SANTA MONICA, Calif. - NewGrass® synthetic lawn will be underfoot for one of the major events associated with the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, being held this Sunday in Los Angeles.
NewGrass Landscape & Design has installed more than 1,200 square feet of NewGrass artificial grass in the expansive lounge area of the seventh annual Grammy Style Studio, said Larry Reno, district manager for NewGrass Landscape & Design, based in Southern California.
The Grammy Style Studio is the Recording Academy’s official styling suite. Grammy Nominees, performers and presenters are invited to the studio for three days before the awards to select one-of-a-kind fashions from leading international red-carpet and lifestyle brands to wear to the Grammy Awards.
NewGrass has been installed in the Grammy Style Studio area where invited guests can relax and socialize in an outdoor-like setting as part of their fashion and design tour, Reno said.
“Some of the most celebrated people in the music industry are going to be enjoying NewGrass as part of their Grammy experience this year,” Reno said. “It’s wonderful that the people at the Style Studio think highly enough of NewGrass and NewGrass Landscape & Design to invite us to be an important part of the environment for their event.”
Held at Smashbox Studios in West Hollywood, the Grammy Style Studio also offers private styling appointments for invited guests. Confirmed designers this year include Halston, Theia, Moods of Norway , Toni Maticevski, AILA, Marlies Dekkers, Samantha Wills, Nemer Saade, Grammy Label™, Melissa’s Shoes, Jil Sander Eyewear, Pennyroyal Silver, K-Swiss, MEK Denim and Melamed, according to Smashbox.
Nominated artists invited to attend include Beyoncé, Madonna, Sheryl Crow, Kings of Leon, Black Eyed Peas, Metallica, T-Pain and many more, along with their guests.
“As a styling haven where top international designers and lifestyle brands showcase their expertise for achieving the most unique look at the Grammy Awards — one of the most daring red carpets in entertainment — Grammy Style Studio represents the intrinsic connection between music and fashion,” Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy, said in a media release on the Smashbox website.
San Diego, Calif.– In response to an unprecedented water crisis, the San Diego region has been placed under tighter watering restrictions, another reminder that water-saving artificial grass makes environmental sense as a green landscaping option.
“People want to enjoy a green lawn as a valuable and desired part of their home, but more and more people in Southern California and elsewhere are telling us they also want to be environmentally conscious and do the right thing as the state’s water crisis grows worse,” said Larry Reno, district manager for NewGrass Landscape & Design.
NewGrass Landscape & Design is the largest distributor of the synthetic lawn Newgrass, the fake grass of choice when being eco-friendly and water-wise are as important as having a green lawn to enjoy year-round.
Effective Nov. 1, watering in areas served by the city of San Diego is reduced to seven minutes per watering station per assigned day, down from the 10 minutes allowed since June 1. But because of the fewer hours of sunlight in winter, watering may now begin at 4 p.m., rather than 6 p.m. as during the summer months, according to the city’s Water Emergency Information and Resources web page. (The restrictions do not apply to drip, micro-irrigation, stream rotor, rotary heads, hose end sprinklers with timers or valves operated by a weather-based irrigation controller.)
“Our city’s water supplies are currently in crisis,” San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders says on the city’s web site. “There are unprecedented challenges facing our water system, including the prolonged and continuing drought conditions across the West, and mounting legal restrictions on deliveries of imported water for our region.”
Environmental stresses on the San Diego region’s water supply include the ongoing drought in the Colorado River basin and reduced snowpack and runoff in Northern California. These burdens are compounded by court-ordered pumping restrictions on the State Water Project, which have continued to reduce the amount of water that can be delivered to the San Diego region, according to the city of San Diego. Finally, water suppliers to San Diego have already said they will cut deliveries to the area.
Because San Diego imports as much as 90 percent of its water, the combination of these facts put an incredible stress on the city’s water system.
Since June 1, Level 2 Drought Alert water restrictions have been in place and continue to be in effect:
Landscape irrigation is limited to no more than three assigned days per week: Homes with odd-numbered addresses can water on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday; homes with even-numbered addresses can water on Saturday, Monday and Wednesday; apartments, condos and business can water on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Whether you’re investing in the stock market, buying a new house or replacing your sod yard with synthetic grass, you want to know the answer to this question: When will I start to see a return on my investment?
For NewGrass synthetic lawns, the answer is less than 4½ years.
That’s how the numbers worked out for one Southern California couple that was sick and tired of re-sodding their 600-square-foot backyard every couple of years because their natural turf grass simply couldn’t hold its own in the shade of the family’s resplendent oak tree, combined with the wear and tear from two young boys and one very large and playful canine family member.
The couple had decided that “enough was enough,” and sat down and looked at the numbers with Larry Reno, NewGrass Landscape & Design district manger. When they saw they could have a new lawn that would be green and full year-round, that the dog couldn’t dig up or stain, and that would be green under the heavy shade of their oak tree – and would pay for itself in less than five years – it was a “no-brainer,” as the couple said.
Traditional turf lawns such as Kentucky bluegrass, fescue and Bermuda grass drink up as much as 60% of a homeowner’s water consumption. Synthetic lawns not only don’t require water (except an occasional spray to clean them), they also keep the groundwater safe and reduce maintenance expenses because they don’t require pesticides or fertilizers.
