California appropriate plants are perfectly suited for our mild winters and warm, dry summers.

They are low maintenance, use little water and don’t need soil preparation or fertilizing.

Visit www.IRWDcalscape.org for a one-stop shop with garden tours, garden galleries, a searchable plant database and a garden resources section.

You can also take a tour of two dozen CALscape gardens found throughout the IRWD service area. If you are looking for even more of an incentive to renovate your garden, you may receive up to $1 per square foot of grass removed with our turf removal rebate program. Visit our website, or contact the Water Use Efficiency Department at 949-453-5581.

At first, the black, coiled item lying on the side of San Diego Creek resembled a snake. It turned out to be a flattened and weathered bicycle tire.

That item, along with construction debris that might have fallen off trucks on the freeway, was pulled out of the creek during Inner-Coastal Watershed Clean Up Day on Saturday, September 21. IRWD has hosted this site for the past 13 years in conjunction with Trails 4All, the event’s founder. The clean up coincides with Coastal Clean Up Day.

Unlike that clean up event, the goal of Inner-Coastal Watershed Clean Up Day is to clean trash from creeks and streams that empty out into bays and beaches.

“Grab it before it gets to the beach,” says event founder James Meyer.

Around 80 volunteers turned out to clean the creek of all manner of trash and recyclables and that they did. Both three-yard bins were filled.

Zach Simpson, 16, a Northwood High School student, would receive field service hours for his advanced placement environmental science class. Most of the volunteers were from the high school, but a Girl Scout troop and some private citizens participated as well. Over the years, more than 28,000 volunteers have cleaned up one million pounds of trash and recyclables at sites in Orange and Riverside counties.

An Irvine Ranch Water District service area student has had her poster chosen from a field of 159 for publication in the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s “Water is Life” student art calendar for 2014.

Grace Jung was a third grader at Stonegate Elementary School in Irvine when her poster was selected as one of five finalists from the IRWD area for regional judging by Metropolitan. The 159 posters were submitted by the 23 participating member and retail agencies, of which IRWD is one. The calendar will feature 36 pieces of student art work.

A student recognition event will be held at Metropolitan’s Los Angeles offices later this year. The framed student art work will be on display. After the first of the year, all of the framed art work will be part of a traveling art show to be displayed for a week at a time in the lobbies of water agencies all over Southern California.

We will announce when IRWD will be hosting the art show. For more information on our educational programs, please visit our website.