HOW TO GET YOUR LAWN OFF GRASS A North American Guide to Turning Off the Water Tap and Going Native

On any list of the world's most pressing problems, water scarcity and water quality inevitably rank high. These issues and their related concerns often emerge in the major topics of the day, including Walkerton, free trade and globalization debates and drought.

Despite all the pessimism surrounding the future of the world's drinking water, many predicaments can be remedied with simple conservation methods. Home-based water conservation starts with How to Get Your Lawn Off Grass, the only North America-wide guide on how to convert your yard from a water-sucking source of pollution runoff to a flourishing, productive showcase of natural vegetation. While 1.3 billion people on the planet don't have access to safe drinking water, 60% of ours goes into conventional turf-grass lawns and ornamental, exotic gardens.

Runoff from chemical treatment of lawns and gardens has seriously compromised groundwater supplies everywhere in the United States and Canada. We have put garden cosmetics ahead of our health.

How to Get Your Lawn Off Grass teaches how to conserve water and prevent the pollution of groundwater. It covers how to cut, roll up and compost turf-grass lawn (and water-sucking, ornamental "exotic" garden plants) and how to replace them with gorgeous native ground covers: flowers, shrubs, trees and grasses that will need no fertilizers, no chemical controls for pests, no mowing and, after the first year, no watering. This is a vital publication for all North Americans who are concerned about water scarcity and water quality.

Carole Rubin's 1989 book How to Get Your Lawn and Garden Off Drugs sold over 20,000 copies and remains available through Harbour Publishing. Her work has appeared in Harrowsmith, Canadian Living and Lawn Care for Dummies, as well as a newspaper series on responsible living.