From the garden
Building on last week’s column on The Knox County Safety Rest Area landscape, this week’s column continues with the theme of sensible water stewardship in a landscape using xerophytic plants.
Xeriscaping, or xeric landscaping, is the practice of landscaping while minimizing supplemental irrigation.
“Xeriscape” (ZERE-ih-skape) combines the Greek word ‘xeros’, meaning dry, with the word ‘landscape’ creating the term xeriscape coined by the Denver Water Board in 1981. The first xeriscape demonstration garden was conceived by Xeriscape Colorado, Inc., which has since disbanded and has now merged into XeriscapeColorado (coloradowaterwise.org/XeriscapeColorado). They began a legacy that has spread from drought-plagued areas in Colorado throughout the Southwest.
Note that xeriscaping is not ‘zeroscaping’, as some mispronounce and likely misunderstand the concept. ‘Zeroscaping’ leads to the idea that once planting has been completed, the landscape can be left on its own. Xeriscapes go beyond just replacing lawns with gravel and a few cacti, although such yards do reduce the amount of water used. Xeriscapes are planned with the aim of developing an attractive landscape that is sustainable in that water usage is reduced, resources are conserved, and a minimal investment of time is required for maintenance. Successful and attractive xeriscapes require a good bit of thought and planning.
Characteristics xeric plants share: they generally have light colored, pale green, silver or grey leaves; small leaves; deeply lobed leaf margins of broadleafed plants; trichomes, the tiny appendages that give leaves a fuzzy appearance, often cover leaf surfaces; narrowleafed plant leaves are linear, thin and upright; thick leaves and stems of succulents.
The practice of xeriscaping groups plants by water requirements and features foundation plantings and accent specimens. Turf areas are limited to reduce water usage and more drought tolerant grasses are sown. Keeping a turf area softens the landscape and conveys great eye appeal, plus grass is cooler than mineral yard coverings.
Specimens may be combined with plantings of droughttolerant shrubs, trees, perennials, and grasses. Trees and shrubs add backbones to a garden, giving the eye focal and orientation points. Perennials add seasonal structure and splashes of color to landscapes; these are often flowering species that attract butterflies, moths, bees, and hummingbirds, animating the garden. Ornamental grasses punctuate landscapes with upright growth and give an added dimension of motion - their fine, delicate leaves sway in the breezes, lending movement to the scene.
Some information from txsmartscape.com
Ellen Peffley Harp, a retired professor of horticulture at Texas Tech University, writes about gardening for several Texas newspapers.
