Create a Greener Landscape

Save time and money without sacrificing a beautiful yard.

By Pat Mertz Esswein, Associate Editor

From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, April 2008

American yards have a drinking problem. for decades, we've bought into theaesthetic of the perpetually green lawn -- watered, fertilized and pest-free. And we've landscaped our yards with exotic plants that crave more water than the climate naturally supplies.

At 32 million acres, lawns are the largest irrigated crop in the U.S. We pamper them with one-third of all the residential water used daily (7 billion gallons); in some regions, it's as much as 50% to 70%. The thirst for water grows with the population and the increasing reliance on automatic irrigation -- which is so pervasive that it now produces summer water shortages even in relatively wet regions, such as the Pacific Northwest and New England.

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Much of that water might just as well go down the drain -- and much of it does. Homeowners who find their irrigation system's controller as perplexing as a VCR rely on their lawn-maintenance company, which all too often sets it and forgets it. The system ends up running on an irrigation schedule meant only for the hottest, driest summer months. Sousing the lawn diminishes its health and creates a vicious cycle of fertilizing, applying pesticides and herbicides, and then watering some more. Meanwhile, utilities (including power companies, which provide the power for water treatment) struggle to keep up with demand.

April is a good time to initiate strategies that will save you money, time and labor and will do the environment some good -- without sacrificing an attractive yard. And green landscaping brings other benefits. In California, landscape designer Greg Rubin says he spends Sunday mornings on his own half-acre drinking coffee and enjoying the birds and butterflies attracted to his yard, while he listens to his neighbors mow their lawns. He has thrown away his bird feeders, too, because the native plants provide all the habitat and forage the birds need.

Xeriscape gardening for less-thirsty yards

The term xeriscaping may evoke images of the arid West and a bunch of rocks and cacti. Some call it zeroscaping, says Jim Knopf, author of WaterWise Landscaping With Trees, Shrubs and Vines: A Xeriscape Guide for the Rocky Mountain Region, California and Desert Southwest (Chamisa Books). But the strategy -- also known as water-wise gardening or greenscaping -- really involves minimizing the areas of your yard that need a lot of life support, he says.

In general, the transition to water-wise landscaping has two components. First, you need to rethink your lawn, focusing on the minimum size that fits your family's needs. Knopf says you can make your lawn smaller by simply putting in border gardens. You can also create gardens or mulched beds in areas that are difficult to maintain and water -- along fences, on steep slopes or in corners. If local home buyers expect a big backyard for kids and dogs to romp in, concentrate on the front yard.

The second task is to remove water-needy exotic plants and fill your beds with drought-tolerant trees, shrubs, ground cover, flowers and turf grass (such as buffalo and Bermuda). If you're loath to give up all your water-intensive exotics, gather them in one area, where you can quench their greater thirst most efficiently.

Your garden can be any style you like. Joanne Kostecky, a landscape designer in Allentown, Pa., and a past president of the American Nursery and Landscape Association, says she continues to design gardens that are lush, full and continuously blooming, but she now looks for hardier perennials that need less water to stay healthy.

It costs no more to install a water-wise landscape than a thirsty one, and it may cost substantially less, depending on the plants you choose and whether you avoid expensive automatic irrigation. While establishing any new landscape requires more water in the first year or so, a water-wise one will require less water from start to maturity -- about 20% to 50% less, with more savings if you do without an irrigation system.

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