Here at home, much of my landscaping, living in Reno, Nevada, dealt with making this picture: (click any image to enlarge)

And this:

Into this result:

And this:

The lawn in the picture was insisted upon – as are lawns elsewhere. There is a turf farm lobby and fervent advocating for lawns in desert areas which is meeting some fierce resistance from common sense. While the arguments tend to stay political – and almost stupid in their simplicity and lack of insight – it is true that lawns are water-hogging enterprises. For my money, this is not to say they are not ever a lovely addition to a landscape. They are desirable in any number of a wide variety of ways – including cooling a place down in the Summer heat and providing some moisture for the air. I have always advocated a piece of lawn if the design was crying for it. But we no longer need massive swaths of lawns ala’ the English Model for the homes we decorate up out West. I have come to using lawns more for walkways in strips which make them special for barefoot walking and enjoying the green soothing effect. Besides, lawns are a lot of work!

Here in the United States, we face the same deal. Expansion to Sun Belt areas means a growing population using fewer and fewer water resources. Australia is another region who faces absolutely similar situations. Just like all other adjustment made apparent by our expanding populations – such as social benefits like rapid transit and skyscrapers – we will need to adjust yet again, but this time to a resource which we have always taken for granted. We have historically, in other words, undervalued water.

Acting responsibly at home just makes it easier on everyone when the hammer comes down. Using drip irrigation instead of bulk water-powering spray heads is just one way to save water for the crowd around us. Limiting our design to exclude humongous patches of lawn is another. Believe me, there are plenty of other ways to provide livable and gorgeous surroundings, even in a desert or semi-desert.

Irrigation provides the predictable measure of water spent on watering our precious landscapes and gardens. Its predictability and its accuracy are the keys here. Ill-aimed lawn nozzles can waste water egregiously, sending it down the street in a useless waste. But accurately-aimed lawn nozzles can efficiently water our lawns using less than half of the water we’d use applying an oscillating sprayer from our hoses. Watering a veggie garden by hand might just be the most wasteful utility of them all. A drip system will water the roots only, without evaporation or waste, providing healthier plants with an absolute minimum of wastage.

Providing the wide range of effects and tools now available to landscapers and designers can even result in crowds clamoring to see what all the buzz is at a well-lit up home. Notice this picture below how I am literally never without friends!

Anyway, adjusting we are doing. Irrigation companies now offer bonuses to those with ideas that lead to water saving technologies. This is “doing it right” and it also takes from plumbing (no pun intended) the many ingenious people among the general population for great ideas. In a sense, every small bit contributes to the overall whole. Smart landscaping and gardening persons are taking this all to heart. Being ahead of the curve in anticipating looming water problems might be one of the easiest calls ever. And, for sure, the stress of water-shortages has not hit with what will eventually be its full power.

Many thanks to Annette, the proprietor and blogger also known as Israel Mom for taking these pictures. Thay fit like a glove: (A big one).

WATER

How many of us actually read our water bills? I remember once, long ago, checking ours and I discovered we used nearly 20,000 gallons of water one July. I went………..”Whoa, Nelly!!!”

It was a wake up call at the time, especially inasmuch as the bill included the recent increase in the rates. This is usually where it hits first.

What we now face is and will be a consistent rise in the price of water as the years go by, owing to its increasing preciousness. I submit that Global Warming is a real event and very obvious. I have no idea whatsoever of Man’s role in it and I don’t wish to even argue that.But it has always been precious – from our very origins.

The picture below was once again taken by my great good friend Annette (Thanks, Annette!!) who actually does not live far from this picture, in Caesarium, in Israel. This construction gives us an idea of the extent to which Man has gone to supply water in the ancient past. This is the remains of an aqueduct. That small trough at the top that conducted water was the reason for this entire edifice. (Man, I love the Internet!)

(enlarge any picture by clicking)

I know that there was an Ice Age about 25,000 years ago and there is not an Ice Age today. There are caves 200 feet above Reno, Nevada where can be found fishing implements from thousands of years ago. It has become obvious that these caves were on the virtual edge of a giant “super lake” called Lake Lahontan, some 6,000 miles in square dimension. Glaciers nearby where I live are no longer glaciers. Believe me, it’s warming up and we will face it in our water bills.

