Understanding the Benefits of Xeriscaping

If you have any experience with landscaping, you likely have heard the term Xeriscaping said or written here and there. For those who haven’t, however, it is a method of landscaping or gardening that works to reduce or eliminate the requirement for supplemental water.

It has been growing in popularity for areas which don’t have plentiful sources of fresh water for obvious reasons.

As worry about climate change expands, and more people are looking to become less invasive to nature, this method of landscaping and gardening is quickly gaining popularity.

If you’re considering a Xeriscaping project, you’ll want to learn about all the advantages and disadvantages of it. Once you’ve learned all you can about this popular landscaping option, you can decide whether or not it is right for your next project.

Advantages of Xeriscaping

• Reduced Water Consumption – You’ll have to use far less water to keep your plants healthy and strong.
• Reduced Water Expenses – Since you won’t need to use irrigation or sprinkling to keep your landscaping healthy, your water bill may drop significantly.
• Less Time & Energy Required – If you’re using only Xeriscaping approved plants, they won’t require nearly as much upkeep. Things like cutting the lawn are virtually eliminated which frees up a lot of time for you.
• Visually Interesting – Since many people haven’t yet moved to this type of landscaping, your yard will likely stand out from the crowd.
• Little Worry About Water Restrictions – During a drought many people’s landscaping suffers significant losses and problems. Most plants used in Xeriscaping can survive with minimal problems.

Disadvantages of Xeriscaping

• Limited Diversity of Plants – Since you’re going to be focused on using primarily plants which are native to the area, you’ll have fewer options to choose from. This can mean less color diversity in your yard.
• Unsuitable for Some Uses – Things like football or baseball fields traditionally use Kentucky Bluegrass, for example, so switching to something else may not be suitable in all areas.
• Less Work Required – For those of us who enjoy spending time in the yard with our plants, we might not like the fact that we don’t have to go out to water nearly as often.

Implementing Xeriscaping

If you decide that this is the right path for you, you’ll have to learn about how to put it into practice in your yard. One of the nice things about Xeriscaping is that while ideally you can implement it 100% and eliminate the vast majority of the need for additional watering, you can do it in other ways as well. If, for example, you simply choose the proper plants for the majority of your yard, but leave some areas with more exotic options you’ll still reap many of the benefits.

Conserving water

In addition to just picking plants which can thrive in your area, there are other steps you can take to eliminate the need for watering. Using a well planned out natural irrigation system will be very beneficial. This means simply making your yard’s natural slope move the water from rain where you want it. Plants at the upper portion of the yard, for example, might need less water since it is likely to run down the hill. Those at the bottom might need more as the water will collect there.

You can use systems to collect rain water in large buckets and then slowly disperse it to the yard over the days and weeks following the rain. This is a great way to take full advantage of the rain and still keep your yard looking healthy and strong. Since you’re collecting the water from the rain, you don’t have to worry about any city ordinances during dry periods or other difficulties which many people with professional landscaping suffer with.

Xeriscaping Ratings

If you’re serious about implementing the Xeriscaping ideals into your yard, you can try to get your landscaping plan rated. The ratings range from X to XXX depending on how complete your implementation of the Xeriscaping ideas is implemented.

In the video that follows, we’ll explore some ideas you can use and follow when drafting up your plan.

Tim runs a Texas landscaping service where he gets landscapers to compete for business.

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