# What have you done to cut down on the water usage in your landscape?



## Admin (Dec 8, 2003)

> If the word xeriscaping brings to mind a Japanese zen garden full of rocks and sand, there’s an exciting world of landscaping for you to discover. The desire for water-saving outdoor design, coupled with the increasing threat of droughts, has created a new interest in the hottest new trend in yard planning. This method of gardening is naturally easier to care for, can be much less expensive and will lesson your environmental footprint no matter what size property you have. *Xeriscaping 101: What You Need to Know*


What have you done to cut down on the water usage in your landscape?


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## jimfarwell (Nov 25, 2014)

This wasn't aimed (primarily) at reducing water usage. That was a serendipitous benefit. At our previous home, we had two area of our lawn that were in almost constant shade, and also a bit lower than the surrounding lawn. I'd fought the moss for four years, with varying degrees of success (actually, with amazing degrees of UN-success).

I convinced my wife that we should go over to the dark side. I dug up the sod in those areas (saving several sample-patches of various mosses). I then laid down brick boundaries, filled the areas with fresh soil back up to the same level as the surrounding lawn, embedded the moss samples, and placed a bunch of large rocks in what I thought was an artful pattern. The wife had different ideas, and those big rocks magically moved without any help from me -- I KNOW she's too weak to have done that herself, so I figure she must have wizard blood in her DNA.

In the process, I dug up several sprinkler heads and capped the lines. I didn't figure we'd need to water the moss. I was right. Withing two years, the areas were filled with lovely, green and gold moss, no mowing or care required.

...And we cut down on water usage, too. Serendipiditty. :biggrin2:


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## lenaitch (Feb 10, 2014)

I barely water - and my lawn looks like it. Actually, we are on sand and, since it is fairly pointless to water in the heat of the day, there simply arren't enough evening hours to schlepp a sprinkler around my property. It's much the same justified logic for hardly ever washing my truck: I figure that's why God invented rain.


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## SeniorSitizen (Sep 10, 2012)

The ranch has had about 5"of rain in the last 6 months and maw nature has forced regulated drip irrigation from a pail of water for 3 tomato plants, 1 Basil and 3 bell pepper plants. What was at one time a larger garden and fairly good looking lawn, but not great, has taken a turn for the worse in which native and some import weeds abound.


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## Guap0_ (Dec 2, 2017)

If I had a house, I would brick the entire front yard. I worked for a guy who did that. We installed two raised flower beds, one by the sidewalk & one against the house. If you didn't walk on the property, you wouldn't know that there was no grass.


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## Mickey113 (Jul 13, 2018)

Guap0_ said:


> If I had a house, I would brick the entire front yard. I worked for a guy who did that. We installed two raised flower beds, one by the sidewalk & one against the house. If you didn't walk on the property, you wouldn't know that there was no grass.



sounds like a great idea!

most people around here have pavers with a small landscape or two. my whole house is surrounded by grass that i will not water. i think we'll get around to digging it all up next year and putting down the pavers, stone or brick. one issue is that i want to do it on the cheap because i'm just going to tear down this house in couple of years. hopefully i will run into free material on cl or somewhere


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## CaptTom (Dec 31, 2017)

Love the moss story Jim!!!

The extent of my "landscaping" is trying to get around to mowing the lawn often enough. If it grows, and it's green, and being mown over from time to time doesn't kill it, it's welcome in my yard.

Different species of grass (or weeds) prefer different parts of my lawn. Presumably based on soil chemistry, sun vs. shade, and drainage.

I've found it's easier to let whatever's happy there grow, rather than trying to force my own preferred species to grow where it's not happy. I've also heard that grass builds up a dependency on watering if you do it all the time.

I'm fortunate that most of my neighbors have similar policies on mowing, if at all, so I'm not too far out of the norm. Presumably if everyone around me had finely manicured lawns, I would have to change my strategy. Or move.


