What are the Major Benefits of Xeriscape Landscaping?
An attractive front yard doesn’t have to mean a water-guzzling asset.
The effort involved in keeping that lawn thick and green, along with worries about water shortages and high costs, may prompt you to throw in the trowel and turn your yard into a rock garden.
But there’s a better way!
You can keep your garden lovely without it being a laborious project, and xeriscaping could be just the thing for you.
With native and drought-tolerant plants that are well-suited to your landscape, you can establish a garden that virtually takes care of itself.
If that sounds too good to be true, read on and I’ll tell you what it takes to bring the dream a reality.
Xeriscaping (it’s ZEER-uh-scaping, by the way, not zero-scaping) is a package of landscaping methods that minimize the need for irrigation.
In other words, it’s about creating a garden that can flourish in very little water.
Now, this isn’t to say you’re stuck with a yard full of cactus and rocks — unless that’s your jam.
Xeriscapes can be dense and lush, colorful and bursting with life, while still keeping water — and maintenance — to a minimum.
The Benefits of Xeriscaping
Before you break out the shovels to tear up your lawn or start poring through plant catalogs, let’s consider why you might want to xeriscape in the first place. There are endless good reasons, but the benefits can be broadly grouped into four main buckets.
Improved Aesthetics
Xeriscape gardens can be just as lush, lively and colorful and their water-guzzling counterparts.
We’ve got nothing against green (Go Lobos!) but if you’ve just got a yard of grass to gaze upon, things will start looking janky and dull. As humans we’re hardwired to appreciate variety in landscapes and well-designed xeriscape gardens are chock full of different textures, shapes and colors – including green!
Xeriscaping isn’t about settling and being limited to a reduced palette of plants than can survive less water, it’s celebrating the natural beauty in New Mexico-born plants that evolved specifically to thrive in our semi-arid climate.
If you are xeriscaping properly, then I suspect that you will be learning how to work with some new plants.
Less Maintenance
Close up of flowers with compost around them and homes in the distance
If you’re tired of broken sprinkler heads, the tedium of lugging hoses (or unfolding irrigation kits), and the hours of attending to the little darlings demanding rearing before they succumb to drought, xeriscaping can have a lot to do with whether you are enjoying your ground cover or feeling like its slave.
It’s much harder to keep a garden full of water-loving plants alive in our dry climate than it is to plant for the climJate we have. Heat- and drought-stressed plants are more susceptible to other problems as well, so by putting in plants that can manage the conditions, you establish a pre-emptive defense against garden problems.
Saving Money
Water isn’t free, and as rates rise it can begin to feel like the cash is shooting out of your sprinklers along with the water that keeps your lawn bright green.
Xeriscaping can also save you a substantial amount of money on your monthly outdoor water expenses, reducing outdoor water use by 30-50%, or more. Your actual savings will depend on how much you’re watering now, and how much you anticipate watering in the future.
