High Water Use Plants in the Low Water Landscape - Part II

If I plant wild plums for my plums and if I plant piñon pines, for nuts, I don't have to count them as high water use trees. I could then plant two each of apricots, crabapples, peaches and apples, and I'd have room left over for another semi-dwarf or other high water use tree or other plants. Crabapples are small trees with good jelly fruit, of course, and I want to position them on my property with an eye to their fall color. For the sake of our estimate, however, I'll assume I only plant two of them. At that rate, I might even consider planting those pecan trees. Although the pecan is a large tree and will obviously eventually grow much larger than the semi-dwarf plants, they are practical trees. And, I will have saved a lot of water by not putting in that dichondra and clover lawn I like so much.

With these figures in mind, the Albuquerque requirement that new houses limit the use of high water grass lawns to an area 24 by 24 square feet seems reasonable. I might even try to limit the planting all of my high water use plants to an area of that size. From the looks of it, I'll still be able to have a variety of fruits and nuts if I do. Although the pecans I'm planning on planting will eventually grow larger than the original area, they are practical and productive trees which will return value on their investment.

Twenty percent seems to me like a good amount of practical, yet high water landscape use for a homestead. What do you think? If you have an opinion I'd love to read about it in the discussion section.

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