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## SeniorSitizen (Sep 10, 2012)

Guap0_ said:


> If I had a house, I would brick the entire front yard. I worked for a guy who did that. We installed two raised flower beds, one by the sidewalk & one against the house. If you didn't walk on the property, you wouldn't know that there was no grass.


Would you mow the inevitable weeds that fill all the voids between bricks?


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## Colbyt (Jan 27, 2014)

18 years ago I said to hell with a bluegrass lawn and over-seeded heavily with a turf type fescue which develops deeper roots and does not have to be pampered. When we get a dry spell it turns a nice brown and crunchy. I sorta like that as it does not require mowing. As soon as it rains it recovers.



Over the last 20 years we have improved the planting areas' soil with organic matter at every opportunity. We also leave the clippings on the lawn where nature intended for them to be.


We only water the flower and tomato beds. I sure would hate to pay the water bills of some of my neighbors.


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## jimfarwell (Nov 25, 2014)

CaptTom said:


> If it grows, and it's green...it's welcome in my yard. ... I've found it's easier to let whatever's happy there grow....
> 
> I'm fortunate that most of my neighbors have similar policies.... Presumably if everyone around me had finely manicured lawns, I would have to change my strategy. Or move.


You 'n' me, Cap'n. I always knew I was put on this earth for a reason. ...Haven't found it, yet. But I do know with a certainty that approaches that of death that my purpose in life was not to pamper lawns and give them foo-foo haircuts.

Un-fore-choo-nutly, the Boss has other ideas.

So I mow, and do the shoo-fly-shuffle whacking the weeds and edges with a big trimmer. I even poison the weeds in the front lawn, as well as several types of clover, which REALLY frosts me, because I love clover. Clover is sweet smelling, is a lovely deep green, has deep roots and doesn't need watering, is never very long, and is nice and cool to lay down in with my old black lab, Hannah, when I'm supposed to be mowing the lawn or whacking the aforementioned weeds. What's not to love about clover? The bees love it...and we humans have removed most of their favorite flowers, and poisoned so much of the rest that our honeybees are dying all over...an honest-to-God disaster in the making. We should feed the bees, keep them going. They keep our crops going, for goodness' sake.

However, [sigh] the Boss says that clover grows like topsy, and the neighbors will hate us if we have a sweet-blossom crop of clover in the front yard...so I poison it. I also poison weeds in the big fenced back yard, but I refuse to poison the clover there. We have a high fence around it, and if anyone objects to my clover THERE, they can go pound sand, :hammer: 

...that includes my wife. She saw the hell-fire in my eyes when I explained my perfectly reasonable stance, and she accepted the compromise. We have four fruit trees in that back yard: apple, pear, plum, and cherry. There is always a shady patch of clover for a nap on a hot afternoon. Beats the heck out of air conditioning.

I tried hard to convince the Boss that dandelions are beautiful and beneficial. Like clover, they are hardy, they don't require watering, their fresh young leaves are a delicious (and FREE) salad green, the yellow petals make a delicious and colorful flavoring to dandelion wine, and they have not one but TWO beautiful flowers, the cheerful yellow ones, and the fairy puff-balls of snowy down. I told her, "if they were rare, they'd be worth a fortune! Everyone would want them." She said, (1) they aren't rare; (2) they aren't worth a fortune; (3) NObody wants them; (4) those puff-balls are made up of seeds that waft far and wide on the wind...to the neighbors' yards, which is why they hate us; (5) because of poisoning and dog evacuation-product, the leaves and petals are unsafe to use for salad or wine; (6) I am way too @$%& lazy to pick EITHER the "fresh young leaves" OR the petals; (7) we don't have room to store wine-making paraphernalia, unless I get rid of all my tools (...say, WHAT!?); and (8) if I don't dig up and/or poison those dandelions, I should choose which portion of my anatomy I'd prefer she remove with garden shears. [sigh] So I wage perennial and fruitless war with the dandelion tribe.

