The word XERISCAPE is actually a trademark of the City of Denver, along with the Xeriscape logo. What this means is that we should be careful how we use the term. If, for example, we're talking about a specfic program of water conservation landscaping similar to or sponsored by a city water department, we're probably talking about "Xeriscaping," and we need to capitalize it. If we're talking about low-water plants that are being sold in a nursery, it's better to talk about those as dry, or "xeric," landscaping plants. Whether we call it "Xeriscaping" really isn't our decision to make. The City of Denver, Colorado owns the rights to the word as a trademark. They've allowed books to be printed on the subject, but they don't want to see "Xeriscape" used by commercial home and garden stores.
We don't need to be a city water department to make use of the program that Denver and other cities, such as Albuquerque, NM have developed. Any homeowner or apartment dweller can use the Xeriscape techniques to help save water and have good looking yards and limited lawns. An added benefit is that Xeriscapes aren't as maintenance - intensive as a Kentucky bluegrass lawn. They also attract lizards, bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
Briefly, the seven components of the City of Albuquerque's Xeriscape program are:
1. Plan and design your yard and home. Put higher-water use plants together and keep those away from plants which use less water. Put your higher water use plants closer to your house and on the cooler northern and eastern sides of your home. Use rainwater collection systems to divert water to needed areas.
2. Get a good soil analysis so you know the needs of your plants and how well your plants fit your landscape. Compost is a great additive where you want to increase your soil's ability to hold water, but compost isn't necessary or useful for many native plants.
3. Design and put in appropriate turf areas. Grass lawns are a tremendous water waster. Kentucky bluegrass requires 40" of water a year. In some parts of New Mexico we only get 8" of rain and snow for the whole year. If we put in blue gramma or buffalograss we can sometimes get by in a summer by adding only 2" of water. Also, a lot of us really haven't thought about what purpose our lawns serve. If they're just there drinking water, they need to be replaced. Albuquerque limits luxury high water use lawns to 20% of the total beginning landscape in new construction.
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