Xeriscape – Drought-Adaptive Horticulture
Gardening in West Texas...
Stresses, Part 1
HEAT and WIND:
ADAPTATIONS BY PLANTS - small leaves, hairy leaves, compound leaves, no leaves, turning leaf sideways to the sun, waxy leaves, deeply dissected leaves, gray leaves, leaf drop, wilting during day
ADAPTATIONS BY GARDENERS - plant selection!!!! Mulch!!!! Deep watering!!!! Plant location!!!!
SYMPTOMS OF STRESS - Wilting, leaf drop, cessation of blooms, cessation of growth
PLACES OF MOST CONCERN - Against walls, where wind has free rein to sweep across the planting, near concrete/asphalt roads and walkways
Watering and watering and watering combats these two environmental conditions. That is the easiest answer, and the answer that most people take. To me, however, philosophically, I believe it separates us from our environment. A lush garden can be developed with proper selection of plants that naturally meet these challenges. For me, I find great satisfaction in selecting plants that amaze me with their toughness.
MY DREAM WATERING SCHEDULE:
- TREES - once a month
- SHRUBS - once a month
- PERENNIALS - once every two weeks
- TURF - I prefer to have no turf – but a meadow instead, watered once every two-three weeks at most … However, I know that is not for everybody. Buffalo grass, blue grama, and galleta make a 6 inch deep carpet with seedheads dancing in the wind. Bermuda grass usually creeps into these plantings, but left unmowed it fits into that image. It still does not meet the requirements of the crisp edged regimentation required by some… which saddens me… for I find a mowed lawn very boring visually, and not worth the effort to maintain it- lawns cost more than any other form of gardening. Mowing, fertilizing, mowing, fertilizing, mowing… I just don’t understand why!!!!
WHEN I WATER… I let the water run for hours… either in flood irrigation, or in overnight sprinkling. The natural pattern to rainfall in West Texas is rainy weeks, then drought for weeks. I water from March to October, with the October watering a very thorough deep watering that remains in the soil all winter. In some years I have watered as little as four times.
I do have beds that have less adapted plants, but I never water more than once a week in any bed. Only when I am starting annual seeds do I water daily.
COLD
Some tender perennials can be saved using a combination mulch technique.
Start off with rocks placed around the plant being saved. Cut the plant down so stalks or leaves are not reaching up very high. Lay a layer of “sticks” or wide bladed ornamental grass in a crisscross pattern several layers deep. Then top it off with cottonhulls from the gin. This has kept pineapple sage, scented geraniums, and others alive in temperatures to 15 degrees… and might work for lower temperatures. For extended periods of single-digit freezing… it is doubtful it would be successful.
Be aware of tender plants- put them on southfacing walls and fences, as well as mulching heavily. In west Texas the northeast wind is the killing wind, Strangely enough, it seems there is less freeze damage in beds under trees, or in the morning shade of structures…