Water Smart Landscaping Tips

Everyone knows that conserving water can be difficult, but it’s an important thing to do, especially in areas in the United States such as Las Vegas, NV and Phoenix, AZ which have been in a drought for many years (which is why many people have been turning to Xeriscaping).

Conserving water is good for the community and also for your bottom line since saving water translates directly to saving money. One of the best places to save water is by updating your landscaping.

There are many ways to help save water by choosing the right plants and other ground coverings which will not require nearly as much water to thrive. Installing some water collection and storage areas as part of your landscaping can contribute to a great savings.

Studies have shown that the simple process of changing from turf (grass) to other water smart landscape plants reduces the amount of water used per square foot from 73 gallons per year down to under 18. This is a huge savings, especially when you consider that many properties have many hundreds of square feet of landscaping.

Water smart plants are any plant which can survive and even thrive on low levels of water, such as cactus and other desert plants. There are dozens or even hundreds of these types of plants which can be anything from small green plants to large flowering bushes or even different types of trees.

In addition to choosing water smart plants you can also add to the great look of your property using decorative rocks or other non-living items which look great without using any water at all. Items like rocks or statues work great in many different landscape plans.

A great new trend in Las Vegas landscaping involves using a decorative item which is actually hollowed out. It is able to collect water during rainfall and hold it for future use. The design allows water to flow in but prevents evaporation so the water is safe inside until it is needed.

After the rainfall you can use that water over the next several weeks or even months to water the items in your property which need it. This is a great way to take advantage of the natural rainfall in the area, even if it is rare.

Taking advantage of natural rainfall in every way possible is a great way to have water smart landscaping be a great success.

Designing your landscape to help encourage the water to travel to the plants which need it most, or toward some sort of rain storage area is a great way to take advantage of the free rain water.

By placing plants which don’t require much water at the higher levels of your property and those that need more in lower areas, it is easy to have the water naturally travel where it is most needed. There is no need to do difficult planning for this either since it’s just a matter of planting things in the right places.

Every drop of water you can conserve or eliminate the use for is a great step in the right direction. A recent study of over 8000 properties which adopted water smart landscaping practices has shown that it saved more than 1.5 billion gallons of water every year.