The couple with the 600-square-foot backyard, the oak tree, the dog and the two boys calculated their existing sod lawn was costing them $1,353 a year to water and maintain, including tearing out the existing grass and laying in fresh sod every two years (the numbers are broken out below). Nearly 20 percent of that cost ($270) was for watering, and almost 28 percent ($375) was for tearout and re-sodding (annualized).
Their NewGrass lawn cost them $6,000 installed; it ill pay for itself in just under 4½ years.
Here’s how the numbers worked out for them:
Turf lawn, 600 square feet, annual costs:
Watering ($.009 per gallon, estimating 50 gallons per square foot annually): $270
Gardner ($145 per month total yard; $40 allocated to backyard): $480
Fertilizer ($6 per month average): $72
Weed killer ($4 per month average): $48
Bug killer ($6 per month average): $72
Irrigation repair/ parts ($3 per month): $36
Tearout and resodding ($1.25 per square foot, or $750 every two years): $375
Total Sod Lawn Maintenance Cost per Year: $1,353
Total Cost of Maintaining Sod Grass over 4.5 Years: $6,088
Total Cost of NewGrass, installed ($10 per square foot): $6,000
With Southern California in its third year of short water supplies, Los Angeles on June 1 will levy higher water rates on consumers who don’t cut their water use and will restrict sprinkler use for all customers.
“Significant water conservation is imperative immediately as we are experiencing both a natural drought and a regulatory drought due to restrictions placed on the importation of water from the (Sacramento/San Joaquin) Delta,” said David Nahai, CEO and General Manager of the Los Angles Department of Water and Power (LADWP).
Beginning June 1, the department will implement what are called “shortage year rates” for all LADWP customers. Sprinkler use will be restricted to Mondays and Thursdays.
The department also continues to promote water conservation with various incentives, including its Residential Water Conservation Rebate Program. In cooperation with the Southern California Water District, the department offers a rebate of $0.80 per square foot for installations of artificial grass, including NewGrass synthetic lawn. (However, the program has been so successful, that refunds are available only by requesting them in advance, and the program has no more funds for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30).
“It’s good news and bad news about the rebate program – good it was so successful, bad that they didn’t budget more money for it,” said Larry Reno, district manager for NewGrass Landscape & Design, a California distributor of NewGrass, the eco-friendly and environmentally aware artificial turf solution.
“But if anything, the restrictions that start June 1 – the higher rates if you don’t conserve and the limited sprinkling days – will bring even more awareness to the need to conserve water and considering alternative landscaping methods to do that and still have a great lawn to enjoy,” Reno said.
The water district’s “shortage year rates” are designed to send a strong signal to water customers to conserve or pay a lot more for every gallon of water they use beyond their set allotment. Under shortage year rates, the current Tier 1 rate, or “standard allotment” that each customer receives per billing cycle, will be reduced by 15 percent. A customer’s allotment is based on number of family members, heat zone, lot size and season of the year.
Customers whose monthly usage after June 1 is not at or below their shortage year rate (at least 15 percent below their Tier 1 allotment) will pay a “premium rate” for every gallon over their shortage year rate. Customers already conserving 15 percent of their Tier 1 allotment will not be affected by the water-conservation rates. Customers who reduce by more than 15 percent will actually see their bills go down, the district said. Finally, customers who currently exceed their regular standard allotment and therefore routinely pay Tier 2 rates – and who do not significantly cut their water use under shortage year rates – will see their water bills increase quite substantially, the district said.
More information about LADWP’s water rates can be found on the Department web site at www.ladwp.com/waterrates.
As much as half of the water used by the typical California homeowner on outdoor landscaping is likely being wasted – an amount equal to all of the water used by 1.5 million typical California homes.
The San Diego Union recently reported that state estimates say residential lawns cover about 300,000 acres in California and suck up about 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year – equal to the amount used by 3 million typical homes.
“That’s even more striking when you consider we’re in a drought, and people have water-saving and environmentally conscious landscaping alternatives, like artificial grass,” said Larry Reno, district manager for NewGrass Landscape & Design.
For years, the state has estimated that only half of the water used on outdoor landscaping actually nourishes the lawns and plants it’s intended for. The other 50 percent is wasted because of evaporation, wind, improper system design or overwatering.
More recently, the state is working to prove or refine that assumption. A demonstration project in Orange County sought to show over time how homeowners waste water – and highlighted new ways to stop it. Three small homes were built and equipped with various testing devices and water-saving features.
House number one, labeled “typical,” illustrates the traditional Orange County home: hard concrete surfaces for driveways and walkways, water-slurping plants, wide-open lawns, cockeyed sprinklers, says the Orange County Register.
“Usually, less than 50 percent gets to the plants,” Darren Haver, a water quality adviser with the University of California Cooperative Extension, said of water used for landscaping around the typical Orange County home.
“The rest is evaporation and overspray,” Haver told the Register.
The Metropolitan Water District, the primary water supplier in Southern California, is crafting a $7 million program to pay customers to tear out their lawns starting later this year through $1-per-square-foot rebates to homeowners and businesses who switch to preapproved, drought-resistant landscaping. One option is NewGrass artificial grass. The strategy could save enough water to supply 7,900 families a year, the San Diego Union reported.
San Diego County water agencies currently offer 50 cents or more per square foot to install synthetic turf.