don't tell me to save water, i got a lawn!

Yeah, well, 'use it or lose it' seems the essence of Colorado Doctrine water rights. The more you use, the more you get to keep when restrictions are applied. Colorado Doctrine applies to most western states, by the way.

the issue Roger, here in colorado is that many upscale neighborhoods do NOT allow zeriscaping, this bill would have simply ALLOWED homeowners to use native plants instead of lawns.

Maybe, water prices should be increased to force people and businesses to save water? BTW, what is "zeriscaping"? I failed to find such a word in any of the dictionaries...

Maybe they think the term is limited to tumbleweeds with the odd sage brush and rattlesnake?

Sorry, Roger, but your explanation made this term even less clear it was before...

stessd: the term zeriscaping refers to the usage of native plants that are tolerant of draught conditions, as opposed to the common usage of BlueGrasses which are not native and consume vast amounts of water here in a semi-desert environment.

Didn't check it out SteissD, but I believe the word actually begins with an 'X', not 'Z'. It means low water usage landscaping. With good planning, it can look reasonably 'normal'. There is an assumption that it has to look like the native desert.

Hmm, the word "xeriscaping" makes sense; droughtproof plants are really called xerophytes. By the way, this word does not appear in the dictionaries either, I guess, it is a neologism. By all means, thanks for explanation.

Check this out:


Link to xeriscaping

Save water?

Have you seen the toliets of today. They have a tiny little area in the bottom of the seat. So small, that a little cup of tea would barely fit in there. Purpose>>>>save water. Ha! Ha!. So now you flush 3 times instead of once. Bottom line>>>you use more water, anyway!

those (yeah right) water saver toilets are mandated by code, and the interesting thing in this regard is the the lush lawns of some parts of drought striken Colorado are also mandated. i just gets more and more confused!!!

Thanks for the link, Phoenix. I believe that in my country xeriscaping should become a strictly enforced law regarding private lawns and public gardens.

I was listening to NPR the other day (well, I do everyday). The drought in the SW was a topic. The city of santa fe is selling off their grey water for irrigation of the 2 (TWO!) golf courses North of town. Also up there is the gated community that went in during the early 90s. The people in the town are keeping their own grey water, hauling it out to the garden in buckets. Don't want the city to get the benefits.

Dyslexia - the disallowance of xeriscaping is outrageous!

Ah, drought! We know all about that subject here in Oz. We're in something like the 5th year of a ripper drought!

But back to the micro level: I recently bought a new (little) Victorian terrace in an inner-urban area of the city of Melbourne. It has a good-sized front & back yard. I'm now in the process of removing unsuitable (& water-guzzling) plants, allowing the lawn to slowly die, due to the serious water shortage & have begun replanting with local native plants (like the 3 bottle brushes that are thriving in the horrendous heat.)
When the autumn comes I plan to make the biggish lawn smaller, by extending the garden & planting more native plants & others that are "at home" in the conditions.
If I learnt nothing else from my previous home & garden it's not to fight the the climate, the type of soil you have to work with .... A plant that is happy with the conditions will flourish & LOOK much more attractive than an "exotic" that struggles to survive in the situation.
And lawns: native grasses, definitely, if you want them at all. Much of the waste & garden water-guzzling in the city, I believe, is people trying to maintain a lawn that looks like it's been transplanted from straight from England. IMO this is an extremely thoughtless & anti-social thing to do during an extended period of drought. You can tell whose selfish by the lushness of their lawns. Why not let them just die back (if you want to keep them) & regenerate when the rains return? A small inconvenience at such a critical time.

good for you MsOlga!

littlek

Thanks.
It also means you can relax & enjoy your garden, rather than stressing about it constantly, fighting the natural conditions ... that's got to be a bonus!

Yep, my mother, I learned the concept of xeriscaping from her, just built a huge garden around their new house. She tried to go with native plants species, but added a few favorites. Then Cape Cod got hit with a drought. All those buckets of prescious water she hauled all over the garden to subsidize the wilting hydrangeas..... and in that heat!

... and the hydrangeas never looked anything but crappy, yes? Oh, been there, done that! Not much fun!

well, they had some glorious moments. The biggest problem was that they wer fairly new (planted 2 years before the drought). I think. If I remember right, they can take the heat pretty well.