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Article
Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel
By Daphne
Sashin
Published July
6, 2007
ZELLWOOD
STATION - Amid the manicured lawns of her retirement community, Barbara Tubbs'
decision to replace her St. Augustine grass with less-thirsty pine needles and
plants didn't go as smoothly as she hoped.
Her next-door neighbor was so
appalled by the drastic makeover that she wrote to the Zellwood
Station architectural-review committee suggesting that Tubbs'
yard was a fire hazard and could lead to the deterioration of
the community.
"It's not sod, where you lay it down and it looks like it
has always been there," said Tubbs, 65. "It was pine
needles with just little plants. Now that it's growing, people
are understanding it."
More and more homeowners are opting to
replace their lawns with landscapes that don't require regular
watering and maintenance -- from wild-butterfly gardens to
artificial turf -- only to clash with neighbors and homeowners
associations accustomed to pristine St. Augustine lawns.
In at least one case, a lawn conflict sparked a lawsuit. The
Kissimmee Bay Community Association in Osceola recently sued a
homeowner when he killed about half the St. Augustine grass in
his yard and put in native plants without the association's
approval. |
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Barbara
Tubbs recently looks over the drought-tolerant yard of her home in the
Zellwood Station community. When Tubbs replaced grass with pine needles and
plants, a neighbor wrote to the architectural-review committee.
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The
association maintains it does not prohibit drought-tolerant landscaping.
However, it says it has the right to approve any landscape changes in the
upscale, gated community on the shores of East Lake Tohopekaliga.
The state said in 2001 that homeowners associations may not prohibit
conservation-oriented landscapes, sometimes known as Xeriscapes or
"Florida friendly" yards.
But while more new communities are embracing the alternatives, many older
developments haven't lifted covenants mandating St. Augustine.
"The homeowners associations are struggling with how to have covenants
that maintain the value of the community without someone saying, 'The
6-foot-tall grass in my front yard is a bird sanctuary,' " said Teresa
Watkins, who educates homeowners and builders about yards for the University
of Florida in Orange, Seminole and Lake counties.
Conservation advocates say builders should install water-efficient landscapes
before the people move in. At Pringle Development's Lakes of Mount Dora,
residents have embraced the large flower beds and drought-tolerant Empire
Zoysia grass. The city mandates lawns may have up to 65 percent grass, with
the rest made up of vegetation that doesn't require regular watering.
"This is just like being sent to heaven," said resident John
Lindsay, 55. "You don't have to mow as often, the Zoysia grass doesn't
grow as fast and the plants are pretty self-sufficient."
An Audubon official recently proposed that water-management districts require
drought-tolerant plants as a condition of development permits -- rather than
impose lawn-watering restrictions after the fact.
"We allow people to . . . plant St. Augustine lawns and then . . . as
droughts occur, they have to watch those lawns go brown," Charles Lee,
director of advocacy for Audubon of Florida, told the South Florida Water
Management District governing board in June.
Governing board member Harkley Thornton said turf restrictions are best left
to local governments, but the water-management districts can do more to
encourage them.
Jacqueline Torbert, water-division manager for Orange County Utilities, said
as a precursor to a new landscape ordinance that the county will soon pick a
couple of subdivisions to showcase water-saving landscapes. The idea is to
help people see that "your neighborhood isn't going to be sacrificed at
all in terms of beauty, just because you're doing it efficiently."
And in Zellwood, Barbara Tubbs' yard is being watched closely to see how the
plants and flowers mature.
"We're still struggling with what kind of restrictions or what kind of
plants or ground cover or edgings that we want to have," said Lynn
Blocher, a member of Zellwood Station's architectural-review committee.
"You need to have some rules so that it's not helter-skelter."
To learn more about creating a drought-friendly lawn, visit the Florida Yards
& Neighborhoods Program at http://cfyn.ifas.ufl.edu/.
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