As Drought Continues And As Florida Faces Groundwater Crisis, Xeriscaping Still Unpopular - CSM

[hatrack]

Zellwood, Fla. - Barbara Tubb's entire yard is a garden of colorful plants and flowers. Palmetto. Pungent-smelling blue basil. And her favorite: bright white cat whiskers. Buttressed by pine needles, the yard looks to one neighbor like a fire hazard. Inspired by environmentalism, rising water bills, and her husband's support before he died, Ms. Tubbs hired a landscape architect to design her new drought-resistant yard. The homeowner's association in the country club where she lives – a community of manufactured homes in suburban Orlando – resisted her save-water-and-the-planet attitude but eventually granted permission for her to tear out all her St. Augustine grass. Immediately, there was backlash from her neighbors; one even called the fire department.

In Florida, there seems to be little awareness of water as a limited resource, and why should there be? The state is mostly a lush, tropical landscape with lakes, rivers, and springs. Surrounded by ocean water, it gets pounded by hurricanes and tropical storms that, with other rainfall, dump up to 50 inches annually. But some warn Florida's groundwater is nearing its limits. And people like Tubbs who uproot lush sod for less thirsty landscaping often don't get much support from their neighbors.

This summer's drought – the worst in the Southeast since record-keeping began in 1895 – has laid bare parts of Lake Okeechobee, the second-largest freshwater lake in the continental US behind Lake Michigan. It has also exposed permanent water problems in the eastern part of the nation, says Cynthia Barnett, a longtime Florida journalist and author of "Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S."

EDIT

The average Floridian household consumes 174 gallons of water daily, using up to 75 percent of it to irrigate sod and landscaping. The sod of choice is St. Augustine – grass that dies without water. In this state of golf courses and country clubs, many homeowner's associations require that a certain percentage of a homeowner's yard is sod with St. Augustine, maintained to a specific shade of green, Ms. Barnett says. Xeriscaping – landscaping using drought-resistant and usually native plants and flowers – is catching on thanks to trailblazers like Tubbs. But it's still not mainstream in Florida. Proponents avoid using the term, because they say it's misconstrued as zero landscaping or landscaping with rocks and gravel.

EDIT

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0817/p03s01-ussc.html?page=1

[phantom power]

1. xeriscaping is only moderately popular here, and we've *always* been a desert.

[NotGivingUp]

2. I say get rid of your lawn, and grow your own food...organically, of course. n/t

[Warpy]

3. I live in the desert and the well manicured lawn

is an endangered thing. Most people have gone to specimen plants and rocks to keep the dust down. A few golf courses have converted the fairways to artificial turf (very few, alas).

I thought I'd finally gotten my lawn to kick the bucket, but last year was an exceptionally wet one that revived part of it.

Eventually it will be xeriscaped in front with formal gardens watered by a drip system in back.

[corbett]

4. It's Cultural - Yard Envy

So many of our residents move south along the I-95 corridor and bring their tradition of naturally green carpet grass lawns that they want the same but year round in the Sunshine State.

We have to continue our awareness campaign lest everyone down here drink reclaimed water.

[depakid]

5. People like her neighbors

deserve all the hardship that they're going to get in the coming decades.

[marions ghost]

6. this drought in the southeast

is really really scary...

People are praying for hurricanes. Large trees are dying, not to mention annual crops and animal feed. In our town, they are putting water bags on some of the trees that are 20 years old. I asked an old farm woman who had been in the same place 50 years, if she'd ever seen anything like it. She said, 'I've seen drought, but nothing ever like this.'

And yet, communities still don't believe in serious water restrictions. And people water lawns. But it's so bad a lot of the flowers and shrubs are dying anyway....

[Buzz Clik]

7. Xeriscaping is a lousy temporary fix in a place like Florida.

When it starts raining again, it will become a high-maintenance weed patch.

However, there are excellent alternatives to some of the high water demand landscaping options chosen by so many.

[XemaSab]

8. We've replaced part of the lawn with drought-tolerant natives.

It's SHOCKING how much water a lawn uses. :wow: