Backyard Makeover

[ Found in the Maintenance Path ]

Take a close look at any typical suburban backyard. Look familiar? Big lawn, thirsty shrubs, inefficiently designed sprinkler system. They’re all major water and energy wasters.

It takes a lot of irrigation to keep grass green through a hot, dry summer along the Wasatch Front. So the bigger your lawn, the higher your landscape’s overall water requirements. To make matters worse, misaligned sprinkler heads often squander water on fences, sidewalks, the house or the street. There’s a better way: retrofit your landscape. A waterwise redesign will look better, serve you better and drastically reduce your water use.

Here’s what we mean: For starters, there’s much less lawn area in a good retrofitted design. Grass is used only where it’s needed, more as an accent than a fence-to-fence groundcover. One idea may be to replace turf with a patio and other handsome hardscape areas, which provide versatile outdoor space for backyard relaxing and entertaining.

In corners and along edges, water-thrifty shrubs and creepers make sensible and attractive alternatives to turf. Sprinkler heads are aligned for maximum efficiency, delivering equal amounts of water to each lawn area with minimal overspray. Finally, drip irrigation takes the little bit of water needed by shrubs and groundcover directly to each plant, eliminating wasteful runoff and evaporation.