What is Xeriscaping?
Xeriscaping is mainly about water efficiency. The name comes from the Greek word Xeros which means dry; however, it does not have to look this way. When the word Xeriscaping is heard, people often imagine a featureless and dry landscape without plants, but this is far from the truth. There are hundreds of lush and beautiful drought-tolerant plants that grow well in our area!
Xeriscaping always includes some form of hardscaping: retaining walls, stairways, pathways, etc. Another element of Xeriscaping is boulder accents, gravels, and rock gardens. Together these parts create beautiful landscapes. Everything serves a purpose: hardscaping defines each area so the design has a noticeable structure, trees provide shade, tall plants provide screening from the street, and low ground cover serves to prevent erosion.
A idea we always strive to follow, especially in planning and designing a Xeriscape, is the "gardens are for people" philosophy. We want to think about ways where we can make each space functional while also being decorative.
Three Zones
A Xeriscape should have three zones -
The Mini-Oasis: Regular supplemental water
The Transition Zone: Water efficient plants (infrequent watering)
The Arid Zone: Drought tolerant plants (rare watering)
The zones of your Xeriscape are simply set up so that the further from the house, the less supplemental water is used. The Mini-Oasis receives supplemental water regularly and is closest to your house because this is where water will be most easily accessible to your plants.
Take a look at this snippet from The Office of the State Engineer's PDF on Xeriscaping which matches each zone to specific types of plants for our area:
Great, you made it to the end of part 1!
On part 2, we will go in depth on the seven basic principles of Xeriscaping:
Planning and Design
Soil Analysis and Improvement
Efficient Irrigation
Appropriate Plant Selection
Moisture Retention
Limitation to Turf
Maintenance
Attached below is the PDF on Xeriscaping by the Office of the State Engineer, which is an amazing resource for Xeriscaping in New Mexico, it is especially useful for finding the perfect plant for your project.
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