And besides, were that not the case, the population explosion would have deemed it precious anyway. The planet’s population had increased by a factor of 6 over 120 years. Here in Portland, we are already facing watering restrictions almost yearly.

So I’m here to help. I think there will eventually be changes and there already are, of course, out West in the US as well as in Australia, South Africa, the Middle East and in many, many regions.

Here we have the luxury of being able to consider such things as landscaping and edible or even flower gardening. Home owners and just plain garden lovers can devote lavish attention to something objective and stress-relieving in the pursuits and in the wonderful ambiance of our sitting gardens. As well, we can enjoy the labor of love towards them and our flower and food gardens. They are abundantly healthy for us and for others, in the end. And we can take so many different directions

I realize how odd it seems to put something like a swimming pool into a water conservation post, but the gallons of water used after filling are actually rather small. In fact, far less than watering a lawn, for example.

Maybe this next one resounds more with a way to get an interesting design while saving water. The scarcity of plantings can be an asset, as well as the fact that all the plants are fed via underground drip irrigation technology. The amount of water this landscape uses is less than, say, taking two baths a day. And it is not small.

Another view of the same property:

It turns out there are many ways to use water more efficiently. In fact, almost anywhere where we are compelled to take a watering can or to use a water wasting hose, we could get that same work done automatically and more efficiently by irrigating. Drip irrigation has the capacity to climb – I have installed many and various drip units to feed hanging baskets suspended 6-8 feet off the ground and for irrigating pots on the ground. I have had lines climb sculptures and have even bored holes in both cement and granite boulders to be able to irrigate a small plant ot basket/pot.

In drip irrigation, any emitter can put out a pre-designated amount of water. On hanging baskets, I typically install an emitter which has a device that can control the amount by a small turning up or down. The maximum is rarely reached but the amounts can be tweaked daily and easily if desired. In warm weather, we can put more water in by tweaking the mechanism, in cooler weather, by turning it down.

Here, once again, is a list of how much water we use during a typical day doing those things we do:

Bath: 50 gallons
Shower: 2 gallons per minute (15 minutes shower = 30 gallons)
Teeth brushing: 1 gallon
Hands/face washing: 1 gallon
Face/leg shaving: 1 gallon
Dishwasher: 20 gallons/load
Dishwashing by hand: 5 gallons/load
Clothes washing (machine): : 10 gallons/load
Toilet flush: 3 gallons
Glasses of water drunk: 8 oz. per glass (1/16th of a gallon)

Obviously, this is the baseline I use in my own considerations of how much water I want to see used.  What I am saying more than anything is that there are methods of ascertaining how much water we use up, and where. My other contention is that it is possible to use water at the same rate as almost anything else, like toilet flushing and bathing. Our bills do not have to spike at all during warm seasons, in order to have full, lush gardens and landscapes. It is by use of better irrigation practices and of utilizing all the design tools at our disposal that we can create even nicer gardens at a tenth of the water use.

Adding a room!

If we opt for doing things “the interesting way” by solving old landscaping problems once reserved for water-wasting lawns, we find we can still even have some lawn available for use, just less. And by “interesting” I mean by regarding the entire garden differently. Any more, there are more and more ways to expand out living area to the out of doors. Up-lighting now means we can build virtual “walls” of light at night, forming a limit on our field of vision and virtually visually enclosing an area of interest. Inside that area, we can feature interesting “hot zones”, where we make a waterfall “phosphorescent” by placing a low wattage Haloid lamp under a falls. (Thanks to “Outdoor Lighting Perspectives” for the picture):

All these things make things – well – different now. We are finding ourselves considering landscapes and gardens closer at hand, much more immediate than the models many of us were raised with – the expansive “Estate Garden”. Even now I actually do put some of those in. But they are typically done where someone has their own water source, fed from wells, so that his own water actually gets reused. Here’s one of those taken from one of the tiers. I actually feature this project in an earlier post under “Large Landscaping Project – 2″.  (You can see I have a way with words!) 

