Drought brings teachable moments to landscape
The United States has more than 50 million lawns. In fact, according to NASA, lawns are the largest irrigated “crop” by area that we grow. Turf is a $45 billion-a-year big deal.
Lawns evolved, for the most part, because they are easy to understand and look pretty good most of the time. My lawn is tan, as are many of your lawns. Nice look? Not so much when you consider Americans have had a love affair with the ubiquitous emerald green lawn for most of the past century. Indeed, the undercurrent of thinking after the World War II was that a well-kept lawn somehow was related to a measurement of one’s character.
As several regions of the country experience record drought and the wet spring has given way to sizzling, drought-like conditions, maintaining a green lawn is an even hotter topic than the triple-digit temperatures now experienced.
Add a top-dressing of a few more sobering statistics. Those 50 million lawns consume more than 270 billion gallons of water every week in addition to being covered with 67 million pounds of pesticides. Since lawns tend to shed water rather quickly, most of those pesticides and the enormous amounts of synthetic fertilizers used end up in polluted runoff that goes into surface and groundwater.
Cycles of droughts of the past somehow have escaped our collective memory, but now we have an ever-increasing population in the Houston area that is estimated to double within 20 years. Drought or no drought, the possibility of water rationing is always present. Gone is the fantasy that there will be enough water for everyone forever. During the current dry spell, a teachable moment presents itself, especially after we were so distracted by a very cool, wet spring. There is good news — reducing the size of a lawn can mean significant savings in time, money and water — less will be more.
Although Texas Senate Bill 198 passed in 2013 prohibits homeowner associations (HOAs) from preventing residents to install drought-tolerant landscapes and turf, word has yet to trickle down to individual HOAs. As a result, some residents are still meeting with opposition in their desire make changes. In the meantime, a few simple strategies can help avoid conflict and still give you a water-efficient, resilient landscape. Fall is a great time to begin.
Start with an evaluation of your yard identifying areas where the lawn is not (or was not) doing well before drought-like conditions and plan to remove the grass. This might be in the deep shade of trees or buildings, in low spots or at the edges of the property. Replant with ground covers or, under trees, add a layer of mulch such as chopped tree trimmings or pine straw (pine needles). Be sure mulch is not piled up against the bark — the flare at the bottom of the tree should be showing. Ground covers could include Cherokee sedge, carex cherokeensis for moist shade or Texas sedge, carex texensis, which prefers drier shade to sun. Both form 12 inch grassy clumps that spread slowly. Wood fern, thelypteris kunthii, gives a softened, cooling appearance under large shade trees.
Closer to the house where larger shrubs are already established, gradually expand the garden beds a few feet each year to create a graceful curve while reducing the amount of yard dedicated to lawn. These areas can be planted with lower growing shrubs and perennials. In full sun, two of my favorite shrubs include dwarf Barbados cherry, malphighia glabra, with its tiny clusters of pink flowers and tiny red cherries sometimes showing both flowers and cherries at the same time; and Golden Showers thryallis, galphimia glauca, a non-stop bloomer with clusters of bright yellow flowers. Both can take being trimmed lightly to maintain height.
To add interest to an otherwise boring expanse of turf, plant an island that could contain a collection of sages (also referred to as salvias) many of which are quite drought tolerant. Hummingbirds flock to the deep blue sapphire flowers of anise sage, salvia guaranitica, and the velvety purple and white spikes of the fall bloomer, Mexican bush sage, salvia leucantha.
New plantings will need regular watering at first and during dry periods, but can be weaned off gradually once they are well established. With another year of potential extremes in wet and dry cycles, taking action now to reduce resource draining lawns will mean less — watering, fertilizing and mowing — and more — protecting the quantity and the quality of finite water supplies.