What is involved in xeriscape gardening?

Answer 1

Xeriscape landscaping, also sometimes called xeriscaping, is improving the landscape in a dry climate by installing a landscaping project designed with plants that need very little supplemental water, aka irrigation. With rising water bills, such landscapes are becoming increasingly popular.

Xeri comes from the Greek word, xeros, meaning dry.

Scape is shortened from landscape, and means a view or scene.

Sometimes people mistakenly call xeriscaping, zeroscaping, probably because it sounds similar.

Dry or arid climates such as deserts or Mediterranean climates have long periods without rain. Plants that do well in such environments are best suited to xeriscapes. Most plants that are native to the area are ideally suited to xeriscape landscapes, because they are perfectly adapted to the local climate and weather patterns, having survived on the existing patterns of rainfall and precipitation long before people ever started using irrigation.

In the dry western half of the United States, such as Arizona, Utah, California, and Colorado, xeriscapes are increasingly popular. People can enjoy lush, gorgeous gardens with far less input on their part -

• less water
• less maintenance
• less pruning and hauling
• less fertilizer
• less chemical application
• less labor

Even golf courses, such as the Boulders in Arizona, have limited the lawn areas to the minimum required for the sport: fairways and putting greens, whereas the rest is xeriscape landscaped completely in local native plants or drought-tolerant plants. Older golf courses that made everything green failed to capitalize in the same way on the surrounding beauty, and look out of place by comparison, not to mention depleting water from the surrounding communities. The results of these new xeriscaped golf courses are far more gorgeous and environmental, blending into the stunning local scenic beauty.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, I have observed that every one of my residential design clients now requests or expects a low-water and low-maintenance landscape design.

In the landscaping industry, Xeriscape landscapinghas become the standard rather than the exception.

Answer 2

Xeriscape gardening is a type of gardening, which causes the need of irrigation to be minimum. For that, such gardening needs plants, which require as little water as possible, like cactus.