• Set your lawnmower to cut the grass high – it helps keep soil moist and promotes deeper roots that need less watering.
• Leave your grass clippings on the lawn – they form a healthy mulch, which helps keep soil moist and replenishes it with nutrients, too.
• Aerate your lawn by poking deep, nail-sized holes in it at roughly six-inch intervals. This will help water soak into the soil rather than run off the surface. You can rent an aerator at most general rental shops.
• Measure the rainfall in your yard by putting out an empty straight-sided baking pan. If you’re getting at least an inch of rain per week and the weather isn’t scorching, you probably don’t need to water your lawn. If you do water, make sure to do it in the early morning before the day heats up to prevent wasteful evaporation, and make sure your sprinkler is hitting only lawn and not sidewalks or driveways.
• Use a rain barrel to collect rooftop runoff for flower garden and houseplant use. Don’t use the runoff for vegetable gardens unless you know your roofing material is safe. Special 55 gallon barrels are easily connected to your gutters, and have faucets at the bottom.
• Practice xeriscaping, the art of landscaping with regionally indigenous plants that don’t need a lot of water. Check with your local county extension agent, university horticulture department, or nursery for information about good plants in your area.
• Use mulch on vegetable and flower gardens, and around shrubbery, to help soils retain moisture and reduce the need for waterings.
• If you have any shoreline, consider “naturalizing” with tall grasses and native plants to protect the shoreline from erosion.

Photo by Mike Wade

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Green living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.