Transform Your Yard to a Water-Wise Garden

By Nicki Goff

Would you like a garden that thrives with less water and takes much less effort to maintain? Do you spend hours in the summer watering lawn and flower beds? Instead, adopt these gardening methods that conserve water, save you time, and still produce a garden with healthy and thriving plants — a water-wise garden.

If you want to make the change to water-wise gardening, first of all, take stock of your existing garden. Look at the plants you currently grow, and think about which ones demand the most water. If the moisture-lovers are spread out all over, you may want to dig them up and group them in one area. This one step will make your watering chores much easier.

Next, identify the plants that don’t seem to be thriving. Replace them with drought-tolerant plants, ones that can adapt to the soil type, the levels of soil moisture and available sunlight. In general, many perennials are a good choice for a waterwise garden.Select and plant your new perennials in the fall so they have a good opportunity to become established before the following summer.

The foliage of drought-resistant plants often has certain characteristics that allow them to conserve water. Silvery and fuzzy foliage plants like artemesia, lambs ears (Stachys) and Russian sage (Perovskia) are all drought tolerant plants. Other attractive perennials that don’t mind less water are lavender, Echinacea (purple coneflower) and lupins.

Native plants and ornamental grasses are also good choices for a waterwise garden. Since native plants are already adapted to the area, they will do well. They also provide habitat and food for local wildlife and benevolent insects. Grasses are very adaptable plants, and will grow well in many different conditions. Many ornamental grasses add year-round interest to the gardens.

Lawns are another big consideration when you decide to go water-wise. They use more than four times as much water as any other parts of the yard. In dry hot summers, they will go dormant and turn brown without continual watering. There are some native North American grasses that are more drought resistant than the usual hybrid turf grasses. Buffalo grass, for example, is green and actively growing in summer, but dormant and brown in winter.

You can also look at the idea of lawn from another perspective, and decide to reduce the lawn area or even get rid of it completely. Replace the grass with ground covers that tolerate less water, like creeping thyme, or with a bed of shrubs. Make a patio with bricks or wood decking to give you more usable yard area. Keeping less lawn actively growing throughout the summer can conserve a lot of water, not to mention reducing the time spent mowing!

Even if you do not make major changes to your garden, you can still be more water-wise by improving the soil with water-retaining humus and by mulching around plants to slow down evaporation. Transitioning to a water-wise garden takes planning and patience, so start on a small scale and begin this year to change your yard to a low-maintenance, water-conserving sanctuary.

Gardening expert Nicki Goff offers a free e-mail starter course all about her main passion… herb gardening. Visit her website for access, and even more great tips in her new comprehensive e-book on creating, maintaining and enjoying your own home herb garden, along with bonus e-books on specific aspects of herb lore.

Look for more gardening tips, links and articles on her garden blog.

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