Wondering if you should have lawn in our dry and arid climate? Especially with drought for the past umpteen years and weather patterns behaving oddly? And what about if you live at elevation, in the mountains?

No, Yes, Maybe

There is an entire spectrum of responses to this question. There are the those that will froth at the mouth, and declaim, “No! Never! Leave the Southwest if you don’t love it!” The other end is something along the lines of, “I want lawn, I can pay for it, and I don’t care about the water table.”

I would like to be the voice of reason in this discussion. Moderation in both senses of the word. Moderation of the discussion, while advocating moderation in behavior. I am not alone in this. Seven Principles of Xeriscape tell us that lawn is fine, in moderation. We will come back to these Seven Principles. First an example.

Plant What Brings You Joy

I have said that before. Plant what brings you joy.

Back in 1970, my Granddad’s installed some lawn for his beloved wife. She had grown up in New York and missed grass beneath her feet. His solution was along the principles of xeriscape – but long before the word was invented.

He put in a 2 foot by 3 foot patch of lawn so his beloved could sit on the back porch and put her feet on the grass. He kept this lawn “mowed” with his old fabric shears from his days working with Schiaparelli. (His great-grandson was gifted those shears a few years back.) I will add that Granddad had a well near downtown Tucson. In the 1960’s it was 30 feet deep. Even then, with ample water at his fingertips, he planted a little lawn, not the entire yard.

Why This Topic

One reader quite apologetically posted a picture of his new rechargable electric lawn mower and was wondering what height to set the blades. He said his little patch of lawn was for him and his puppy, and that the artificial turf got too hot and burned their toes. 

Xeriscape not “Zero”-scape

When the recent Southwest drought started back in the 1980’s, we started hearing more and more about “low-water” and “desert-adapted” plants. A group of folks came up with the term “xeriscaping.” They also came up with some basic guiding principles.

I admit that I wish I had Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine so I could go back in time and change this word! Sounds too much like “zero.” People hear it as such, and decide that they don’t want “no zeroscape.”

Xeri allegedly comes from one of those dead languages, Greek or Latin, and is supposed to mean dry. Neither my Greek nor Latin dictionaries have the word, and they have such compounded words as proboscideus (L. adj) meaning “having a terminal snout-like projection or horn,” and “gonia (Gr.) angled, as in goniocarpus, with angled fruits.”

Origins aside, and thanks to some pushy marketing, we are stuck with the term xeriscape. Since we can’t change it, repeat after me: “Zer-ah-scape.” “Ah” not “oh.” Ah, as in “Ahhh, isn’t that zer-ah-scape lovely?!” And trust me, a xeriscape can be truly lovely.

Seven Principles of Xeriscape

There are seven basic xeriscape principles. You may have heard them before, but let’s get on the same homepage. I am offering them in the order they were originally published.

Incidentally, even if you live in the Southwestern mountains, where it tends to be more moist, these seven principles can help ensure a landscape with a minimum of maintenance woes.

1) Plan your design. Use “hydrozones.”
2) Select plants adapted to your area.
3) Improve your soil.
4) Use proper watering techniques.
5) Use organic mulches.
6) Limit lawn area.
7) Use proper maintenance practices.

1. Plan Your Design

Design your landscape so the area you use most is the oasis area. If you must plant high water users, do so where you will most enjoy them. Further away in the yard you can plant lower water users, as background. This is called planting in “hydrozones.”  Lawn is a high water user.

Many factors go into planning a design.  Folks study the topic for years.  Also need to Plan for Outside Views.

2. Select Plants Adapted to Your Area

Yes, cacti are adapted to the area, but so are the lush and beautiful passionflower vines. There are well over 5000 low water plants that grow well in our area.

Note that wet places like Sabino Canyon in Tucson are technically in the desert. These are called riparian areas. The towering sycamore and Arizona ash trees live in riparian areas and need lots and lots and lots of water. They grow with their feet right in the water.

With this in mind, don’t simply select plants “from your area.” Select low water plants from your area. I discuss this more in Lovely Leucophyllum, a widely planted Southwest shrub.

There are all sorts of low water plants, tall and short, dusky green or emerald green, some of them with beautiful blooms, fragrant foliage, edible fruit, others that are extremely eye-catching as accent pieces, some that are best as background sort of plants (like the Aloysia that loses it’s leaves in winter.)

Back to the Seven Principles

3. Improve Your Soil

Across almost all of the Southwest our soils are alkaline and lack organic matter (OM). This means there is nothing to actually hold moisture in the soil. Gravity will drain that water you just paid for right down into the aquifer. Even in pine covered mountain areas, the topsoil is thin and OM is less than ideal.

Organic matter improves the water holding capacity of the soil. It helps hold moisture for plant roots to grab. OM is especially important to help pampered nursery darlings get their toes out of nursery soil they came in and transition out into the soil of their genetic parents. All nursery plants. Sure, desert plants can tough it out in the desert, but they are not adverse to some help with extra OM. This is part of the reason that saguaros start under “nurse trees.”

Note that you can make compost or buy it. You need well composted organic OM, generally confusingly called “composted mulch” in the box stores. You can put this compost on top of the soil, for a mulch, but this is not ideal. Compost is too light weight for our area and the daily wind will blow it all away within the year. Dig it into the soil for plant health.

