San Francisco Asks Residents to Identify City's 'Ugliest' Yard

As California’s drought continues to worsen, the San Francisco Department of the Environment is encouraging people to conserve water by hosting an Ugliest Yard Competition. The goal is to help people realize that in a drought, a green lawn is an ugly lawn.

“It’s a fun way that the department has to really get people to redefine what ugly is,” says Guillermo Rodriguez, a department spokesman. “And really ugly to us is a yard with water-wasting plants.”

The competition, which runs through May 15, supports Gov. Jerry Brown’s mandate to cut statewide water use by 25 percent, Rodriguez says.

San Francisco was one of the few California cities assigned to the lowest conservation target by the State Water Resources Control Board’s new regulations to implement the mandatory water savings.

Rodriguez says that the competition coincides with the launch of a tool called SF Plant Finder, which will highlight drought-tolerant plants and trees that thrive in San Francisco’s different microclimates.

“You can use native drought-tolerant plants that are native to San Francisco and still have a beautiful yard,” he explains.

Wendy Aragon, chair of the Citizens' Advisory Committee for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, says she’s seen firsthand how beneficial native, drought-resistant plants are.

“My dad did some landscaping and he had some drought-resistant plants in his backyard, and his water bill is a little bit lower,” she says.

Plants like succulents and cacti, which use less water, can lead to a beautiful yard if people get creative, Aragon adds.

To enter the competition, San Francisco residents must submit photos of their yards through the website or on Facebook, along with a caption explaining why they need a makeover. People can then vote for their favorites.

There are three levels of winners:

• A grand-prize winner chosen by a panel of judges will get a complete drought-friendly makeover
• The three photos with the most votes will win a consultation and packet of native, drought-tolerant plant seeds.
• All entrants will get a packet of plant seeds native to San Francisco.

So far, the competition entries include both lush, green, well-watered lawns and yards that have gone completely brown and bare.

One contestant captioned a picture of her yellowing yard by saying: "Our yard requires too much water to nurture. As an effort to conserve water, our yard is now yellow and full of overgrown weeds. It has become rats' and cats' battlefield.”

However, some submissions seem to be missing the idea that wasting water makes a yard ugly, not weeds. The entry with the most votes includes “overgrown weeds” as a reason for needing a makeover.

Aragon said she thinks this competition will make people more cognizant of their water consumption, even if they do not have a yard. “All that little bit of water is a lot,” she said.

For those without a yard, it also presents a challenge she says, adding that people should think about it like this: “I don’t have a lawn because I’m a renter. So how can I match that and do my part?"