ten ways to conserve water in your
landscape
(En
Espaņol)
1. Check your irrigation controller once a month, and adjust as
necessary. Most plant require only one-third as much water in winter
as they do in summer. Visit the City of San Diego's Landscape
Watering Calculator, to find out how much water your plants need.
2. Fix leaking sprinklers, valves and pipes. One broken spray
sprinkler can waste ten gallons per minute -- or 100 gallons in a
typical ten minute watering cycle.
3. Move turf away from sidewalks and pavement. Instead plant
shrubs or groundcovers next to the pavement and water with low-flow drip
bubbler systems to eliminate runoff from turf sprinklers.
4. Check the soil's moisture level before watering. You can
reduce your water use 20-50 percent by regularly checking the soil
before watering.
5. Water high water-use plants separately from low
water-use plants. Low water-use plants can grow with one-half the
water needed by high water-use plants, and can be easily damaged from
over watering.
6. Apply as little fertilizer as possible. If you use
fertilizer, make sure it stays on the landscape and water it carefully,
so there is no runoff.
7. Replace turf with groundcovers, trees and shrubs. If you
have areas where no one uses the grass, patches that do not grow well,
or a turf area too small to water without runoff, consider replacing the
turf with water-efficient landscaping.
8. Dig up patches of weeds and undesirable grasses from turf
areas. Use water to grow the turf you want, not the weeds you don't
want! Add sod or seed -over to repair the bare areas.
9. Change spray sprinklers to low-flow bubbler or drip systems.
Shrubs and trees are ideal candidates for this type of irrigation
because the water is applied directly to the root zone.
10. Adjust the water pressure of your irrigation system. Spray
sprinklers work best at 30 pounds per square inch (PSI) and gear and
impact rotor sprinklers at 40-60 PSI.
|
