Lead Partners
Supporting Partners
The Healthy Green Spaces Coalition is powered by the National Association of Landscape Professionals.
Lead Partners
Supporting Partners
“Both complexity and physical effort are costs to homeowners, the main difference is that complexity might be leaving some people out if they do not want to invest in the time and effort to learn the systems. Complexity necessitates learning.”
This survey was used to understand what prevents homeowners from taking action on outdoor water efficiency and how those barriers change by activity and audience. The survey compares five sources of barriers: cost, physical effort, complexity, time, and routine. These barriers were compared across six irrigation and landscaping activities, with additional analysis by age and HOA status. Use these findings to identify which barriers matter most for a specific homeowner group and where conservation programs should focus their support.
What are the barriers by activity?
For irrigation activities, cost and complexity sit much closer together than they do for landscape projects. Routine maintenance is almost evenly divided, with 25.0% ranking money first and 24.5% ranking complexity first. Active scheduling shows the same pattern at 24.3% for money and 23.3% for complexity. Even for irrigation upgrades, where cost is more clearly first, complexity remains the second-largest barrier at 20.8%. The data suggests that for irrigation work, the problem is not simply affordability. Homeowners also face a substantial technical and decision-making barrier around diagnosing systems, choosing upgrades, and knowing what to adjust.
Landscape activities tell a different story. Price becomes much more dominant, particularly for partial landscape changes (33.4%) and landscape redesign (35.2%), while physical effort replaces complexity as the second-largest barrier. Grass removal is the clearest example of this shift: 29.2% rank money first and 27.8% rank physical effort first. In other words, irrigation programs may need to reduce both cost and complexity, while landscape programs need to focus more heavily on affordability and the physical burden of completing the work.
HOA vs Non-HOA Barriers
Non-HOA homeowners face a much stronger cost barrier
The clearest HOA divide is financial. Non-HOA homeowners rank cost first more often for every one of the six activities, with gaps ranging from about 6 to 12 percentage points. The biggest difference appears for irrigation upgrades, where 39% of non-HOA respondents rank cost first compared with 27% of HOA respondents. Cost is also substantially higher outside HOAs for routine maintenance (29% vs. 21%), grass removal (33% vs. 25%), and landscape redesign (39% vs. 32%).
By contrast, complexity is remarkably similar between the two groups. The differences are small across activities and never become the defining HOA/non-HOA divide. That suggests the two audiences may need different support: both can benefit from clearer technical guidance, but non-HOA homeowners are more likely to need affordability support, such as rebates, phased projects, financing, or lower-cost options. HOA households appear less constrained by price, while non-HOA households encounter a more pronounced financial hurdle before they can act.
“If you are trying to reach HOA communities, you cannot treat them the same as individual homeowners. You have to think about the homeowner, the association, and the rules that shape what can actually be done on the property.”
How barriers change with age
Younger homeowners are more likely to be constrained by time, while older homeowners increasingly point to cost, complexity, and physical effort. Across all six activities, time accounts for about 18% of first-place barriers for Gen Z but only 10% for boomers. Cost moves in the opposite direction, rising from 24% among Gen Z to 33% among boomers. Complexity also increases with age, from 18% to 23% overall.
The shift is especially clear by activity. For irrigation scheduling, complexity rises to 28% among boomers, making it the leading barrier for that group. For partial landscape changes, grass removal, and landscape redesign, physical effort becomes much more prominent among older homeowners, reaching 22% to 32% for boomers. The implication is that younger audiences may respond better to convenience and time-saving support, while older audiences are more likely to need simpler guidance, lower-labor options, and help managing cost.