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Experts offer intelligent ways to conserve water usage in the yard
By Tania Soussan
For the Albuquerque Journal
You don’t have to xeriscape to save water in your garden.
Sure, it’s a good way to cut back on how much you sprinkle or pour on your landscape, but there are plenty of other ways to make your garden more water-wise without giving up a lush and beautiful yard.
And customers of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, the city of Santa Fe’s Sangre de Cristo Water division and other utilities can earn rebates for some of the improvements they make and learn from free classes.
Here are 10 ways local experts suggest to make your garden more water-wise:
WATER EFFICIENTLY: There are many ways to cut your water use just by updating your irrigation system and being careful not to overwater.
Choose drip systems for flower beds and vegetable gardens.
If you really need sprinklers, buy efficient sprinkler heads that water more slowly and spray drops rather than a fine mist, and install an efficient timer and a rain sensor interrupter.
“Turn on your system and walk around and see where the water’s going,” says Katherine Yuhas, water conservation officer for Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. Keep an eye out for leaks and water that’s getting onto hardscapes instead of plants.
Then, be careful about when you water.
Yuhas recommends following the utility’s new “water by the numbers program.” Residents should water one day a week in March, two days a week in April and May and three days a week in June through August.
“You can have the most efficient irrigation system in the world and the best plants, but if you’re running it too much, you’re wasting water,” says Hunter Ten Broeck, owner of Waterwise Landscapes Inc. and a member of the Xeriscape Council of New Mexico.
On the other hand, if you use too little water and your plants aren’t doing well, that’s also a waste, says Joran Viers, horticultural agent with the Bernalillo County Cooperative Extension Service.
He defines efficient irrigation as using as little water as you can to successfully grow plants.
Other tips: don’t run sprinklers in the wind, run drip systems less often and for longer times to encourage deep rooting, and deep water trees and shrubs at the drip line and beyond to reach the fine roots that absorb moisture (that’s 3 feet for trees and 18 inches for shrubs), Viers says.
MULCH: “Mulching really does prevent evaporation from the soil,” Yuhas says.
It also minimizes weed growth and keeps roots cooler so plants don’t need as much water.
Experts recommend spreading a 2- to 4-inch layer of pecan shells, bark chips, shredded trees, compost or even last year’s leaves around your plants. You’ll need to replenish it every few years.
Viers prefers organic material because it eventually breaks down and enhances the soil.
“Rock and gravel are OK,” he adds. “They’re appropriate for some of your very drought-tolerant and heat-loving plants.”
Other plants, though, respond to the extra heat rock absorbs and reflects from sunlight by using more water to pass through leaves for evaporative cooling.
FERTILIZE PLANTS AND AMEND SOIL: Giving plants the nutrients they need helps them look better longer without extra water, Yuhas says.
Amending soil by adding compost and other organic matter increases its ability to hold water.
SAY BYE-BYE TO BLUEGRASS AND OTHER HIGH-WATER-USE PLANTS:
OK, so this could be called xeriscaping but it just makes sense.
“That’s the very first place to start is to pick the right plants,” Viers says.
We’re not just talking cactus here. As xeric and native gardening catches on, nurseries are carrying more and more plants that fit the bill. There are dozens of flowering perennials, shade trees, shrubs, herbs and other attractive plants available.
“You can have a very lush landscape with lots of flowers,” Yuhas says.
For lawns, try buffalo grass, blue grama or fescue instead of Kentucky bluegrass.
HARVEST RAINWATER: “I think rainwater harvesting is a coming necessity,” Viers says.
You can take a passive approach by directing water off your roof, patio and other hard surfaces onto your plants instead of into the street.
You can use swales, low areas in the landscape, to move water toward trees, Ten Broeck says. Or build a French drain or pumice wick — a gravel or stone-filled trench that starts at the base of a canale or gutter and then moves increasingly deeper underground toward a tree or other large plant — to get water where it needs to go.
If you choose a more active system, think big, Viers says. A 55-gallon barrel won’t come close to holding what comes off your roof in just one ½-inch rainstorm. A 500- to 1,500-gallon cistern is a better option, he says.
REDUCE THE SIZE OF YOUR LAWN: Your lawn should be as small as possible while still meeting your needs.
“Big areas of grass, that’s what parks are for,” says Judith Phillips, a well-known Albuquerque landscape designer and author of Southwest gardening books.
She says in residential yards, lawns should be used for playing or walking on, not to fill space.
DON’T OVERPLANT: This might be the easiest strategy of all.
“I think a lot of times, people overplant,” Phillips says.
Instead, think about where you really need large trees and shrubs. And consider, for example, whether an arbor might be better than a shade tree in some places, she says.
It’s also important to keep in mind what the mature size of a plant will be. Sure, that Russian sage looks pretty small in its one-gallon nursery pot, but just wait a year or two.
Phillips recommends trying to cover about 70 percent of your surface area (and that can include the shade canopy of a tree).
Annual plants, which generally use more water, should be limited to pockets of the garden where color is important, she adds.
GROUP PLANTS BY WATER NEEDS: In xeriscaping, this is called planting in zones or hydrozoning.
“All plants obviously don’t take the same amount of moisture,” Phillips says.
Grouping the thirstier shrubs together and leaving the real low-water-use plants on their own means you won’t be overwatering some to satisfy the needs of others.
Experts generally recommend putting your highest water-use or oasis zone closer to your patio or front entry, the areas where you spend the most time. That’s because the oasis zone is likely to be the coolest and the most colorful.
CREATE SHADE: By providing some shade — whether it’s from a tree or a structure — you’ll give your plants a break and they won’t need so much water.
And don’t put a thirsty plant in front of that southwest-facing wall where it’s sure to get baked and need much more water than it would in a cooler, shadier spot.
CONTROL WEEDS: Weeds compete with your other plants for water, so get rid of them early in the season and you won’t be paying to irrigate plants you don’t want.
(Joran Viers, Hunter Ten Broeck and Judith Phillips are all active members of the Xeriscape Council of New Mexico.)
