On my first day of work in Napa, I was unimpressed by the seemingly dead grass that greeted me as I drove into the office. It hadn’t rained in a long time, and the hills looked brown.
It ended up raining on that first day—and the rest of the week. By the weekend, those brown hills were emerald green.
“Wow, it looks like The Shire,” I thought. The grass wasn’t dead after all! It was just in some drought-stricken dormant state, waiting for nature to take its course and reveal its true beauty. By summer, when the green was gone, I realized the hills had turned gold—they were never brown.
When I headed south for Palm Springs in 2020, I expected brown. You know, a stereotypical desert—cacti, dirt, tumbleweeds. I knew almost nothing about the Coachella Valley, just as I knew almost nothing about the Golden State before moving here eight years ago.
To my surprise, there were plenty of trees, shrubs and grasses to behold here. Of course, where there are golf courses, there must be grass … right?
Now that I’ve been here for a few years, I’ve learned that in September and October, much of the grass is scalped, and new grass seed is planted on top of the old grass, which otherwise goes dormant or (eek!) turns brown. It’s called “overseeding,” and it’s commonplace here. Even the little patch of grass in front of the place I’m renting is subject to it.
Gold grass isn’t appreciated or even accepted here like it seemed to be in the Bay Area. Here, there is an insistence on green, green, green. That’s why the Desert Water Agency is urging residents and businesses to “skip overseeding and allow your grass to go gold for the winter.”
Overseeding “is pervasive in the Coachella Valley—and it takes a lot of water,” wrote Ashley Metzger, with the Desert Water Agency, which manages water in the western Coachella Valley. By skipping overseeding, we can conserve water and save money on both seeds and maintenance. It may also help those of us with allergies to grass pollen and dust, which gets kicked up during the scalping process.
“If the only time a grass gets foot traffic is when your landscaper mows it, it’s time to consider replacing it with something less thirsty,” wrote Metzger.
Earlier this year, Melissa Daniels wrote about the different rebates available to homeowners served by the Desert Water Agency who want to swap out their lawns for turf, rocks or desertscape. The Coachella Valley Water District, Indio Water Authority, Mission Springs Water District and Myoma Dunes Water Company offer similar programs.
But the onus isn’t just on homeowners. As we know, a lot of overseeding is happening on golf courses and in gated communities.
“Without green grass, courses are afraid golfers and tourists won’t want to (be) on or near the course at all,” wrote The Desert Sun’s Larry Bohannan in 2015. Since then, “more than 160 acres of turf, or the equivalent of nearly two average golf courses, have been removed at desert courses,” Bohannan reported last year.
It was the high cost of maintenance that made lawns a status of wealth in 17th century England.
I’m not attacking the golf industry—or even grass. Many Southern California golf courses have been adapting new technology to make irrigation more efficient, and 51% of golf course superintendents in the Southwest reported reducing areas that needed irrigation, according to a report presented at the Southern California Golf & Water Summit last year.
That said, as the golf industry starts to attract more diverse and younger players, the likelihood of players caring about conservation, climate change and sustainable business practices is also going to increase.
“Younger generations in the U.S. are especially likely to express an interest in addressing climate change—and to say they have personally taken some kind of action to do so,” according to a 2021 Pew Research Center report.
Another benefit to letting more grass turn gold and having more desertscape: Courses could stay open in September and October, which could mean more revenue.
If only we could adjust our expectations about the grass. Where does this desire for green grass come from, anyway?
One answer: It’s a status symbol. Our culture’s devotion to sprawling lawns is a legacy that hails from England, according to John Fleck, director of the Water Resources Program at the University of New Mexico. Fleck told CNN last year that it was indeed the high cost of maintenance that made lawns a status of wealth in 17th century England.
“That idea of lawns as a demonstration of status really became embedded in gardening culture in this country with British colonialism, so it sort of traveled west with us and took all that labor in,” Fleck said.
Translation: If you can afford to keep your grass green when it is 120 degrees outside, and there’s not a drop of rain in sight, you must have money. Your lawn is green, and so is the inside of your wallet.
You know what symbolizes wealth even more than the American dollar? Gold.