But there’s no way this is anything but eye candy, maintenance intensive (’fuhgitaboudit’) and an impossible dream to most of us. More than likely, a picture such as this captures most of our hopes in terms of lawn size:

Presenting a gorgeous front and then actually living in the back yard is what so many of my clients have gravitated to. Finding a place to relax and enjoy, away from the madding crowds. And this is where it always gets most interesting to me, personally. Sticking in thematic but novel things such as sculptures, water features, larger patios for entertaining make a yard far more interesting. Here’s the thing -  we can do all these things on a fraction of the watering than we have become accustomed to. Even small spaces, squeezed in on hillsides in a desert climate can yield a terrifically reduced field of interest right off the back deck. The trees here are also lit up at night on the outer perimeter. Watering this place takes a bath a day.

There are lots of options in the water-saving realm of landscaping and design. You can choose any number of remarkably diverse styles and budgets.

I have studied all this pretty assiduously

And my best advice is to make sure you have some fun, work within a budget, and think for yourself – your ideas are still what makes it all go.

This?  (click all images to enlarge)

Or this?

If you answered the second picture, you would be correct. The top picture – from Vancouver, British Columbia – is from a project we did many years ago, obviously, which has performed spectacularly and grown thanks to the local climate – which is quite wet.

The second picture is from Reno, Nevada – smack in the middle of the Great Basin high desert and not quite a year old yet at the time of this picture. It is very irrigated, by means of buried pipes in the ground and small emitters which produce a designated amount of water to each individual plant. One thing about planting stuff in Reno is that, if somehow the watering regime is not right, you will find out fast! A pounding and relentless Sun mixes with an utter lack of humidity to expose any deficiencies pretty much immediately. For the record, here are later looks at that project, 2 years later:

This latter property is completely irrigated. Yes, as time has gone on, additional emitters were added, adding marginally to the water bill. Many times and in many places, this is the case, especially in neighborhoods such as this which were subdivisions, completely terraformed by excavators and bulldozers to conform to planned needs. Other places in this dry region where drip is used – in, say, homes built on more established existing soils, sometimes the drip irrigation merely acts to get roots to a water table which literally takes over from there. In these cases, the irrigation system, at least for trees and for many plants, can take a hike.

Here is a picture of what a project looks like during the course of installing drip irrigation:

Notice the black pipe coursing throughout the plantings. Eventually, it will be buried, as will the smaller distribution tubes that carry a certain pre-allocated amount of water to the roots of the trees and plants. One can actually determine precisely how much water is used over a period of time by use of these regulated devices. Put on a time clock, we can say, for example, that this group of plants has 200 different plants on it. Of these, the trees will have 3 – two gallon per hour (GPH)* – emitters apiece. Otherwise, the plants themselves will have one 2 GPH emitter apiece. (Note: some of the smaller ones will actually have 1 GPH emitters).

If we run it for a half hour, our 40 trees and 160 plants will need a total of:

(Trees- 40 x 6/2 = 120 gallons and the Plants – 160 x 2 / 2 = 160 gallons. Total = 280 gallons of water).

Inasmuch as this big project had some 4 planting zones of a similar make up, we can see that it would use around 1,000 gallons of water per day.

A Caveat: (Once again, this is a 5 acre project, somewhat densely planted. Yes, it must be nice! Bear in mind, for this guy, he had his own well, too, so much of his water went literally right back down into his own water table.)

For the project above this one, where we compared irrigation versus non-irrigation, the numbers for one zone listed here apply to the entire yard. So what is 280 gallons? How does it compare to our daily uses of water, per se?

Bath: 50 gallons
Shower: 2 gallons per minute (15 minutes shower = 30 gallons)
Teeth brushing: 1 gallon
Hands/face washing: 1 gallon
Face/leg shaving: 1 gallon
Dishwasher: 20 gallons/load
Dishwashing by hand: 5 gallons/load
Clothes washing (machine): : 10 gallons/load
Toilet flush: 3 gallons
Glasses of water drunk: 8 oz. per glass (1/16th of a gallon)

As can be seen, the “hardship” of water can be lessened by the proper use of the right irrigation materials. Put another way, if you let a hose run, it puts out around 8-12 gallons a minute. If you have your garden hose running for an hour, watering plants and trees, you will have used 2-3 times what that drip irrigation system supplied to all those plants and trees. The equivalent to using the drip system for 40 trees and 160 plants is to taking 2 baths, flushing 6 times, washing 2 loads of clothes and running the dishwasher.

