Monterey Bay Friendly Landscaping Program is Up and Running!

Posted by on December 10, 2014 in News | 0 comments

Monterey Bay Friendly Landscaping Program is Up and Running!

The Monterey Bay Friendly Landscaping program has been launched by Ecology Action to help residents and businesses transform once-thirsty and over consumptive landscapes into beautiful, healthy, and sustainable gardens and landscapes that send less waste to the landfill, conserve water and energy, and manage stormwater as a resource. The program is a spin off of the Bay Friendly Landscaping and Gardening Coalition that started in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Sacramento also adopted the program with the title River Friendly Landscaping.

monterey bay friendly
Funded by a Prop 84 green infrastructure planning grant from the State Water Board, the Monterey Bay Friendly Landscaping program provides regional ecological landscape certification standards and incentives for public, commercial and residential property owners. Monterey Bay Friendly Landscapes are required to meet 10 basic ecological design and maintenance standards that were designed by leading professionals in the landscape industry including ECI’s Michael Friedman and Dakotah Bertsch. Their programs focus on maximizing water and energy conservation.

The Monterey Bay Friendly Landscaping Programpublicly recognizes and incentivizes those who have invested in ecological landscape improvements. Businesses and multi-family housing HOAs with certified landscapes will receive public recognition on www.green-gardener.org, a sign, and marketing material to show their clients they have invested in a greener, less-toxic environment in which to live and work. Real estate agents and property managers can certify landscapes of properties for sale or lease and use the program standards to create curb appeal that markets a low maintenance, healthy green living environment instead of a high maintenance, green lawn.