Courtesy photo

Grevillea lavandulacea is lush and lovely in magenta, even in the driest weather.

As you have undoubtedly heard, EBMUD is requiring residential customers to reduce water consumption by 19 percent. Hearing this took me back in time to 1977, when residents of Marin let their lawns die and replaced them with horrifying lava rock and juniper creations. In their April 2008 issue, Organic Gardening says, "The typical American lawn sucks up 10,000 gallons of supplemental (non-rainwater) annually." While losing the lawn is an excellent place to start conserving water, it is difficult to argue in this era of global warming that lava rock is the way to go.

Fortunately, in the 30 years since that drought, many wonderful people have been working hard to come up with alternatives to lawns and thirsty annuals which are not only drought tolerant and require little maintenance or chemical input, but which are beautiful and provide food and shelter for wildlife.

In our publication, Outstanding Plants for Alameda County, the Alameda County Master Gardeners have highlighted 18 plants or groups of plants which meet these criteria. Some such as alstroemeria lilies and lavender are valued for their flowers, others like New Zealand flax and manzanita are grown for their structural value and still others like coffeeberry and currant for their foliage and fruit which are attractive to wildlife. Our outstanding plants also have a variety of bloom times; grevilleas and pineapple sage bloom in the winter, ceanothus and hummingbird sage in the spring, coyote mint and California fuchsia in the summer and lavender and Mexican bush sage bloom for most of the year in our climate. So you can sit and enjoy your garden year-round rather than watering and mowing that lawn.

For more information on the Master Gardeners' Outstanding Plant list, visit the Web site at http://groups.ucanr.org/ACMG/ and click on 'Outstanding Plants' on the sidebar. We will be adding to our list this summer, so check back often.

For more great plant ideas, visit EBMUD's Web site at www.ebmud.com/conserving_&_

recycling/plant_book/default.htm, and purchase a copy of their fabulous book Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates, which is pretty much the bible for drought tolerant gardening in our region. Another excellent resource is California Native Plants for the Garden by Carol Bornstein, David Fross and Bart O'Brian. Both books contain pictures and descriptions of hundreds of plants plus information on garden planning and lists of plants suitable for specific situations such as "dry shade" or "seashore conditions."

For online pictures of gardens that use both our "outstanding plants" and a host of other drought-tolerant beauties, visit the Web site for the Bringing Back the Natives garden tour at www.bring ingbackthenatives.net. Although the 2008 tour is over, you can still see photos of the gardens that will inspire and inform.

Finally, Stopwaste.org offers a series of classes as part of their Bay Friendly Gardening Program, including one on how to "Design a Bay-Friendly Garden." For a complete list of classes, visit their Web site at www.stopwaste.org/ home/index.asp?page=141.

In addition to plant selection, mulch is an important way to conserve water in your garden. Mulches can range from various grades of bark, to leaves and wood chips to permeable landscape fabrics. Many, such as wood chips, are free. All will help to conserve moisture by preventing evaporation.

Another important tool for water conservation is the use of drip irrigation or soaker hoses, which deliver water directly to your plants at the root zone with minimal losses through evaporation. If you must use overhead sprayers, be sure to water early in the morning to minimize losses to evaporation, but still give your plants plenty of time to dry before nightfall, thereby limiting the spread of fungal diseases.

Once you have decided to convert your lawn or other thirsty garden to something a little more drought-tolerant, you will need plants, mulch and irrigation supplies. As Master Gardeners, we are not allowed to recommend specific products or vendors, so these are my own personal recommendations:

For plants, Alameda's Ploughshares Nursery (on Main Street before the ferry terminal) has all but one of our "outstanding plants" as well as an wide variety of California natives and other drought tolerant plants.

For mulch, Alameda's Encinal Nursery (on Encinal near Chestnut Street) has a selection of bark mulches plus cocoa hulls, which I prefer for my vegetable beds (however, don't use cocoa hulls if you have dogs — it's poisonous if they eat it).