Westminster is turning one of its most visible public landscapes into a demonstration of how cities can conserve water without sacrificing useful green space.
Victoria Arling of WaterNow explains how the city, working with WaterNow and Western Resource Advocates, identified roughly four acres of high-water-use Kentucky bluegrass around City Hall for conversion to a more drought-tolerant landscape.
The redesign is expected to save nearly 1.7 million gallons of water each year.
Instead of simply removing turf, Westminster added walking paths, new access points, pollinator gardens, lower-water plants, and preserved mature trees that provide shade.
Many of the replacement plants were grown in the city’s own greenhouse, which also supplies material for other public landscapes around Westminster.
The highly visible City Hall site gives residents a chance to see what a lower-water landscape can actually look and feel like.
For Arling, the project shows how large-scale landscape conservation can reduce current demand while also helping communities defer some of the future cost of developing additional water supplies.
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