SE Valley Times

The City of Mesa has launched a new one-of-a-kind tool, the Plant Square Footage Calculator. The calculator simplifies the process for homeowners who are planning a grass conversion and developing a landscape plan to take advantage of the city’s Grass-to-Xeriscape Landscape Incentive.

The calculator has many useful features to help residents create their list of plants and trees for their plan, such as:

Search by plant type, such as trees or shrubs
Search by plant name
Individual plant square footage
A personalized, printable plant list
Links to specific plant details
Canopy coverage running totals.

In order to qualify for the incentive, the converted grass area must be replaced with low-water-using plants that, at full maturity, will cover at least 50 percent of the area. Choosing the right plants and trees to equal the required plant coverage can be tricky. City water conservation staff collaborated with the city’s Innovation and Technology Department to create this new tool.

“Based on feedback we’ve received from customers, we wanted to simplify this process by reducing some of their frustration with plant selection,” said Scott Bouchie, Environmental and Sustainability Department Director. “We hope this new calculator will make the process easier and entice more customers to take advantage of the incentives. Removing grass and replacing it with low-water-use plants and trees not only saves water but also reduces heat and cools our neighborhoods.”

Visit the residential grass-to-Xeriscape webpage to use the new calculator and learn more about the newly increased incentives and how to qualify. Incentives are for future grass conversion projects only.

The Grass-to-Xeriscape program supports Mesa’s Climate Action Plan and the ‘Trees Are Cool’ one million tree initiative. 

Original source can be found here.