The Grand Xeriscape
| Published: February 2, 2010 – 2:20 pm
It’s dry in Southern California. Even when it’s raining, it’s a dry Mediterranean or semi-arid climate. So, we do what we can to conserve water. By long tradition, humans in our culture want a front yard. Well, setting up a water-gulping grass lawn is not going to help things around here, and of course, it would not help me crush Ed Begley.
So, I just finished what we call a “xeriscape,” a dry landscape. Xeri [ZIH-rih] is a Greek prefix that means “dry.” Just a few centimeters below the rocks and other mulch is a network of tubing that drips a very small flow of water about once a week. I say about once a week, because the whole system is connected to an elegant modern controller that monitors rainfall and air humidity to regulate the flow to the drought-tolerant, low water use, native species plants. How cool is all this? Passersby tell me everyday that they like the way it looks. Do they say that about Begley’s unruly xeri-tangle? I think not. Take that Begley! Ha!
