We all hear about the need for conservation of our natural resources all the time. Most of us on the Gulf Coast think of fishing regulations and recycling as conservation measures but there are other ways to help but they are just not as obvious. A green and perfectly trimmed lawn is one of the things most of us associate with home ownership.
 We have all seen that neighbor who spends every weekend making sure his yard is the pride of the town. That perfect lawn, flowering plants, shrubs and those prize hybrid roses all take more that a little extra water, herbicide, insecticide and fertilizer to stay just perfectly so.
Some people say that the little bit that they use doesn’t hurt the environment that much, if at all. Well it does, if you add up all the lawn chemicals that are used across the nation.
Billions of gallons of water and millions of tons of lawn and plant care additives are used every year to keep those lawns and flowers green and growing. Most these end up washed into our water systems by rain contributing to oxygen depletion, fish kills and ecosystem degeneration. Granted, that most of us like a well-kept lawn but who said it had to contribute to pollution?
There are other ways to have a beautiful yard.
There is something called Xeriscape (dry view), which is a systematic method for saving water in landscaped areas. Most of us are not familiar with the term because it was only coined in the last 25 years when water availability became a severe problem and subject to strict regulation in the western United States.
In times of severe drought some states do not allow swimming pools to be filled and when your month’s water quota is used up your supply is turned off. It has and can get that bad. The western states are currently in their ninth consecutive year of drought.
To put something like Xeriscape together requires learning about the native and non-native plants in our area that have low water requirements and maybe even some experimentation with a few plants in a small area of your homestead just to test things out. As an example many irises, tulips and even some roses are introduced plants that have been adapted to non-irrigated landscaping in the Rocky Mountain area.
Who are we trying to impress with that perfect yard? As children were we told not to judge people by how they looked but rather by what they did? You can find
out more information about dry gardening by typing Xeriscape into your favorite Internet browser.
Think Global – Act Local!