4. Use Proper Watering Techniques

Proper water may be as seldom as once a month in some cases. Not once a day. In summer some of my plants get weekly water. Handy Watering & Irrigation Guide under resources on the menu.

Train your plants to be tough. Train them that they have to grow big strong roots to get the water they need. Don’t let them hang on your apron strings (your irrigation lines). Teach them learn independence! Water deeply and less often so that plants develop good water seeking roots. They will also develop good anchoring roots at the same time.  

Water where your plants need it, and water before your plants need it. Your plants need water out at their dripline. This is the line where a very light rainfall would drip off the leaves and land on the ground. It is way out on the edges of the plant, not near the trunk.

5. Use Mulch

Mulch is a soil covering to reduce evaporation and weed growth. The best mulch is free. It is the dropped leaves and other plant debris that the plant is trying to turn back into soil and get their hard won nutrients back out of. It is a real waste to throw plant debris into the landfill, but many folks do so.

You can purchase organic mulches like bark mulches. This is not the same as “composted mulch! Bark mulches have big pieces that will slowly decompose and add organic matter to the soil. They are especially helpful for plants that do better with acid soils, like citrus and roses.

Take a walk in the desert. Is the desert covered with a two inch layer of rocks? No. Desert adapted plants usually grow better with nice bright reflective desert soil on top of them, not a layer of heat holding rocks. If you live where your neighbors want you to have rock, you will have a much hotter yard than the desert is, and thus your plants will require additional water. Despite what you may hear, rock mulches are NOT especially good for plants or the environment.

6. Limit Lawn Area

Limit your lawn area to a place where you will really use it for recreation and enjoyment.  Try to limit it’s size to an easily cared for area. Go ahead and use your electric mower to mow, or a pair of scissors. If you have pets, then lawn is a joy for them.  Pet Friendly Landscaping

One of my YouTube videos on lawns in the Southwest.

One Southwest city, urging fewer lawns, put out an ad campaign. They told everyone, “A single grass plant can use 150 gallons of water on a summer day.”

You may have read that “150” and wondered if it is a typographic mistake. One hundred and fifty gallons for one plant?! Yes. But you need to understand how big a single grass plant can be. A lawn that covers 100 square feet may consist of only about 50 individual plants. Grass plants fill in and spread themselves by stems that root into the ground where they touch soil. Their ad statement is technically accurate but hard to believe and thus it was a failed advertising effort.

Instead of lawn, there are many pretty groundcovers will cover the ground, not heat the area like rock mulch, and feed pollinators! Next week I will discuss some “Gorgeous Groundcovers,” that could replace your lawn if you don’t use your lawn.

7. Use Proper Maintenance Practices

Pruning

First and foremost, limit pruning to a minimum. Do it at the right time of year. Avoid topiary shearing at all times. Topiary pruning is when you try to force a plant to be round or square. Fine if you are the King of France, but very poor when entire neighborhoods, shopping malls, and cities to do this.

Weed Control

Remove weeds when small. The idea here is to keep them from stealing the water of the plants you you just spent money on – your landscape plants. 8 Tips for Eliminating Weeds.

Fertilizer

Fertilize as needed to maintain plant health, avoid excessive fertilizer. Too much fertilizer leads to extra growth, which will need more water, and the cycle repeats.

Pest Control

Constant removal of insects has been shown to reduce overall landscape health. At least 99 percent of all insects in the yard will do no harm or merely tolerable harm to your plants. Don’t Let Insects Bug You! A little bit of munching makes plants slow their growth and produce defensive compounds. Controlled growth means less pruning, and less water use to recover from pruning.

A number of insects live partially underground. They love that layer between your nice bark mulch and the soil. Their little bug holes help get organic matter into the soil, helping improve the soil and spread compost for free. Ants are Awesome for this task.

Fixing Poor Landscape Practices

While I am wishing for things like Wayback Machines, I might as well wish for a Pruning Police Force. They don’t even have to arrest anyone, just confiscate tools. If you prune properly, homeowners have no need for power tools.  Municipal workers and landscaping crews should not have chainsaws either.  Only Certified Arborists.  Far more serious, far reaching, and longer lasting than improper watering is improper plant pruning. Poor pruning wastes hundreds of millions of gallons of water per year, makes our towns ugly, and kills hundreds of thousands of plants.

But since nobody made me Empress of Earth, I will continue writing these articles, hoping to help my readers learn understand and live well with their landscapes.

Thanks for your visit today.
Jacqueline

Guide to Lawn Care Every Month

The Month By Month Guide offers tips for your landscape (yes even lawns and roses) in every month of the year.  I have a few copies left and am offering them to you – my loyal readers. When you buy from me you get a signed copy!

From the review:

“A great reference book is key to successful gardening in the region where you live. Arizona, Nevada & New Mexico Month-by-Month Gardening takes the guesswork out of gardening for anyone residing in the Southwest. With this book, you’ll know what to do each month to enjoy a thriving garden all year, from January to December. Chronologically organized, this guide is full of critical gardening when-to and how-to advice, along with illustrated step-by-step instructions.

The book’s author is Jacqueline Soule, a Tucson-based gardening expert. She knows this arid region inside and out, and she’s written several articles and books packed with her gardening advice. Arizona, Nevada & New Mexico Month-by-Month Gardening showcases Soule’s expertise in one easy-to-read guide.”

Profits from the sale of this book go to the Horticulture Therapy non-profit Tierra del Sol Institute.  

Legal Notes

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