X is for Xeriscape

9/20/2023

Xeriscape is pronounced ‘zeer-eh-scape’ and it means landscaping with little to no irrigated water. Readers in the west already know about this. Those of us who don’t live in arid or desert places need to wake up to the incredible resource that water is - then begin to accommodate ourselves to “water all around and beneath us all the time” is no longer our reality. Nor is it our right. We’ve got to get smarter and do better.

Such as, do you know that the most grown crop in the US is LAWNS? Seriously! American lawns occupy 30-40 million acres of land. Lawnmowers account for 5% of the nation’s air pollution. Each year more than 17 million gallons of fuel are spilled during the refilling of lawn and garden equipment—more than the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez.

Homeowners typically use 10 times the amount of pesticide and fertilizers per acre on their lawns as farmers do on crops, so lawn chemical runoff is a major source of water pollution. Last but not least, at least 30% (some estimates go as high as 60%) of urban fresh water is used on lawns. (These stats are from Columbia (University) Climate School https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2010/06/04/the-problem-of-lawns/ )

Xeriscaping is a path to more sustainable landscaping around our homes and in our communities. It’s time to acknowledge that most of us do not live at Downton Abbey.

So how does one begin to do this?

I’ve read these Seven Steps in lots of places. 1) Plan and design  2) Soil amendment  3) Efficient irrigation  4) Appropriate plant and zone selection  5) Mulch  6) Limit turf/lawn areas  7) Maintenance

The internet is AGOG with info about how to reclaim deserts with rocks and swales. (There were plants and birds and rocks and things. There was sand and hills and rings…) I dare you to YouTube ‘how to xeriscape’.

This is the smallest xeriscape story I have but it illustrates what we are talking about. In August I moved some of my plants around, including moving some catmint to a dusty spot between the driveway and the neighbor’s fence. I figured lackluster catmint could anchor the space because it’s a tough plant that bees like.

We are in a drought so even though the plant is tough I still was needing to water it every day because the roots weren’t established. How crazy it is to drag hoses to water catmint with city water? I started perusing online videos about re-greening desert properties by assembling low barricades of rocks to catch water long enough to let the water soak into the ground.

I carried three rocks to the catmint and set them in front of it to hold water a bit – and I have rarely watered the plant since. Three rocks in the right place, that’s all it took. There are bees writing me thank you notes right now.

I live a block from Grand Avenue. In the 1990’s downtown Waukesha had a terrible flood and I wonder if the median on Grand was designed in response to what happened back then. The street incorporates a rain garden, a slightly lower than street level garden bed right down the middle of the street in this one long block. Tough native Compass plants (I think) grow there and right now, in September, they are magnificent. Tall, blowing in breezes, buzzing bees, butterflies, deep taproots that drink in rain when it falls.

I took these photos yesterday. See that break in the curb? That’s where rain flowing down the incline of the street can swerve into the dirt to sink into the earth so the street doesn’t flood. This is an example of midwestern xeriscaping.

…

Probably we should have added Xeriscape to Vocabulary List. It’s a relatively new and challenging word to many of us.

Xeriscape landscaping reminds us we are all in a new world now. We need to stop assuming we get to do things the way we always used to do them. We need to look around at what is already flourishing. Figure out how that is happening. Learn that technique. Respect goodness that thrives naturally. Respect and protect it.  

The next time we see a gardening/municipal landscaping technique that seems odd to us, let’s not say how crazy the young ones are. Let’s ask them what they are doing.

“Water is the most perfect traveler because when it travels it becomes the path itself.” ― Mehmet Murat Ildan who is a contemporary Turkish writer.

...

Franc wrote a comment below. I found the post fwith the PDF of photos of the front of his house.  https://www.marybethdanielson.com/content/francs-extravagantly-frugal-ga...