Lawns, Gardens & Landscapes

Water conservation is important in home and business landscapes. While leaving automatic irrigation systems turned off, and only turning them on when plants need water, is a much needed practice change in many residential and business landscapes, selecting drought tolerant plants is also important. This article focuses on drought tolerant shrubs for different functions. While listed as drought tolerant, keep in mind plants need established roots to develop tolerance to dry sites. It is often a deep or extensive root system that makes a plant drought tolerant.

Storm drains in some towns have markers that read “No dumping. Drains to waterways”.  These markers are part of the public education communities are doing to help protect surface water from urban run-off pollution. Most residential areas are designed for rainwater to flow into the street and then into a storm drain. From there, it flows almost directly to a stream, river or lake, taking along what it picks up from surfaces it flows across.

While we can’t ever control or even predict the weather, it is important to have a plan on how to deliver water to our home gardens during the hot, dry months of the summer. While Nebraska may be the capitol of crop irrigation systems, many home gardeners don’t give quite as much thought about water management and delivery in their home vegetable gardens or landscapes. Aside from reducing water need through some good management practices, delivering water in an efficient and sustainable way is important when planning and planting our home gardens. 

Rain gardens are an aesthetic feature of your residential landscape that also has a hydrologic function. Hydrologic means related to water. A properly designed and constructed rain garden for a residential landscape (no underground drainage system) is designed like a bathtub to hold water and let it slowly seep into the soil beneath the garden. This water is available for plant growth, and this water is removed from runoff that leaves your yard and does not contribute to downstream flooding or pollution.  How well does your rain garden serve its hydrologic function?

In the overall “holiday” turf fertilization schedule, where Arbor Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day and Halloween are indicators of good timing for applications to cool season turfgrasses (Kentucky bluegrass, tall fescue, perennial ryegrass), early summer is a key timeframe for encouraging healthy growth.  When growing warm season turf species such as buffalograss and zoysiagrass, Memorial Day is perhaps the most important time to apply fertilizer, perhaps followed by a light 4th of July application if a lawn is thin or in need of recovery.

With spring weather finally in the forecast, I get excited thinking about my gardening activities for the summer. One of the things that is always on the front of my mind is watering. Will this be another dry year, a normal year (if Nebraska even has normal), or a wet year.

With a tip of the cap to National Groundwater Awareness Week, which was March 11-17, the landscape and gardening industry must do their part to prevent groundwater and surface water pollution on the properties we manage.

Planting for Water Savings Spring will be here before we know it, which is very exciting for plant enthusiasts. We can get outside and do some cleanup once it starts to get warm. Don’t get too excited though, winter could still show up for a couple more months. One thing you can do now, though, is plan your garden. Choose Well-Adapted Plants

As we begin a new year and will soon be thinking about lawns and landscapes, here is a reminder to focus on water. A limited resource we can’t live without. A New Year’s landscape resolution can be to conserve and protect water resources.  Now is a good time to analyze past growing seasons. When the weather was dry, were there plants that needed more frequent irrigation to prevent them from wilting? Could these be replaced with drought tolerant plants?

It’s hard to think about our plants in the winter months. It is even harder to realize that they are still alive and sometimes need care in the winter months. Once plants go dormant for the year many people believe that they need nothing until spring, but that isn’t always the case, especially in years with low or no snow or rain throughout the winter months.

Weeds in the lawn will drive us crazy through the whole summer, but don’t forget about them yet. Fall is the best time to treat for broadleaf weeds, even though we don’t notice them as much now because they are done blooming for the year.

Following are effective strategies for managing lawns during periods of hot and dry weather: 1. Learn to recognize wilting in turf plants. It is relatively easy to recognize wilting on a houseplant. The leaves droop and the stem may wither, and the whole plant may have a “dull” appearance. Because turf plants are much smaller and thinner than houseplants, it is much more difficult to recognize drought stress in turf plants.

In your lawn is overly shaded and/or has poor drainage, moss may be a problem.  Moss is a fast growing, shallow rooted plant that covers the ground, smothers grass and exhausts food reserves from the soil. When moss appears in a lawn, it is usually because growing conditions for turfgrasses and landscape plants are adverse, usually too little light and air circulation.  Other conditions favorable for moss invasion include soil with poor aeration and percolation, compaction, low fertility and high acidity or alkalinity.

Permeable pavers let water pass through the spaces between them which are often filled with small gravel or sand.

What is stormwater? It's water from rain or melting snow. Watch the video and learn about rain water runoff and why it can be a problem.

Do you have trees growing right in the middle of your lawn? Do you swear under your breath every time you mow, having to trim around them and practice some fancy footwork trying to maneuver the mower around the trunk? If so, perhaps it's time to redesign your landscape, separating the grass and all of the other plants. If you are building a new home, or moving to one with little or no landscaping, you can avoid this maintenance nightmare by simply thinking of turf as a part of the landscape unto itself.

Water should never be applied at a rate faster than it can be absorbed by the soil. Soil properties that govern water infiltration (movement of water into the soil) are texture and structure.