We are all con­cerned about our water­ing habits this time of year, and so we should be (and real­iz­ing that sum­mer is just around the cor­ner with even higher water demands can cause us to worry before it even arrives), but as with all things in life, wor­ry­ing is not the solu­tion – action is!
Accord­ing to the Water Dis­trict of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia 70% of our house­hold water usage is for out­door land­scap­ing and pools. That sta­tis­tic is stag­ger­ing! With very lit­tle effort on our part we can make an astound­ing impact on our water usage, with­out feel­ing deprived or that we have to sac­ri­fice our beloved plants.
Most home­own­ers, unbe­knownst to them, usu­ally over­wa­ter! So, this is our start­ing point. Before the days over go and look at your sprin­kler sys­tem and deter­mine how much water is being used and when. Before we actu­ally start a land­scape project we check the water­ing sched­ule of the client (mainly to see if they have a pat­tern of over­wa­ter­ing) and help them to water cor­rectly, sav­ing them water and MONEY! If you feel inse­cure about under­stand­ing how the sys­tem is set up, ask your gar­dener. Many gar­den­ers are famil­iar with the sprin­kler boxes and can help you under­stand how many min­utes and how many days you have your sys­tem on. If he is unable to help, talk to your neigh­bor, you can help each other to save water and money while hav­ing a nice neigh­borly chat!
When you water is very impor­tant. You should water early in the morn­ing when it is cooler and this allows the plants to “sit” in the mois­ture (which allows the water to really reach the roots of the plants) before the heat kicks in. Water­ing at 11:00 in the morn­ing is not advis­able, it’s far too late – once sum­mer comes around the soil is already warm so the water has less of an impact on your plants and usu­ally evap­o­rates before it even hits the tar­get! You don’t need to be water­ing every­day. Obvi­ously, if your gar­den has a great deal of sun to con­tend with, you will require more water than a shade (or fil­tered light) gar­den, but water­ing every­day is not nec­es­sary. Always mulch – it is a great way to retain mois­ture in the soil and keep weeds down at the same time.
These are such minor changes, but very, very effec­tive if we all “dig-in.”

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