From Frank Hyman www.frankhyman.com
Practices:
1) Put the right plant in the right place and group plants with similar water requirements together: dry land plants together in sunny, dry sites and plants that need regular moisture together in low areas that stay wetter longer. Get a copy of The Southern Gardener's Book of Lists to help you group plants this way.
2) Put your lawn on a diet. We have a fescue "lawnlet" of less then 150 square feet that is easy to maintain. Look for my articles about lawnlets at www.carolinagardener.com and www.indyweek.com.
3) Spend the time and/or money necessary to design and install an effective irrigation system that conserves water. Soaker hoses are good for about a year to get plants established. If plants are chosen well (see item #1) then they won't need much, if any irrigation after getting established in the first calendar year. Rain barrels and cisterns are going to become standard for watering gardens. Open top rain barrels made from wooden barrels (and fed by rain chains) are good for
dipping a watering can into so you can water containers.
4) Boost the ability of the soil to hold water longer by incorporating organic matter such as shredded leaves or pine bark. In sandy soils, Perma-Till will boost the water holding capacity a great deal. In clay soils, not so much.
5) Mulch, mulch, and then top it off with some more mulch. If sunlight can strike your soil, it will cook the moisture right out of it and kill lots of plants. The smartest, most cost-effective mulch is a 2-3 inch layer of tree leaves shredded by a lawnmower. Rake the leaves onto a tarp and carry them to a work area where you can run a mower over them (set the wheels high, so the mower doesn't stall out). You'll save money and your back by not having to bend over to put the leaves in bags to be hauled off, and you'll also save money by not buying mulch that has been shipped at a great expense of fossil fuel that accelerates climate change. For desert or Mediterranean plants, you can use a 2" layer of attractive gravel as permanent mulch. Plants from these environments think a summer drought is normal and aren't as reliant on having organic matter added to the soil each year. Visit the Mad Hatter restaurant next to Whole Foods in Durham to see one of my Mediterranean gardens with a gravel mulch.
Resources:
www.gardenwatersaver.com Source for a terrific downspout diverter that lets you put rain barrels out of sight and some distance away from the rain barrel. Also redirects any overflow water back to the downspout.
www.irrigation.learnabout.info Site teaches about making homemade rain barrels.
www.rainwatersolutions.com Local source for rain barrels and cisterns.
www.kentuckybarrels.com Source for wooden rain barrels.
www.Rainbarrelman.com This guy makes kits to make your plastic rain barrel look like a wooden rain barrel.
www.waterrecycling.com Local contractor for large scale storm water management.
FORMULA TO CALCULATE GALLONS OF WATER PER SQUARE FEET OF ROOF One inch of rain = 675 gallons from 1,000 square feet of roof
To calculate number of gallons from 50 square feet of roof:
675 x 50 divided by 1000 = 33.75 gallons'
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