Brown lawns loom in Calif.

Associated Press

GARDEN GROVE, Calif.

It was with more hope than accuracy that the founder of this Orange County town picked the name Garden Grove in 1874 for what was little more than an open plain under the sweltering Southern California sun.

More than a century later, this sprawling middle-class suburb of 175,000 people is true to its name, with parks, trees and lush lawns — for now, at least.

In Garden Grove and other communities across the state, residents can expect to see their gardens shrivel and lawns go brown this summer as mandatory water-conservation rules take effect amid California’s punishing, four-year drought.

State regulators Tuesday ordered communities to slash water use by as much as 36 percent.

People who paid dearly to make their lawns beautiful are loath to sacrifice, though.

Garden Grove residents used even more water than usual last summer after Gov. Jerry Brown asked people to conserve. The city has banned watering lawns during the day but sends fewer than a dozen notices a month to violators.

Reaching the city’s mandatory new target of cutting water use by 28 percent is doable but will require “a cultural change” in a community wedded to green yards in the front and fruit trees and vegetable gardens in the back, said William Murray, Garden Grove’s public-works director.

“You are talking about a huge change that needs to be made, and unfortunately, in a significantly short period of time,” he said

Still, one tree-lined neighborhood in Garden Grove shows the path to conservation. Yellowing grass remains where lawns once were lush, and some of the greenest yards are artificial turf.

Nearly half of residential water in California goes to lawns, so turning off sprinklers will be one of the first orders of business.

“We can meet these targets by putting the lawns on a water diet now,” said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board, which is empowered to enforce the rules but has so far opted not to use its authority to issue fines of up to $10,000 a day for cities that don’t comply.

Garden Grove is one of many cities that recently have eased restrictions against fake grass. Laws also have been passed to make it easier to create drought-friendly landscapes of rocks, cactus and other water-stingy plants.

And one of the largest water providers in Southern California recently doubled a rebate program encouraging homeowners to rip out lawns.

“That doesn’t mean getting rid of lawns everywhere. It means keeping them only where they are useful, not just as an ornament, but a place for kids to play, to have a picnic, to have dogs run around,” said Ellen Hanak, director of the water-policy center at the Public Policy Institute of California.

Calls to the Garden Grove mayor, city council, water- services director and city spokesman were not immediately returned Wednesday, so it’s not clear how far officials are willing to go.

But if cities such as Garden Grove aren’t reaching their conservation mandates, state regulators say they will direct them to communities that have made big cutbacks to learn by example.