To conserve water in your landscape it begins with healthy soil and eliminate plants that will require supplemental water use.

Conserving water can take time, energy and money to start the process however the long term goal of Water Conservation in your landscape will have exponentially great rewards for the long term. You will save money on water use, you will save money on not needing to re-plant inappropriate plants for the Colorado environment and most importantly you will be preserving our lifetime water source - a rapidly dwindling resource.

Initial ways to save water in your home landscape include -

1. Install a high efficiency irrigation system

2. Use your water meter as a tool to manage your landscape by measuring flow rates and to detect leaks.

3. Plant your garden in specific hydrozones where plants requiring similar water use are assigned to s single irrigation valve for their particular hydrozone classification.

4. Don’t mix high/moderate/low water use plants in the same hyrozone as the result is water waste.

5. Evaluate the fully matured size of your desired plants to ensure you are planting them in an appropriate plant size area.

6. Avoid planting directly in front of sprinklers as this will cause potential blocking of water for other plants resulting in poor runoff uniformity and over watering.

To keep the hydrozone concept simple it is a principle of putting similar plants with the same water use classifications together. Paying attention to if they are in sun/shade/wind/heat, what is their soil type and the slope + elevation they are planted at. As an example your dry summer adapted plants should be on a different hydrozone than the summer plants needing more moisture.

See the below article for more information on grouping plants into hydrozones

https://articles.extension.org/pages/61378/grouping-plants-into-hydrozones

One of the final elements to planning and executing a water wise landscaping plan in your garden is making the right choice with your irrigation system. Critical element to a waterwise irrigation system is the irrigation controller. The controller executes the control of electric irrigation valves and delivery of water to the landscape. If controllers are not effectively managed and programmed properly they can be a major source of water waste.

Stay tuned for the next blog on Smart irrigation systems.