It's a hot afternoon. Writing this has tired me out. :yawn: 

Think I'll dodge the Boss and go take a nap in the clover with Hannah.

Jim


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## CaptTom (Dec 31, 2017)

What can I say?

Jim, that was probably the best read all week!

One has to choose one's priorities carefully. Sounds like you've struck the right balance.

Enjoy the clover nap!


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## SeniorSitizen (Sep 10, 2012)

I was unaware I had competition until jimfarwell wrote is thoughts.:vs_laugh:


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## jimfarwell (Nov 25, 2014)

SeniorSitizen said:


> I was unaware I had competition until jimfarwell wrote his thoughts.:vs_laugh:


I ain't a competitor, SenSit. Just another guy who prefers a meadow to a lawn.

And I do love what you've done with your yard. Just one question...where did you bury your wife? :brows:

Jim


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## SeniorSitizen (Sep 10, 2012)

jimfarwell said:


> Just one question...where did you bury your wife? :brows:
> 
> Jim


**************************************************
So many choices I can never remember. I have to probe the whole yard and am never real certain.


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## hankdiy (Jul 10, 2018)

I gathered up a bunch of English Ivy a neighbor was trimming up. Made holes in my yard with a sharp stick and stuck the Ivy stalks in the hole. Took a year or two to get thick. Looks pretty good now. I mow it once a year. 

I like plants that want to live. 

My hedges are privet which i just simply jerked out of the ground from another area, bunched them together to form a bush, parted the ground with a shovel and crammed the plants in. I get complements all the time on my yard. It is a maintenance free show case. No water or chemicals needed. No worries and a lot of free time to laugh at neighbors crying over their dead grass.


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## CaptTom (Dec 31, 2017)

I like the way this is going, but it is sort of a hijack.

Maybe a new thread about "No-care lawn care?"


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## jimfarwell (Nov 25, 2014)

CaptTom said:


> I like the way this is going, but it is sort of a hijack.
> 
> Maybe a new thread about "No-care lawn care?"


Agreed. Can we start that thread, and maybe get a moderator to move some posts to the new thread?

If you reply, and I don't respond...it's 'cause I'm headed over to our off-grid property, be back NLT Monday next.

Jim


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Here in California water conservation is a big deal. Some years we get four or five times as much rain as in other years, and that’s the general expected variation.

But the real variation in my experience has been more like 20-fold for one rainy season over others. In 2004-2005, Southern California had about 36” (1.1 m) of rain.

In the 2016-2017 rainy season, we had about an inch and a half for the whole season. You read that right: 1.5" (2.25 CM) for the whole season.

So some years we spend a lot of time rain dancing while in others we have to park an Ark.

Lawns are far and away the biggest water hawgs. I have a palm garden and it uses about half the water a comparable sized lawn uses.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Since we spend so much time and money watering, a lot of work goes into dealing with that.

Big money is spent on watering systems, but thought is often left out.

The advice I give everyone if they’ll listen is to take the time to water with your brain. Don’t just set and forget.

If you’re in fast draining soil, it’s often a smart idea to do without a lawn and plant something else, like succulents.

Clay soils are more forgiving; silt is the best. There are many other soil types, too. Data gathering helps a lot.

Take the time to dig down right after you water and see how deep it penetrated. A few days later, dig down again and see how dry it is. In sandy soil, or "d-g" (decomposed granite) the water often runs right down, and plants are dry even right after watering. 

Do this for various seasons. This, combined with mindful watering in the summer cut down my usage by about half.


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## HenryMac (Sep 12, 2018)

We moved to an arid climate. Pinyon Pine Trees and Cactus here:wink2:

I look back at all those years of mowing, watering, trimming and raking leaves and think :vs_smirk:


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## F250 (Feb 13, 2018)

My weedy front yard neither deserves nor needs water. I do cut it regularly , though, and once cut, it looks just as green as the weedless zoysia yards adjacent to me.


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