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Choosing Roses For Your Landscape
Roses have long been a favorite among all types of gardeners,
and roses continue to enjoy great popularity today. In addition
to their beauty as cut flowers and in bouquets, roses are among
the most useful and attractive flowers to grace the...
How To Use Annuals In Landscaping Your Garden
An annual, from the point of view of the amateur gardener, is any plant which must be replaced each year and which flowers only once in its life. Annuals generally are grown from seed. The chief advantage of annuals over perennials is their low...
How To Use Flower Beds In Landscaping Your Garden
The loveliness of flowering plants needs little embellishment by description. Certainly every gardener seeks the beauty and color that can be brought to his grounds by a variety of flowers. The proper arrangement of flower beds in your garden and...
Keeping Soil Healthy
Soil is a composition of weather-beaten rock, minerals, decayed
plant materials and other organic ingredients. All this takes a
long time to develop, but can be damaged by our action or
neglect in a single season.
Plants can obtain nutrients...
The Magic of Flowers
Flowers are natural gifts that beautify our environment. Whether used in an arrangement to grace the kitchen table or placed in a vase by the bedside, flowers provide a sense of invitation and welcome to guests and offer the sweet fragrances...
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Tips for Saving Water for Your Landscaping
Do you find your water bill going up each month you water your
landscaping along with the rest of your bills? You might even
question just how much water your landscaping really needs.
Perhaps it's time for you to think about how to make your
watering more efficient so you have beautiful landscaping but
save water as well.
To water our landscaping, we use either some type of automated
sprinkler system or a sprinkler that is dragged from spot to
spot. Right from the big corporations right down to the
homeowner with just a speck of a lawn, most people use or want
to use some type of automated watering system. You have probably
seen water from automated sprinkler systems running off the
grass and running down the street. I don't know about you, but
here in the arid West, when I see this, it makes me quite angry.
This even can be seen in droughts where a typical homeowner may
have to water his plants with saved waste water from inside his
home. This is not exactly an efficient use of water. All around
the country there are problems with having clean water. It just
doesn't make sense to waste water.
Yet most landscaping owners use an inefficient and wasteful
watering system. Here are a few tips to make watering your
landscaping more efficient and less wasteful.
Watering systems for your landscaping vary. Find one that is
most efficient for your needs. A good rule of thumb is that the
larger the water drop delivered and the closer to the ground the
better it is. Using a system that delivers a fine spray up into
the air will lose much of the water to evaporation and to wind.
Surprisingly, hand held hose watering was
found to be the most
water-efficient way to provide moisture to your landscaping. It
uses 33% less water than the average household uses to water
their plants.
Studies found that of the automated watering systems, in ground
sprinkler systems used 35% more and those with automatic timers
use 47% more water than places that did not use such automated
systems. These timesaving devices aren't saving you money or
water.
Adding rain sensors, or better yet, soil sensors to your
automated watering system saves water. You don't end up with the
sprinkler system coming on in the middle of a rainstorm or right
after one when the ground is already soaked.
Automated drip irrigation systems were found to be more
efficient in the study using only 16% more than used by
non-automated watering households. Add the above sensors and you
will have an even better system.
Perhaps the best tip is to not over water. This goes to more
than not watering after a rainstorm. It includes watering to
your landscaping plants' specific moisture requirements.
Consider including less water intensive plantings in your
landscaping. It means watering, as your soil requires. Adjust
your watering schedule from that needed in the high temperatures
of summer to the less watering needed in fall as temperatures go
down.
Copyright 2005, Sandra Dinkins-Wilson
About the author:
Want landscaping tips and information? Check out our Landscaping
and Gardening info website at
http://www.landscaping-and-gardening.info. Get all the latest
information in the world of landscaping.
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