EARTH DAY TIPS

Earth Day was a wonderful experience. I was surprised to learn from many of the presenters at the Valley Water Expo. (See above for the comment about knowledge :)) Because we have such abundance and diversity in our landscape it is hard to rememeber that we live in a desert in Southern California. Water rationing started last year brought that abruptly to our attention. I wrote about alternative planting options in my newsletter 7 from last year (http://www.harmonygardens.net/Newsletters/Newsletter2/HG_Newsletter-7.html) and I have discussed soil amendments in my newsletter 5 (http://www.harmonygardens.net/Newsletters/Newsletter2/HG_Newsletter-5.html) This newletter I am going to use some points made at the Expo to help you no matter where you are to improve your land.

I heard different figures on how much water is used in landscape but about 50% of all urban use of water goes to landscaping. While our personal residences are less than that, we can make an impact on our own water bill and improve our land if we make steps to improve our landscape in several ways.

1. Conservation. There are many different ways to conserve water on your property. You can do a complete overhaul and plant drought tolerant plants, a partial change using drought tolerant plants in some areas of your yard and not in others, or make no change at all. Suppose you decide to overhaul your garden. In many areas, the Department of Water and Power will rebate you $1 for every square foot of lawn that is replaced by drought tolerant landscape. You can view my slide show from the Water Expo at http://www.slideshare.net/ShelleySparks/water-wise-presentation.

An easy way to conserve is just to moniter your irrigation system. When it rains, turn it off. In the winter cut back on the minutes and days you water. If you want to get fancy about the savings, you can change the types of irrigation heads to low volume emitters. If you want to go high tech you can use smart controllers that keep track of the weather by satellite and decrease the watering schedule when the weather provides more moisture or the heat isn't evaporating the irrigation water. Some water agencies even have rebates if you replace your controller with a smart controller.

2. Permability. The best way for plants to get the water they need is if the soil is supporting their good health. Just like we need good food to stay healthy, plants need viable soil to thrive. This means that soil needs to have active life. When I am digging in the garden, if I don't see earthworms, I worry. They make openings in the soil so my plant roots can breath and their poop is a natural fertilizer.

Adding organic compost to soil that is composed of heavy clay or very sandy soil will help. With the clay soil compost opens up the heavy connections and allows the plant roots to capture water. With sandy soil, compost holds the water in the soil long enough for the roots to grab their share.

The other type of permability that is important on the property is the amount and type of paving that is present. We are sending too much of our water back to the sea in a polluted form. This harms our fish and other sea life. Rebuilding our ground water by allowing the rain and other moisture to penetrate the soil is important ecologically. We can do this by having more porous paving around the property. Besides our planting areas, we can use open paving systems that allow water to flow into the earth between the pavers. Even if we have solid concrete driveways, we can cut openings in the concrete to allow for water penetration. Other permeable pavers are almost anything that has a sand base such as bricks laid in sand or interlocking pavers.

3. Retention. Retaining the water on your property is important as I just mentioned. Besides opening the paving system and improving your soil you can let your home help you water your garden. Last year I started using the water from my dishwashing for my house plants and potted plants. You can imagie, being the plant nut that I am that I have a substantial number of plants. I found that after watering all the houseplants and potted plants, I still had plenty to give to my bamboo, Japanese maples, hydrangeas and azaleas. Besides saving on the water bill, my plants seem to be happier with this "organic" water.

Another painless measure along the same lines is to have your watering can near the shower so that while the water heats up, you can capture it for your plants.

I am contemplating my next step now. That will be collecting the roof water in rain barrels for garden irrigation. This is in the early stages in California but is already mandatory in Texas. Again, the process is relatively easy. At the Valley Water Expo, there were several vendors carrying rain barrel kits that include the equipment to hook into your downspouts and capture the water that can then either be hosed or pumped to your garden. My clients that are light years ahead of me with this say that they collect more water than they can use even when it isn't raining. The moisture in the air condenses on the roof and pools in their rain barrels.

Finally, a step that I am not ready for but have been thinking about since the early 90's is gray water recapture. This is a system of capturing the water from sinks, tubs, showers, etc and filtering it before reusing in the garden. This form of conservation is newly legalized in California and there are companies that are helping people to do this type of retention. The people I talked to at the Expo said that these systems pay for themselves within three years.

4. What are you waiting for? Life is all about choices and action. Some of these suggestions will be outlandish to you and others may be feasible. Throw the ones away that have no relevance without a look back but know that you have an opportunity to support the good health of your garden and the earth by implementing at least one of the above suggestions. What are you waiting for?