Landscape Design For Water Conservation — Choosing The Right Plants
Choosing the right plants in your landscape design offers you the opportunity to improve the look of the landscaping around your home or business while also helping the environment and conserving water. With today’s concerns about the climate and water usage, it’s important for everyone to practice water conservation, whether living in a drought prone part of the world or not. This is especially important for those living in North America as more than 50% of the residential water use goes toward lawns and landscaping. With the need for better water conservation techniques in landscape design more evident than ever, this post provides some tips on conserving water while maintaining the beautiful landscaping around your home or business.
Xeriscape Design
A landscaping technique designed for drought prone areas, xeriscaping is now widespread because it provides for easy maintenance without the need for pesticides or fertilizers. This integrated method for conserving water and maintaining a beautiful landscape includes analyzing the contours of the land while considering the purpose, look desired, and climate to create a landscape design that also conserves water.
An important part of xeriscaping involves choosing the best plants. For example, it’s not a good idea to use plants indigenous to a wetland area in an area that doesn’t receive enough water, but choosing plants adjusted to hot, dry summers for a Minnesota landscape design is a great choice. With xeriscaping, you choose plants either native to your local area or drought resistant plants like plants native to the southwest. Drought resistant plants have several characteristics in common, including small, thick, glossy leaves. Planting trees near drought resistant plants will shade them from the sun and reduce water evaporation.
Water The Roots
All plants, especially trees, take in water through their base, or roots, and not through their leaves. This means it is best to water your plants at the base. While popular, sprinklers waste a lot of water because the water lands on the leaves of a plant. This water doesn’t benefit the plant in any way and eventually just evaporates.
Soak new plants by placing a hose at the base so the water gets to the roots of the plant. Watering deeply for a shorter time is better than sprinkling a plant frequently. Soak new plants, especially trees, to encourage root absorption and reduce soil erosion. Vary this watering method depending on the needs and sizes of your plants. This is also a great reason why you shouldn’t place plants with varying water needs next to each other in your landscaping because you will waste water on plants that don’t need as much water.
Time To Water
Choosing the best time to water is another important aspect of water conservation in landscape design. To minimize evaporation, don’t water your plants between 10AM and 6PM. The best way to implement a schedule is by setting a timer on a drip irrigation system within your landscape design to run early in the morning or in the evening after sundown.
Whether used in Atlanta gardens or Minneapolis landscaping, practicing water conservation can help improve the environment while beautifying your landscape.
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