Water & Watering
As I write this, Jane and I have had only one measurable rain event in the past 4 months - 3/4's of an inch about a week ago. It is no exaggeration to say that our landscape is parched. Some that I know in the native plant movement decry the use of potable water to assuage their landscape plants; saying things like "if my plants can't make it on their own, they are not appropriate to my landscape." The idea being that a "native plant" should be able to surive on its own without additional inputs such as water. While I understand this line of thinking, I would argue otherwise. It comes down to the question of why we're planting natives in our landscape at all. If our ultimate goal is to create a landscape that survives completely on its own without any assistance, watering during times of extreme and unusual drought makes sense. It's just not why I plant natives. My goal here is to create as much plant diversity as possible on my 1/4-acre s...