By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Turf grass requires an alarming amount of water to maintain--about 46 gallons a year per square foot.  So thank goodness more homeowners are questioning whether or not they really need it and rethinking their entire landscape.

Sometimes, though, you've just got to have lawn.  If you need a play surface for young toddlers, say.  Or something that stays cooler than concrete or flagstone under bare feet when you step out of a pool. Especially if you live in a really hot area such as Phoenix or Palm Springs. Or maybe you just love the way that carpet of lush green makes the rest of your drought-tolerant landscaping pop, accentuating the difference.

If you don't want to give up your lawn for one of these reasons or others, consider replacing it with artificial turf.  The product has gotten much more realistic in recent years.  The very natural looking lawn in the photo below, for instance, is totally fake.  This example is from the home of Nate Downey and Melissa McDonald who live in Santa Fe.  They own Santa Fe Permaculture, a landscape design firm specializing in sustainability.  So they are very aware of water scarcity.  Yet they wanted a soft surface for their sons Liam and Keenan (5 and 3, respectively) to play on outdoors.  Installing artificial turf under the canopy of their big Siberian elm was their solution.  They chose SynLawn rye because they thought it was very natural looking.

Here's another situation where artificial turf made sense.  Tom Schaller, an architect living in Venice, California, installed a small, modern dipping pool in his front yard.  He envisioned lawn to complete the design.  (Hardscape would have made it look too severe, and a less flat ground cover would have changed the clean overall effect.)  But Schaller didn't want to be irresponsible and consume that much water.  So he installed fake turf.  He got the look without the guilt.  As it happens, he also chose SynLawn rye.

Realistic looking turf, as in the examples shown here, isn't cheap.  Premium products cost $6 a square foot or more.  But some water district offer rebates that will cover at least part of the costs.  The Western Municipal Water District, which supplies western Riverside County, for instance offers a rebate of 30 center per square foot. And the Helix Water District in southern San Diego County rebate offers $1.00.