water resources

Lawns have been the centerpiece of American landscapes for a very long time and especially in the 20th century. Now, with the increasing effects of global climate disruption, it’s essential to rethink and redesign lawns and landscapes to learn how to help mitigate and repair the damage. Fortunately, we can maintain the beauty of our regional landscapes and improve ecosystems by planting enhanced habitat for pollinators, beneficial insects, and songbirds with xeric choices.   Over the past 30 years, I have been a proponent of xeriscaping, otherwise known as low-water use landscaping, a concept developed for the arid Western U.S. (Colorado specifically) to reduce landscape water use and conserve limited water resources. But these principles go beyond just the goal of saving water. They should be used to help guide all aspects of plant selection and landscaping to move toward a more sustainable and environmentally friendly result. The use of native grasses and other low water turf varieties, which can greatly cut water use and reduce the carbon footprint involved in lawn care, can be a large part of the xeriscaping equation across the U.S. The Eight Principles The following principles of xeriscaping are my distillation of the original tenets created in the early 1980s by the Denver Water Board. They are a result of my experiences propagating, growing, and landscaping with xeric plants from my retail nursery in the high desert of northern New Mexico. But xeriscaping has important applications in all parts of the U.S., even as it ...