When Bridget Barron first moved to Marin County, she was drawn not just to its natural beauty, but also to the idea of living as part of the greater ecosystem.
After a visit from her local fire agency during which her San Anselmo home’s non-native privacy screen bushes were noted as a potential fire hazard, Bridget saw the perfect opportunity to make a change.
“We chose to live in Marin to be closer to nature and the land,” Bridget said, sharing hers and her husband’s motivations for moving to the North Bay. “Here we had this beautiful opportunity to reimagine the land in front of our home and turn it into a thriving, vibrant part of the ecosystem that we love. We embraced it.”
With fresh perspective came fresh realizations. They rarely used their front lawn, Bridget said, with the exception for the occasional neighbor doggie relief visit. The home’s existing native plants also supported much more local wildlife, including butterflies, moths, lizards, bees and birds. So they leaned into that.
Starting in the fall of 2025, and with help from Marin Water’s Cash for Grass program, Bridget shifted her home’s outdoor aesthetic into a natural oasis for local fauna – and her family.
“Our front yard was mostly green grass with non-native shrubs, hedges and plants near the house,” she said. “We wanted to see it transform into a vibrant community of native plants and trees, healthy soil and rain gardens that welcome all of the living beings (insects, pollinators, lizards, birds, and animals) that co-exist in our local ecosystem.”
The Cash for Grass program provides a cash rebate to Marin Water customers like Bridget, who remove all or portions of their lawns. The incentive ranges from $2.18 to $3.68 per square foot removed, with the higher amount reserved for customers who follow best practices to optimize long-term water savings. Pre-approval and a project application are required. For Bridget, the process was easy.
“It was very easy. We filled out a form at the end of July 2025,” she said. “Within weeks, we met a water specialist with Marin Water. He did a great job of looking at our lawn and discussing the different ways we could qualify for a rebate and how the process worked exactly.”
Bridget not only followed all of the best practices for removing her lawn – things like mulching the lawn in place, and replacing it with low water use plantings – she also had her home’s downspouts disconnected in order to establish rain gardens that help return water to the earth while also creating hyper-local habitat for numerous bird species.
The extra work qualified Bridget’s project for an additional $1 per square foot from Marin Water. That extra incentive is funded through a partnership with the Marin County Stormwater Pollution Prevention Program, which supports projects like this because of rain gardens’ ability to reduce polluted runoff. When installed and maintained correctly, rain gardens are designed to drain within 24-48 hours, helping prevent mosquito breeding and ensuring the garden can handle subsequent rainfalls.
“It was not my original intention to disconnect every single downspout,” said Bridget. “But, already seeing it in action – it’s so much more alive.”
Up next: Bridget plans to break ground on a similar transformation in her backyard.
While the fire inspectors’ visit may have provided the impetus for changing their landscape, the family’s approach to wildfire risk centered more on the physical home – removing wooden fencing, ensuring a fire-rated roof, installing gutter guards and more. A thoughtful, resilient landscape, Bridget said, can be a critical aspect of fire safety overall.
“Healthy, hydrated trees and plants are much less flammable than our house itself; they also will offer protection in the event of a wildfire by reducing the number of flying embers and absorbing heat,” she said. “Our approach makes our yard naturally more resilient for the times when rainfall is not as abundant or when fire risk is greater.”
Fire Safe Marin provides similar guidance on its website, sharing that regular plant maintenance and plant health are as important as plant selection. But Fire Safe Marin also notes that native species adapted to the local climate are often preferred, as they tend to be more resilient.
Bridget estimates that up to 95% of her new plantings are native species, including Oregon grape, hummingbird sage and manzanita. Her favorite just might be the young coast live oak that will eventually anchor the front yard.
“The coast live oak alone can support more than 270 species,” Bridget said.
Her focus on supporting – and living with – animals isn’t new. In fact, Bridget learned about the landscape architect she would eventually work with when she was researching ways to live with gophers. Everywhere she turned, there was new advice on how to eradicate them – until she turned to Shawn Maestretti and Studio Petrichor.
Based in Los Angeles County, Studio Petrichor boasts an owner who has given a TED Talk on wildfire-resilient landscaping, and in-house expertise on a variety of advanced sustainable landscape practices – even ones you can’t see.
In San Anselmo, Bridget’s Studio Petrichor team helped improve the underground environment with the introduction of a hügelkultur between one of the home’s rain gardens and the street. This technique involved burying much of the home’s old plant material in a long mound and allowing the decomposition process to return nutrients to the soil, while also retaining more water.
Bridget said it’s exciting to watch their yard become more alive; to see plants growing and thriving already as part of an overarching vision of wanting to live in connection with nature. Her landscape, now serving as a callback to her own motivations for choosing Marin.
“We also wanted it to be beautiful in its whole – a calm, grounding and soul-nourishing place to spend time,” she said. “We knew that if we got all of this right, it would be beautiful.”
Looking to find balance with nature like Bridget? Take the first step in your own landscape transformation by visiting marinwater.org/Cash4Grass.