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 suburban lot to then create as much diversity as possible for wildlife.  That diversity right now requires a bit of watering to survive.  Do I sit back and watch a part of this landscape die to save a few gallons of water once a week?  As my mother would have said, it would seem to be "penny wise and pound foolish."

We are now in extraordinay times.  If this drought were to become the new normal, I'd have to let this landscape go, but I see it right now as an anomaly.  I squeek through this unusual period and return to "normal" where my plants are, once again, able to survive on their own.  If I don't help them through right now, I'll have lost all of the progress I've made these past 5 years.  A few gallons of water, timed appropriately, will change the future completely.  I think that trade-off is not only justified, but necessary.  Unusual times require reasoned and "unusual" approaches.

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