Now, grass is thirstier. The project below had 12 sprinkler heads using 2 gallons each per minute. They often ran it for upwards of 10 minutes. Just this lawn alone, therefore, used 240 gallons a day! And that’s when they only watered it once. (Many times, they ran it twice.)

They asked us for a method of keeping some lawn but cutting down costs of watering. By using alternative materials instead of lawn, such as brick pavers and by creating planting beds, we were able to save them substantial watering costs. For one thing, we used low trajectory nozzles on their sprinkler heads which minimized how much sprayed water was lost due to wind – in Reno, this is a concern. For another, we placed them in better spots and used a nozzle that has been developed which uses less water in general, yet still delivers to the exact spots they are designed for. What we ended up with was a landscape which cost them 2/3 less money on watering and yet still had some lawn. Here it is:

Any more, we consistently convert what once were huge swaths of grass into more manageable and less water-hogging landscapes. What is most bizarre about the entire scenario is how friendly one can get towards plants and flowers and – frankly – how much more interesting they can be, done right. Irony of ironies, I suppose, even installing a water feature using water recycled by a pump can reduce a water bill.

There are design rules which have also adapted to the new realities surrounding watering shortages and wiser use of this precious resource. That’s what I will address next.

“Raising irrigation water efficiency typically means shifting from the less efficient flood or furrow system to overhead sprinklers or drip irrigation, the gold standard of irrigation efficiency. Switching from flood or furrow to low-pressure sprinkler systems reduces water use by an estimated 30 percent, while switching to drip irrigation typically cuts water use in half. A drip system also raises yields because it provides a steady supply of water with minimal losses to evaporation. Since drip systems are both labor-intensive and water-efficient, they are well suited to countries with a surplus of labor and a shortage of water.

A few small countries—Cyprus, Israel, and Jordan—rely heavily on drip irrigation. Among the big three agricultural producers, this more-efficient technology is used on 1–3 percent of irrigated land in India and China and on roughly 4 percent in the United States.

In recent years, small-scale drip-irrigation systems—virtually a bucket that relies on gravity to distribute the water through flexible plastic tubing—have been developed to irrigate small vegetable gardens with roughly 100 plants (covering 25 square meters). Somewhat larger drum systems irrigate 125 square meters. Large-scale drip systems using plastic lines that can be moved easily are also becoming popular. These simple systems can pay for themselves in one year. By reducing water costs and raising yields, they can dramatically raise incomes of smallholders.”

Drip irrigation increases the productivity of water usage to more than 70% over the above-listed current standards which apply in surprisingly many places. More importantly, in terms of landscaping, drip irrigation and adaptations of garden and landscape design, alternatives are being sought to limit the more water-hoggish elements of our landscaping past.

One very major beneficiary of attention is obviously the famous “English Model” – great wide expanses of gorgeous and green grass. In the more recent relocation of millions of Americans, for example, to thriving Western cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas and Reno, criticisms of desert towns having monstrous amounts of grass are completely accurate in their condemnation. Inasmuch as these water worries are local, it is even more the case.

Personally, I have prided myself on adhering to some of these tenets, then even enlarging on them. Yes, I have installed large pieces of grass for clients in Reno and in California towns where water is becoming short-handed. I have had my own issues with finding alternatives to grass, personally, especially since I so admire all a great lawn can accomplish in terms of literally changing the micro-climate of weather inside a home’s individual envelope. Grass lawns cool things down; they evaporate, of course, and push moisture into the air in non humid climates; they look fabulous and are fun to walk on, sit on, lay on and play on. And, having said all that, I know lots of dudes who are utterly macho about having “the most killer lawn in the neighborhood”, lol. I do know these men and they are numerous!

This is great for Kentucky, where taking one’s chances on rainfall irrigating such water-intensive stuff can generally be relied on. But. Even they are facing some drought conditions which have led to some scary fears. Atlanta, Georgia faces the results of their most recent drought with trepidation. They failed to allow for this possibility in their water-planning and now face huge issues. My point is this – we all have some responsibility in a wiser use of the resource of water.

