High Water Plants in a Low Water Landscape - Part 1

Last week I mentioned that the City of Albuquerque limits you to planting six specific "high water use plants" in no more than twenty per cent of the total landscape of a new development, such as at a house in a new subdivision. Those plants are:

• Bluegrass
• Ryegrass
• Tall Fescue
• Bentgrass
• Clover
• Dichondra

I also mentioned that in the home I'm planning I don't think I'll have much need for any of the grasses above, since there are native alternatives which consume less water. I'll probably try lawn fescue, a slow growing, fine textured and durable variety of fescue that doesn't require much water supplementation.

The plants in Albuquerque's limited list are grasses and ground covers, which for simplicity's sake, I'm going to call grasses. The city probably limits those particular high water use plants because a lot of our lawns serve no function. Sure, they look good, but they also consume a lot of water. We can find native plants that look almost as good and aren't as thirsty.

The question I asked last week is Are there even any high water use plants that make sense in the desert southwest? I'm a practical person, so I've searched the City of Albuquerque's "HIGH WATER USE LARGE & SMALL DECIDUOUS & EVERGREEN TREES" for trees of obvious economic value. These trees not only look good, they provide something productive. Arizona Sycamore, for example, is on the City's list, but not on my list, since it's mostly a "street tree." I've also eliminated trees described as "good lawn trees," such as the Honey Locust, and I've taken out Christmas trees such as the Blue Spruce and Scotch Pine, the latter of which is labeled by Sunset's Western Garden Book as "not for deserts." The piñon pine is a perfect Christmas tree, and it is not thirsty.

Please understand from the beginning that the standard that I'm looking into is much stronger than that set by the City of Albuquerque. These are practical plants and, like a vegetable garden, can be justified economically. They are worth the water. The question is, however, in an area of limited water, how many high water plants can a home owner afford? Obviously there is a limit. This week I'm trying to determine if I can use a limit imposed by the city on relatively frivolous and unnecessary plants to limit the more beneficial high water use plants that grow in the area. I'm starting with trees, because trees take up a lot of space:

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