Maybe it's due to global warming or climate change, but heat waves are becoming a norm than an exception lately. Many parts of our earth are slowly becoming a desert. Such change becomes alarming when one lives in otherwise rain-drenched, temperate regions of the world. But rain is becoming sparse and less frequent and easily overshadowed by the heat waves that seem to come in full force, more frequently, and longer-lasting. Our perception of the changing climate might actually be inaccurate, but we swear it's getting hotter every summer all these recent years.
For gardeners, the heat waves are often something to be alarmed about. The plants would be wilted. The land would be parched and dry. And we, guilt aside, tap on our precious clean drinking water to water our plants and vegetable, never mind the turf.
Some gardeners have a paradigm shift in their practice.
It could be to conserve water, or it might even be motivated by one's laziness or just getting fed up with hose pulling and soaking each plant with precious water. Or maybe because one is consciously saving every trickle of water for better use. Most probably it's because Nature has a funny way of forcing a gardener who longs for a green garden despite the scarcity of water, and a truly persistent and creative gardener will do anything to beat Nature's limitations. It could actually be for many other reasons, but we try to create a garden where the need for water can be held to a minimum. Thus, xeriscaping came into fashion.
Xeriscaping what? We gardeners with limited deep vocabulary might scratch our heads as we mumble this foreign-sounding, not-so-common gardening jargon.
Xeriscaping is defined by dictionaries as "a process of landscaping, or gardening, that reduces if not eliminates the need for irrigation." The word comes from the Greek word xeros, which means dry. And its origin reveals its reason or purpose.
Usually, xeriscaping springs up as the preferred method in places that do not have access or don't have lots of reliable sources of water. Think deserts. Or rocky, sun-beaten areas. Or places where it hardly rains or fresh water is barely available for drinking or cooking much less for watering plants and crops. Or, our very own place when recurring heat waves attack.
Also, with restrictions on watering our lawn and plants during summer, we have been forced to rethink our gardening ways and styles.
In effect, we seek out plants that will grow in sunny sites with dry soil. That's the essence of xeriscaping, water-wise gardening.
Nature is the best lesson provider, and xeriscaping practitioners and advocates are too willing to take heed. Or they just have to.
The plants best for xeriscaping usually have certain physical characteristics, most notably in their leaves. These plants include having less leaves, even no leaves at all like cacti, where the loss of water occurs. Their leaves are often smaller and hairy, again to lessen water evaporation from the leaves. Further, often, they have woolly grey or silvery leaves and stems to better reflect off sunlight.
Their leaves, or trunks, are also expandable to store as much water when it becomes available. Hence, the leaves tend to be fat or plump. Their leaves and branches may also have waxy coating to preserve water even better.
Top xeriscaping plants are low growers and tend to have shallow root systems but extensive root hairs, those whisker-like tufts of white multi-branched soft appendages, so they can absorb as much of whatever little water is on or near the surface. Otherwise, one or couple of taproots dig much deeper for whatever little water they can find.
So, xeriscaping = cacti? Think again.
SUCCULENTS like echevarria and hens and chicks are great for water miser gardens. And xeriscaped gardens can be in pots, in wooden frames, or on pebbled tabletop.
Several plants are great for xeriscaping. First on the list, yes, of course, are cacti. Yet they also include most of the succulents and other desert-originating plants. Add yucca and agave to the list.
Great for water-miser gardens: California poppy, echinops ritro, and dianthus
Other desirable perennials that boast handsome flowers include dianthus, African iris, California poppy, echinops ritro, alliums, evening primrose, members of the mint family, Stachys byzantina, lavender, lamb's ear, lantana, Gaura lindheimeri, catananche caerula, cardoon, baptisia, verbascum, gaillardia, achilleas, and sages.
Growing wild in dry roadsides are shrubs good for xeriscaping, like butterfly bush and wild rugosa roses. Sage brushes can also come under this group.
A few ornamental grasses are also good candidates for xeriscaping. Plant growers have managed to hybridize many ornamental grasses that produce attractive blades and plumes and still manage to flourish on minimal water.
Often, plants that are great for rock gardens are also good for xeriscaping. Plants like creeping thyme, rock cress, alyssum, lavender cotton or santolina, snow-in-summer, and several herbs like oregano and thyme are good for both rock gardens and xeriscaping.
With a little bit of good planning and scouring around for beautiful water miser plants, your xeriscape garden will still look green, very beautiful, full, and very rewarding aesthetically and environmentally. With minimal watering and maintenance, your garden becomes your pride and social conscience rather than your master and water slave driver or a freshwater sinkhole. That's definitely something extra special to say about xeriscaping, and about you as a water-saving and Earth-loving gardener.
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