Water Efficient Landscaping

Water efficient landscaping is a balanced landscape.  It uses design and plants that to suit a specific location.  A water efficient landscape plan considers soil type, plant selection, local climate, use of mulches, properly sized turf areas, efficient irrigation, and water reuse opportunities.  These plans facilitate a balanced landscape that can be stunning beautiful and limit the use of fertilizers, lower maintenance time and costs, and reduce the landscapes water needs. 

One of the first (probably most familiar and widely accepted) approaches to implement the principles of water efficient landscaping is called xeriscape landscaping. Xeriscape landscaping incorporates 7 principles which ultimately help to conserve water and produce a beautiful landscape.  These principles are plan and design, soil amendment, efficient irrigation, appropriate plant and zone selection, mulch, alternative turf, and maintenance.

Another component of water efficient design incorporates the use of drainage and runoff from buildings and other non-permeable surfaces in a community to create places where beautiful landscaping flourishes and water is reused to create these spaces.  An example of this is landscape swales where the swales are planted with trees, shrubs, grasses and ground cover that flourish in this landscape.  Pollution reduction is also achieved as water flows are filtered through the plantings.