My lawn looks like a piece of dull fabric, woven with threads of green and brown. That means it’s summertime in the South. And in my neighborhood, everyone’s lawn is suffering from lack of rain. Frankly, it doesn’t bother me. The tall fescue will go dormant, perhaps earlier than I had hoped, but it’ll return. In the meantime, it won’t need watering more than once every three weeks. And surely, oh surely, evening thunderstorms or tropical storm remnants will provide at least that. I certainly have no plans to use a sprinkler on our nearly 1-acre yard!
Does your lawn turn brown in the heat of the season? Don’t waste water trying to keep it green – grass typically goes dormant in the dog days of summer anyway.
Photo Credit: Megan Bame
Soaker hoses have tiny perforations that allow water to seep out at a steady rate. This means that just the area next to the hose – aimed at a plant’s root zone – gets watered.
Photo Credit: Daniel Overcash
This timer connects directly to your spigot and is easy to use by simply dialing it the appropriate amount of watering time. When time’s up, the water shuts off.
Photo Credit: Megan Bame
But don’t get me wrong – I’m an irrigator. I water the vegetable garden and even take care to water a few flower beds, but you won’t catch me watering a sidewalk. I try to use water – the life-giving resource of this planet – in a conservation-minded fashion. You see, drought is more than simply a “lack of rainfall.” Drought is a consequence of growing communities using more water than what’s available. It hits especially hard in summer, when water demands increase while supply often falls below comfortable limits.
In a perfect world, water conservation would be a year-round effort. And once you start thinking this way, it’s not hard to do. Follow these six simple water-wise practices, and you’ll use water a lot less. The more people who think conservation, the less chance there is for inconvenient, government-imposed water restrictions – which are often accompanied by hefty violation fines.
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Use drip tape or soaker hoses rather than sprinklers. These low-flow watering systems direct water right to your plants’ root zones. Little is lost to evaporation or wasted on unplanted areas (or worse: weeds).
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Use a timer to manage your water use and curb forgetful overwatering. Inexpensive timers connect directly to a spigot. Just set it much like you would an egg timer. More sophisticated watering systems may require some basic wiring, but you can water different zones at different times, as well as enter preset watering frequencies.
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Water in the early morning (5 a.m. to 8 a.m.). Evening watering increases the risk for plant disease, so you should just avoid it. Not only is morning watering healthier for the plants, it reduces water loss due to evaporation – a problem with watering during the intense heat of the day.
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Be aware of the weather. If your forecast calls for rain, skip the usual watering. If the weatherman was wrong and the rain doesn’t come, your plants probably won’t suffer. But if it does rain, you and your plants win – you’ve saved water! Similarly, skip watering if it’s cloudy, because your plants won’t use as much water then as they would on a sunny day.
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Understand plant growth. Established plants have deeper roots that can reach way down for additional moisture, so they need less water. Young plants need regular watering until they’re established (that’s one to two years for trees and shrubs, and two to three weeks for bedding and vegetable plants). And don’t forget to look at your plants for signs of stress. They’ll alert you with wilted or faded leaves if they’re under water stress. In most cases, given a thorough watering, they’ll fully recover. Remember, plants that are grown with moderate intervals of water stress are more adaptable when water isn’t available.
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Recycle water by using it twice. Water restrictions typically deal with outdoor water use, but there are many wasteful uses of water inside your house, too. Keep a pan, bucket or jug next to the sink, tub or shower. Place the jug under the faucet to collect the cool water that runs while you’re waiting for the hot water to arrive. Or capture your extra water from cooking, washing your hands and rinsing the dishes to apply to thirsty plants. You’ll be surprised at how much you collect!
The fact is that the average American uses 80-100 gallons of water per day. By following these simple strategies, you can make a big impact on your local water system. We need to accept the fact that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side – it’s just greener in the spring and fall…unless Mother Nature decides otherwise.