Let’s Review – This is a Kentucky Highway

And this is a Nevada Highway:

Big difference.     Note the lack of grass in the lower photo.

It would be useless asking Americans or Australians to not want gardens outside their homes. Them would be fighting words, anyway. The notion of beauty and of simple enjoyment is an issue which few would give over to any government body. For another thing, food gardening saves us money and grants us a known fruit or veggie with that famous maximum taste and which grows from fertilizers and nutrients and soils of which we are totally aware. When we bite into a Red Delicious Apple or into some gorgeously rich-tasting Yellow Grape Tomato – or when our asparagus finally makes it onto our tables after a few years of cultivation – we have a product of our own labors and a foodstuff we actually earned and which – by almost any criterion – tastes better than those mass-produced suckers we get from the store, sold by appearance in a small selection of variety.

So where do we all go?  Nevada?

Next, I will show how landscaping is adapting to the newer realities and will provide an explanation of how simple and easy converting to drip irrigation can be. The uses of drip irrigation can surprise us, as well, including automated watering of such things as hanging baskets.

The current concerns of Global Warming and somewhat Apocalyptic thinking also takes issue with irrigation, concerned that it uses water which would be better used elsewhere. I think this is undoubtedly a truism. The Sahara could use more water. The Gobi gets pretty doggone dry. You can downright drown by going outside on the Olympic Peninsula in Winter.

Reasonable and very smart people have put themselves at this problem and have concluded numerous things. Some places should worry about water more than others. Some places get abundant water. We are not yet geared for transferring water from British Columbia (which gets too much) to California and Nevada (which, Lord knows, could use more). Nor are places like Atlanta, Georgia properly planned for the drought conditions they recently underwent, finding they had far too few resources in place for collection and storage of water. We so often, as a species, wait until the Worst shows up before dealing proactively with the problems facing our frantic expansion.

Having said that, I marvel at Reno, Nevada’s foresight now and then, with their excellent storage system of reservoirs, catching the always-needed snowmelt. Sure, when the snow is meager, they suffer a bit. But when it is average or better, they pack it in, big time. They also have implemented largely successful water-stretching plans consisting of policing the worst abuses of overwatering and waste and of educating the public about the ways to lessen the need for wasteful water practices, from low-use toilets to shorter showers to smarter plantings in the garden and wiser irrigation practices.

There are other positive developments in water usage – on site storage of rainwater and snow melt by use of catch basins and traps. Grey Water is a most promising area. And then there is common sense -

Water consciousness is a blooming (pardon the pun) field. The term “water auditing” is making its way into our lexicons and is the height of wisdom, especially for those who actually pay for water. It’s like accounting for grocery expenditures – it is a real and present cost, complete with ways of cost-saving – sometimes huge ones.

Irrigation practices have now officially made their way into the limelight as a method of actually saving money. It may seem odd to couple “saving water” with “irrigation” and it does presume that one already waters his yard and garden – there is that. If you have no garden whatsoever, why are you reading this?

But almost anyone reading here has a garden or lawn. We ask ourselves, how we can help and still garden?

Wise irrigation is a booming area. Irrigation companies are awarding big bucks for innovations and for ideas which help limit the wise use of water, including changing plants to more native varieties, changing the delivery systems of the water we use to more efficient ones and changing our senses of design and sustainability in ways which are new, different and actually very exciting. Did you realize, for example, that by changing – say – one half of your lawn to flowers and shrubbery, you can reduce your water costs by more than half? Did you realize there are now systems in place which accurately deliver the precise amount of water needed to plants, with little or zero waste? That this process can cut water use by up to 90%?

Watering our lawns and gardens were once just taken for granted as much as breathing the air around us. The dang stuff was everywhere!    But times have changed – like everything else. Now we find ourselves searching diligently for methods of changing our ways so that we can not over extend what we once took for granted into some impossible-to-access corner.

I’m going to present a hopefully accessible look at irrigation from a user and installer’s perspective. As a contractor who has specialized in irrigating lawns and plants, I think I hold an interesting perspective from which we can all gain something. Watching the various reactions to the looming water shortages around the globe and here at home, I think I can present ways of maximizing the use of this precious resource while still allowing us to enjoy what means so much to us all – a good garden.

Kenny is a mouth breather.