It may be a hard sell to get Colorado homeowners to “embrace the beige” during this extreme drought season, but Colorado State University’s gardening and water experts are up for the challenge.
Scott Curry and Lori Catalano threw out the eye-opening phrase during a campus podcast, alongside a bunch of tips for homeowners to accept their watering limitations this year, and then think long term about altering their landscape. We caught up with Curry, an assistant professor of landscape design, and added in other suggestions from their podcast, which can be found here.
What’s their message with “embrace the beige”?
Basically, they want people to tweak their water use this summer, not sweat a few patches of less-than-emerald home turf during an historic drought, and for the long term, change their mindset about what can be a beautiful homescape.
If we have grass lawns and can’t change them this year, what should we do?
Grass is not evil, Curry reminds people. Cool green turf helps cities fight off the “heat island” effect where excessive pavement actually changes the local climate to hotter. Like Phoenix. “We aren’t trying to blacklist the lawn here. The lawn has a lot of great benefits,” Curry told us.
But saving even a little water on 1,000 square feet of grass, multiplied times a million homes, can produce real water savings for Colorado, Curry adds.
Start with an electronic irrigation controller, if you don’t already have one, for about $150. Reliable brands include Rachio, Hunter and Rainbird, Curry said. Look for controllers with an “EPA WaterSense” seal of approval, and with a Wi-Fi connection option. Modern controllers can adjust your lawn’s watering needs according to recent weather, based on known “evapotranspiration” rates that tell the controller what the grass actually needs to survive. They can also be easily adjusted “at midnight sitting on your couch with your phone,” Curry noted.
Next, consider an irrigation audit. Some agencies in the past have offered water audits for free, but they are also worth hiring on your own as part of an irrigation checkup, Curry said. Look for a “Certified Landscape Irrigation Auditor” credential. They will make sure nozzles are not watering pavement, that the nozzles are spraying only what’s needed, that timers are set to the minimum needed, and more.
What about watering with hoses?
Some communities are banning hand watering of lawns as part of progressive drought restrictions. If you don’t have an irrigation system and use hoses, Curry said, “invest in a hose timer at minimum. Those really are not good ways to water the lawn. They’re horribly inefficient. They get left on all night, and we just need to make sure that you know that’s not the standard.”
A hose timer with a WiFi capability is great for accessibility issues, Curry added. Elderly homeowners or those with mobility challenges can set phone timers and alarms, and control the Wi-Fi from a chair.
What’s the advice for those who are willing and ready to go next level on water-saving landscapes?
First, Curry emphasizes, water-wise landscapes have been “horribly misconstrued” after water agencies tried unfortunate terms like “xeriscaping,” coined in the 1980s by Denver Water. Homeowners immediately laughed at that as “zeroscaping,” and created nightmare moonscapes by simply ripping out turf and dumping truckloads of gravel.
“That’s super, super bad for the environment, it’s bad for social value, it’s bad for pretty much everything, even your home’s value,” Curry said.
Front Range plant experts are now promoting the term “Coloradoscaping,” a designed set of plantings that reflect and capitalize on Colorado’s arid steppe climate. Western native grasses and flowering plants can be both colorful and perennial, thriving on no added irrigation water once established with a couple of years of minimal drip watering.
“We need solutions to be specific to our region and our climate, then we’ll have a lot more possibilities available to us,” Catalano said on the podcast. “Our native grasses and our perennials are beautiful, and even adapted species that are low water all can be incorporated into creating really beautiful four-season landscapes. The idea of just putting down rock mulch is what we’re probably the most worried about.”
“Embrace the beige isn’t even just about beige, it’s about all the different color that we have available in our plants outside of green,” Curry said, “and really creating a seasonally dynamic landscape, if you will, celebrating the idea that when our grasslands dry out, that they turn brown and beige and pink and a little hue of blue” and other colors.
Where should we start on more ambitious landscape change, if we don’t have $100,000 for a landscape plan?
Try your local garden center or botanic garden first, Curry urges. Commercial family garden centers employ people with decades of knowledge about what works in your neighborhood and what doesn’t. Gardens like Denver Botanic, Betty Ford in Vail, CSU in Fort Collins and others have demonstration gardens for all water environments, and extensive online resources with photos on what to plant.
“Garden in a Box” concepts help people plan specific plants for different-size spaces. They will then send you a box of the appropriate seeds at a reasonable price, and local water agencies often provide discount coupons. Many Colorado water agencies partner with Resource Central on the boxes, and their website provides more information on how to get discounts.
Landscaping materials stores are also fonts of knowledge, Curry said. Any place that sells rocks, bark mulch and other materials, such as SiteOne stores, have great experience in what plants thrive with the mulch and how to design affordable gardens, Curry said.
It sounds like they are encouraging people to take on battles they can actually win.
Yes, that’s why CSU Extension starts with irrigation tweaks, Curry said. Most home irrigation systems are only 50% efficient at getting water onto plants. Goosing that to 70% efficiency saves a lot of water and a lot of summer money.
But CSU also wants people to remember they are not demonizing traditional lawns, when they are well thought out. Water conservationists used to attack “nonfunctional” turf — if it wasn’t being used for a kids’ soccer or baseball field, then it wasn’t needed. That’s too limited, Curry argues.
“Turf has a function, even if it’s being maintained for aesthetics,” he said. There are places where grass is best for the community. Go to Congress Park on a hot summer day, Curry said, and the lush grass is “Denver’s beach.”
The term Curry prefers is “nonessential” turf. Think of what’s essential to your family or your neighborhood, and small changes can add up to big water savings.
And if you are ready to rip out turf, Curry concluded, think it through.
“Plan first, get information, and then act. You don’t want to be that person that tore out their whole yard on the Fourth of July, and then you’re like, ‘Now what do I do?’ ”