Planning Your Urban Garden: Xeriscaping
January. The cold, the snow, the ice, the cabin fever. Other than the inordinate amount of video games that I play over the winter, I also begin planning out what I will be doing in the garden this next season. I look through seed catalogs, garden supply catalogs, books on garden design, reference books on perennials. I really do spend too much time on my garden plans, but planning in advance can save you a lot of work in the future.
Speaking of the future, or possibly the present for some of us around the country in those regions experiencing drought conditions, water is quickly becoming a scarce commodity. And besides, who likes spending all that time watering the garden? That’s time I could spend in the hammock.
Let me introduce you to xeriscaping, or garden design that requires little supplemental water and produces little waste. It’s one of those made up words using Greek to make it sound all sciency, xeros meaning zero and scape which pertains to a landscape or an area of land. Roughly translated, “dry scene” landscaping uses plants that are native to the area, and if the area happens to be an area like Southern California, those native plants are naturally drought-resistant. Otherwise, they sure couldn’t be natives.
Check with your local nursery to see what they have available that’s native and needs little to no additional irrigation that what it would get from normal precipitation patterns (of course, every summer has a dry spell in which you will have to water everything, but normally, you shouldn’t have to water these plants every day.
Even if you are in an area in which water is not a problem, you should still consider planting species in your garden that don’t require a lot of extra water. Save the water for your veggie garden. You can get lovely flowers and ornamentals in the colors of the rainbow that are also drought-resistant. Save on your water bill or your water table out in the country.
A few examples of drought-resistant annuals
A few examples of drought-resistant perennials
xeriscaping, drought-resistant, gardening, gardens, water, watering, irrigation, garden design, landscaping, plants, annuals, perennials
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