden center’s plants are grown in nearby Cumberland County.

Store mascots Maggie and Piper add to the garden center’s welcoming atmosphere.

The business gets a lot of birders and butterfly fans who want to attract backyard wildlife, she said. She and Bernard are into birding as well and often stop what they are doing to admire a passing eagle or cooper’s hawk.

Landscaping and lawn maintenance is a growing industry in Cape May County. As its population gets older, fewer people are either interested in or able to maintain their yards themselves, Bernard said.

Landscaping is a male-dominated business, Bernard said.

“But I don’t find any problems with anyone. I’m on the Bobcat as much as anyone. I just moved a ton of stone this morning,” she said. “You have to treat your people with respect or you won’t be respected.”

Cape Island partnered this year with Dellas Agency in Cape May to landscape and maintain its rental properties.

“Our landscaping business is increasing at about 5 percent per year,” she said. “We get new contracts every year.”

The long winter has cut into the garden center’s pre-season work. In keeping with tradition, the shop opened on March 20, the first day of spring, but closed a few days later when a storm dumped 8 inches of snow on South Jersey.

“Anyone in this business is a month behind. That makes it harder,” Bernard said. “You bring in new products and you have to pay for them.”

The shop is open 10 months of the year through Christmas. Its inventory changes monthly with the seasons.

Bernard spends a lot of her time planting window boxes for patios, decks – and windows. These are especially popular for homeowners who do not have room for a flower garden.

Heidi Kates, of Middle Township, bought spring flowers to plant at the Queen Victoria Bed and Breakfast in Cape May.

Kates said she always tries to mix in some pink flowers for owner Anna Marie McMain’s favorite color.

“We usually stick with the same thing – the tried and true plants,” she said.

Contact Michael Miller:

609-272-7217

MMiller@pressofac.com

Susan Barton will present “Lessons from the Roadside: Sustainable Landscaping in the Backyard” on Saturday, April 19, from 10 a.m. to noon at the South Coastal Library, at 43 Kent Avenue in Bethany Beach.

Using the lessons learned by managing roadside vegetation along Delaware’s roadsides in the Enhancing Delaware Highways project for more than 10 years, the talk will suggest methods for incorporating sustainable landscape design and management into the home landscape. It will also cover other local projects, including the water management plantings in South Bethany.

Barton is an extension specialist and associate professor in the Plant Soil Sciences Department at the University of Delaware. She has worked closely for the past 12 years with DelDOT to research and implement new roadside vegetation management strategies. She has also worked with partners to develop the Plants for a Livable Delaware Program, designed to provide alternatives to known invasive plants species and to promote sustainable landscaping.

Barton teaches Plants Human Culture, Nursery Garden Center Management and Students of Our Environment and coordinates the Landscape Horticulture Internship. She also works closely with the nursery and landscape industry, writing newsletters, organizing short courses and conducting horticulture industry expos with the Delaware Nursery and Landscape Association.

Barton received the Nursery Extension Award in 1995 from the American Nursery Landscape Association and the Ratledge Award for service from the University of Delaware in 2007.

There will be a drawing for a $50 gift certificate from Lord’s Landscaping in Millville at the event.

The presentation is one of a series sponsored by the Delaware Botanic Gardens at Pepper Creek, whose mission is “to create a world-class, inspirational, educational, and sustainable public botanic garden in southern Delaware for the benefit and enjoyment of the public.” For more information, visit their website at delawaregardens.org.