Salt Lake County, UT Landscaping Rules: Native Plants (2026)

030(B) opens with its own purpose statement, to promote maximum water conservation, and then sets three linked requirements. The first is a numeric floor: not less than eighty percent of the trees and shrubs used on a site must be water conserving species. The qualifier matters. The species must be capable of withstanding dry conditions once established, so the measure is how a plant performs after its establishment period, not whether it needs water while taking root. The floor counts trees and shrubs specifically, and it applies to what is used on the site as a whole rather than to any single planting bed.

The second requirement is directional rather than numeric: native plants shall be used to the maximum extent feasible. There is no fixed native percentage; feasibility is the standard, and it layers on top of the eighty percent water conserving floor rather than replacing it. The third requirement addresses lawn. The ordinance does not prohibit turf, but any area planted in turf or lawn must use drought-tolerant grass varieties. 77, which is where compliance with all three requirements gets checked before installation.