New Jersey Native Landscaping Rebates

Rebate for installing a rain garden with native, wet-tolerant plants. Attend Rain Garden 101 webinar, receive free 30-minute design session with Rutgers engineers, then install. Rain gardens filter stormwater and attract pollinators.

Eligibility varies by town; some areas limited to lakeside properties. Funded by National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and William Penn Foundation.

Raritan Headwaters Association offers cost-share for rain gardens, rain barrels, and native plantings for properties in the Raritan River headwaters watershed (Somerset, Hunterdon, Morris, and parts of Mercer counties). The program pairs cost-share funding with free technical assistance from RHA staff to design and install water-quality practices.

Rebate of $3 per square foot of garden, up to $450 per lot, for homeowners who install a Rutgers-designed rain garden or shoreline buffer. Open to residents of Jefferson, Hopatcong, Mount Arlington, and Roxbury who live in the Lake Hopatcong watershed. Requires attendance at a rain garden workshop and a free Rutgers design session before installation (Lake Hopatcong Commission with the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Water Resources Program; last verified June 2026).

$5.00 per square foot of lawn replaced with a native plant garden (rain garden, pollinator garden, meadow, or hedgerow), plus $100 per qualifying native tree (2-inch caliper or greater); maximum rebate is $700 per property. Eligibility expanded beyond Lambertville to include West Amwell, East Amwell, Stockton, Delaware Township, Hopewell Borough, Hopewell Township, and Pennington (confirmed by Mary Anne Borge, Rebate Program Manager, August 2026). Applications accepted through October 1, 2026 or until funding is depleted (funding still available as of August 2026; City of Lambertville, funded by a Sustainable Jersey / PSEG Foundation grant).

This program ended June 30, 2026 and is no longer accepting applications. While active, it provided up to $675 in rebates for residents within the Budd Lake watershed of Mount Olive Township who installed a rain garden of native plants to reduce stormwater runoff and support pollinators. It was the same program as the Landscape Makeover Program administered with the NJ Highlands Coalition (confirmed by NJ Highlands Coalition staff, September 2026).

Reimburses up to $500 toward the materials and supplies for building a rain garden, with Rutgers Cooperative Extension design support. Limited to residents of the Neshanic River or Back Brook watersheds (North Jersey Resource Conservation & Development; last verified June 2026).

Maplewood credits a residential stormwater bill by 10% for every 2,000 square feet of lawn removed and converted to natural forested area, up to 40%, within an overall 50% residential credit ceiling. The conversion must be planted with native trees of at least 2.0 to 2.5 inch caliper on 30 to 50 foot centers, with a detailed plan submitted to the Township Certified Tree Expert, and mulch is not permitted as forest floor material. This is an ongoing reduction of the annual stormwater fee, not a one-time cash rebate: the Base Rate is $70 per Equivalent Residential Unit per year, so the 40% maximum is worth roughly $28 a year on a typical single-family property (Township of Maplewood Stormwater Management Fee Credit & Adjustment Policy Manual and Ordinance 3138-24; last verified August 2026).