Considering Xeriscape During Dry Season
Posted by Ms Vianca | Under Blanche Blossom Tuesday Mar 17, 2009
Growing flowers, shrub, fruits or vegetables requires cultivation, sufficient water, fertile soil, temperature range and lighting. During dry season surviving your lawn is a real problem. That’s why we can start doing xeric and water wise gardening to avoid too much consumption of resources, time and effort. What is Xeriscaping all about? It was originally developed for drought-afflicted areas. The word “xeriscaping” is a portmanteau of xeri or xeros (Greek for “dry”) and landscape. It means dry, water wise and slow growing landscaping.
Planning Xeriscape
It is wise to plan a waste efficient landscape, where you can manage to reduce the amount of resources needed to maintain it and the amount of waste it produces. Planning to install efficient irrigation systems such soaker hoses and drip-irrigation systems for your garden will help conserve resources. This irrigation design delivers water directly to the base of plants and reduces moisture loss. The garden layout, soil type and sunlight spot have much correlation to plant growth and its survival. Be sure to work with the design that easy to deal with.
The practice of Xeriscaping depends on region and its climate, the choice of plants may be suitable to one place but not to some. The plants of humid north may not survive heat of desert south. And it is waste efficient to use drought-tolerant plants, such variety of aloe and cacti. And growing trees such Border pine and Bigtooth maple trees can help evaporation by blocking wind and shading the lawn. Doing so you can manage the amount of water you might be using during maintenance. The size of plants really matters so better choose types that do not require lots of trimming. Be sure to reduce size of grass areas and use specie that won’t grow rapidly to avoid garden mess up.
Putting some mulch to cover the soil will conserve moisture and maintain soil temperature. One benefit of Xeriscaping is it doesn’t require much fertilizer, but mulch can act as one like Organic Residues (leaves, hay, straw and cow manure) and Compost are the best kind.
The world celebrating World Water Day today so start conserving water.
After considering the above condition, it is time for you to decide where and when to start your garden. Or renovate and improve the existing garden you have back home by adapting Xeriscaping.
