Xeriscape Conversion and Turf Rebates in Northern Colorado (Johnstown, Loveland, Greeley)

1) Why this is happening now

Water is getting tighter across the corridor. Denver Water declared a Stage 1 drought on March 25, 2026 — the first lawn watering restrictions since 2013 — and Fort Collins Utilities and Fort Collins-Loveland Water District both moved to a voluntary Water Shortage Watch in May, asking residents to keep lawn irrigation to two days a week. Meanwhile the General Assembly pushed the other way legally: Senate Bill 23-178 rewrote C.R.S. 38-33.3-106.5 and made it much harder for a homeowners association to block a water-wise yard. If you have been told your HOA will not approve xeriscape, that answer may be out of date.

2) What a conversion actually involves

• Measure the scope. Rebate programs have minimums — Greeley requires at least 500 square feet of healthy turf, Resource Central's at least 200. Measure turf area, not the whole yard.
• Remove the grass. Sod-cutting is fast but disturbs soil most. Sheet mulching — mow short, soak, cover with clear plastic about six weeks — kills the grass without chemicals and is what most native-plant gardeners prefer.
• Fix the irrigation. The step people forget. A turf zone delivers roughly 1 inch of water a week; once that footprint is rock and shrubs, the same zone overwaters the plants and dumps the rest down the gutter. CSU Extension's guidance is to replace spray heads with drip, or move, remove, or rezone the heads. Our September sprinkler checklist covers the seasonal side.
• Build the palette and mulch it in. Soil here is typically clay-heavy and alkaline, which suits low-water plants. CSU notes most drought-tolerant plants want no soil amendments. Finish with about 3 inches of mulch. Plants that work here: blue spruce, serviceberry, honeylocust, snowberry, Douglas-fir, blue grama, buffalograss, penstemon, apache plume, prairie smoke, rabbitbrush.

3) The rebates, by provider

Northern Colorado is split across several water providers, so which program covers you depends on which utility sends you the bill.

• Fort Collins Utilities — Xeriscape Incentive Program (XIP). $0.75 per square foot base, plus a $0.25 per square foot native plant bonus when at least 80% of replacement plants are Colorado native — $1.00 per square foot at the full bonus rate, with a $750 cap on the base amount. Requires 50% plant coverage at maturity.
• City of Greeley — Life After Lawn. $1.00 per square foot for converting a minimum of 500 square feet of healthy turf to native and/or water-wise plantings, capped at $3,000 per household per year. You must plan to own the residence at least five years.
• Resource Central Lawn Replacement — up to $750 off. This one reaches most of our core towns. Partner providers include Little Thompson Water District (serving Berthoud, Johnstown, Windsor, and Mead), plus Berthoud, Firestone, Windsor, Boulder, Broomfield, Erie, Lafayette, Louisville, and Superior. Take the $750 as a discount on professional lawn removal, or take free garden kits and DIY. The 2026 DIY window opened March 9 and the program reopens each cycle.
• City of Loveland Water & Power. Runs a Lawn Replacement Program with Resource Central and sells waterwise planting kits from about $132 each.

4) The pre-approval rule that will cost you the rebate

If you remember one thing from this post, remember this: you need written approval before any work starts. Fort Collins Utilities requires pre-approval, and starting early is an automatic disqualification — no tearing up sod "to get a head start" and applying later. You also have to attend a free xeriscape class first.

The sequence: measure and photograph the turf, take the free class, submit square footage plus a proposed plant list (the native bonus depends on what you intend to plant), wait for written approval, then schedule the removal. Most of these programs reimburse rather than pay upfront, so you front the money and get it back.

5) What your HOA actually cannot stop you from doing

SB 23-178 has four levers most homeowners have never heard of. Your HOA cannot: prohibit xeriscape, nonvegetative turf grass, or drought-tolerant vegetative landscapes on property you maintain; unreasonably require hardscape on more than 20% of the landscaping area; or block a design meeting the 80% drought-tolerant threshold. Your HOA must: allow at least one design option of 80% or more drought-tolerant plantings; publish at least three pre-approved water-wise front yard designs; and pay up to $500 in damages if it violates the statute. If you are in a newer subdivision, ask for those three published designs directly — they are usually exactly what you wanted anyway.

6) Timing: what to do in November, and what to wait for

Johnstown and Loveland sit in USDA hardiness zone 5b, and the median first fall frost lands around October 1. Colorado guidance is to finish container-grown trees, shrubs, and perennials by Halloween, because roots need roughly thirty days of soil above 40 degrees to establish before the ground freezes. So the honest answer to "can I plant this fall" is no, for woody material.

What to do right now: measure and plan (the free part — sketch the area, figure square footage, start a plant list); apply for the 2027 rebate cycle, since money is allocated at the start of the year; get your design and quote done, because our $150 design consultation is credited to the project if you proceed; and settle the irrigation plan so rebates and work line up in spring.

Then wait for spring. The best window for trees and shrubs is mid-April through mid-June, and warm-season natives like buffalograss and blue grama go in from mid-May to June once soil temperature at four inches holds 60 degrees. For plants already in the ground, winter water decides whether they make it: CSU Extension recommends 5 gallons twice a month for a newly planted shrub, monthly for established shrubs under three feet, and about 18 gallons a month for larger shrubs through March (see our winter watering guide). You can also do the hardscape half now — a patio does not care about frost (see our patio timing guide).

7) What it costs, in real numbers

Installed xeriscape runs about $8 to $20 per square foot. The low end is a straightforward conversion — mulch, rock, modest plant palette. The high end adds boulder work, retaining edges, flagstone, drip irrigation, and a larger plant selection. Traditional landscaping with sod generally runs $4.50 to $17 per square foot, so xeriscape is usually a modest premium up front that reverses over the first few years. Worked example on a 1,000 square foot conversion at $14 per square foot:

• Fort Collins XIP at $1.00 per square foot (full native bonus) = $1,000 back, minus a $750 cap on the base portion.
• Greeley Life After Lawn at $1.00 per square foot = $1,000 back, well under the $3,000 annual cap.
• Annual savings at roughly $0.36 per square foot = $360 a year, with no weekly mowing visit on that ground.

Those are planning numbers, not a quote — soil, slope, rock removal, and hardscape all move the total. On our own pricing, landscape design and install projects here run $2,000 to $8,000+ (see the pricing page).

8) When to hire out, and when to DIY

Hire out the paperwork if you are not sure which utility you are on, what your square footage is, or how to phrase a plant list that qualifies for the native bonus — that is exactly what quietly disqualifies an application. Hire out the irrigation change too: retrofitting drip into an existing zone has a real failure mode, and getting it wrong means wet spots or dead plants. And on a slope with poor drainage, the grading has to happen first.

DIY the removal if you have the weekend — sheet mulching is a one-afternoon job for the initial cover, and Resource Central's DIY route gives you free garden kits with a $750 discount option the other way. It is slow by design: the grass dies under the plastic over about six weeks, not overnight.

We would rather talk with you in November than rush a conversion in April against a deadline you did not know existed.

Serving Northern Colorado: Berthoud, Johnstown, Loveland, Fort Collins, Windsor, Greeley, and the surrounding Front Range.