Merced, CA Landscaping Rules: Native Plants (2026)

There is no City of Merced ordinance mandating native plants, and none prohibiting them. For everyday yard choices, homeowners are free to plant California natives, Mediterranean, or other drought-tolerant species, and the City encourages water-wise landscaping because its entire water supply comes from local groundwater managed under SGMA. The binding water-efficiency rules apply to larger projects: California's Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance (MWELO) sets landscape water budgets and design requirements for new construction landscapes over 500 square feet and rehabilitated landscapes over 2,500 square feet that require a permit. MWELO pushes designs toward climate-appropriate and low-water plants, hydrozoning, efficient irrigation, and mulch, and it limits the share of high-water-use turf. Cities that have not adopted a stricter local ordinance are covered by the State's default MWELO, enforced through the landscape and irrigation plans submitted at building/planning permit stage. So a single-family homeowner replacing a few shrubs has no native-plant mandate, while a developer or a large landscape renovation must meet MWELO's water-efficiency standards, which strongly favor native and drought-tolerant palettes. The City's address-based watering schedule under Municipal Code Chapter 15.42 also makes low-water, native and Mediterranean plantings practical, since they survive comfortably on the limited weekly watering days.