So here we are in an apparent drought again, and a new term is wafting in the gardening wind: Xeriscaping.

What the heck is Xeriscaping?

Using Xerox machines in the garden somehow? Maybe copying colored paper flowers to stick on sticks in the dirt? Zeroscaping, as in not having a garden? Using zero water?

Yes and no to all of the above.

We used to call it drought-resistant planting, something we think about every time we have a shortage of water. Then lots of people rush to nurseries and buy dry-type plants, which of course need water when you first plant them, and then come to full life and fruition in a later year, probably when we have another flood. But then maybe they get too much water in those years anyway.

Xeriscaping cropped up in Denver, Colorado in the 1970s to mean water efficient landscaping. The word itself derives from the Greek word xeros, which translates to dry.

Xeriscaping means a lot more than just planting drought-resistant plants or cacti. It includes choosing plants (with help from your local nursery) that are totally appropriate for the planting environment, and that can be maintained with little watering, or even none.

This gardening concept includes figuring out what is best for your site and will produce results closest to your tastes, whether that is for vegetables and herbs or wispy flowers and forms of cactus.

It also means grouping together plants with similar water needs, using mulch to retain added water in the soil instead of allowing it to evaporate, and planting drought-tolerant plants, all of which leads to less expensive summer water bills and less use of fertilizers and pesticides. Remember, everything you put onto your plants or into the soil for your plants may end up in your personal water source, and eventually in our creeks, rivers, bays and ocean, then back into the atmosphere, and into our bodies and around and around.

Many readers see a statement like the above think, “Oh, not me, I just use a little bit and it can’t hurt anything.” I used to think that, too. But if you add up all the junk we add to our gardens, and farmers to their crops, around the world, to bolster our plants or kill little buggettes, it totals millions of tons of chemicals going into the soil from which our food comes. This is getting scary!

I recommend drawing a plan and making a diagram of your yard, which doesn’t have to be accurate or permanent. Just like a recipe (except in baking), it’s a place to start and then use your creativity.

Appropriately enough, since the whole Xeriscaping idea started in Colorado and the term was coined there, Margaret Kelly, a Colorado State Co-op Extension Advanced Master Gardener, offers a few non-threatening and non-scary guidelines for readers with small to average-sized lots, or for anyone for that matter. Of course my interpretations and translations of her suggestions are included, based on my own experience:

• Don’t do it all at once. Take time to think through what you want to do and take on a small area at a time, which will mean the plot you are working on is likely to have the same weather exposure and water availability.

• Along pathways, sidewalks and driveways, think waste-free, meaning pull up weeds that line lawn areas and plant non-thirsty ground cover plants or perennial flowers. These plants can absorb water that would otherwise run off the pavement and into the street.

• If you have lawn on a steep slope, think about tiering the site and replacing the lawn with drought-resistant plants, or creating a rock garden or rockery with a few good plants living among the rocks. If you create tiers or terraces, you will retain more rain or sprinkler water for use rather than lose it as runoff down the hill.

• Group plants with similar water needs, which makes the whole effort easier and more economical for you. This way some plants don’t get more water than they need because they live next to a thirsty little plant in the next hole.

• Use mulch between vegetables, flowers and shrubs to retain moisture and reduce evaporation and watering.

• Find an inexpensive drip or soaker water system for plant areas. Inquire of your city or county water department or nurseries about new automated systems that measure atmospheric needs and trigger your irrigation only when the plants need water.

• Think about removing some of your lawn. When we planted ours, “Consumer Reports” reported that grass put more oxygen back into the air and into other plants and that it was a good thing to plant lawns. So there’s good and there’s not so good, with global warming and weather pattern changes. Remove lawn from between stepping stones and around border plants and replace with mulch, then adjust your sprinklers to not include the new drought-resistant plants.

• Do a little at a time – it’s easier on the body and the wallet.

• Consult a local nursery to find out realistically what will grow as part of a Xeriscape in your garden in your neighborhood.

• Questions to ask at nurseries: How much water do the plants require? Do they have books that will help you learn about more plants and methods? How much sun, shade or money is needed, what colors are the blooms and leaves, how do they change, and how big do they get?

• Sit back next year and watch it all bloom!

Back to reality and some plant recommendations for drought-resistant or Xeriscape gardening.

Sonoma Mission Gardens suggests planting ceanothus (blue flowers); manzanitas from dwarf to full size; Scotch broom (pretty yellow but big on allergies); Mediterranean perennials such as lavender, rosemary and sages including Russian sage; lemon oregano; Matia and California poppies; Cistus with white, pink, or deep pink flowers; rock roses (pink daisy-like flower); verbena; agave, including Tower of Jewels with purple spears; Hesperaloe, and Parvifolia with choral pink flowers.

Other Xeriscape plant suggestions included yarrow, bellflowers, trumpet vines (sensitive to deep frost), ornamental grasses that blow and appear to flow in the wind, echinacea (coneflower), goldenrods, Heliopsis, irises, Lamb’s Ears, nasturtiums, and zinnias, although I have seen both my zinnias and nasturtiums sag to the ground without enough water.

As Sonoma Mission Gardens manager Lydia Constantini says, recent articles show how you can look at subdivisions and practically guess when they were built based on their landscaping, such as heavily juniper plants during previous drought years, or lush landscaping during high water years.

What to do for your current garden:

Lydia Constantini recommends that people who have olive trees, but are not going to do anything with the olives, spray Florel growth regulator on olive trees now. Florel prevents the blossoms from turning into olives, falling on the ground and attracting olive fruit flies, which can damage crops that might be cured or pressed into olive oil. I know this is probably a good thing, but I can’t help comparing this process to artificially stopping a nursing mother’s milk from flowing. Ouch!
If your garden space is pots on a porch or balcony, you can plant Blue Lake pole beans, Early Girl and Sun Gold tomatoes, and some zucchini.

This is a good time to aerate your lawn, before it hardens solid in our summer heat, to allow water to sink in and not run off, especially important in low water years such as this.
While you’re at it, check your drip system to make sure it doesn’t have a leak, or several, which it might. Those little hoses dry out and crack as they get old, and waste a whole lake of water.

While our friendly plants are growing gleefully in this fabulous spring weather, so are our weeds. As I have said before, if the Sonoma County Fair had a championship weed category, I would win, hands and gloves down. Pull them out now while they are tender and their roots are relatively shallow, and remember that the dandelion greens are even edible – but only if you haven’t sprayed them in the past with anything.

Well, we all have good intentions!

Send garden snippets to khill@sonomasun.com and be sure to check out Kathleen Hill’s column in the Sonoma Valley Sun, or online at sonomasun.com. Scroll down on the left side to Epicure.

Catch the latest wine country food and wine news at  www.sonomasun.com, click on Kathleen Hill-Epicure. “The Kathleen Hill Show” broadcasts live 4-5 p.m. Mondays on KSVY-91.3 FM or streaming at www.ksvy.org.

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