Olympics, shmolympics. Did your WaterSaver garden bring home the gold this summer?
If you’re traveling within Texas this Labor Day weekend, take notice of landscapes and landscaping along the way.
Whether it’s the coastal plains, Hill Country or West Texas, you’ll see both native and non-native grasses showing off their “solid gold” summer colors.
If your own landscape is showing the same colors this month, take it as a gold star — you’re showing your water-saver bona fides!
We all know the boom-and-bust cycle of “brown will rebound grass” in Texas. Turfgrass and many water-saver plants may go dormant in summer and go back to green when cooler temperatures and rainfall allow new leaves to grow.
All approved turfgrasses used around San Antonio have been shown in studies to be “dormancy-capable” or able to survive up to 60 days without water in summer. (They may turn blonde or gold, though; so, if you prefer the color green in August, you’re better off growing less grass and showing off perennials, shrubs and trees instead.)
On a recent visit to South and West Texas, after more than a week of 100-degree temperatures, oak, juniper, mesquite, esperanza, coma and cactus were all still fully green, floating in a sea of golden grass and sunflowers — a familiar sight to anyone who’s pushed their mature WaterSaver garden down to once-a-month watering in August to see how low it can go.
If you’re looking to design around gold, some of the star grasses of summer specialize in color, from little bluestem and buffalo grass to native mixes like thunderturf and habiturf. If you prefer blonde, there’s even blue grama ‘blonde ambition.’ And for instant West Texas-chic, you can mix in a little silver with an appropriate agarita, agave or yucca.
So, if you’re just starting down your WaterSaver landscape journey and concerned about watering new plants through that first summer, don’t worry: It definitely gets better once the plants are established.
On the sixth year of my current home water-saver garden, I’m no longer worried about my plants’ survival. Just being patient they’ll return to green when conditions allow, strategizing if there’s any I’ll need to transplant this winter, and mapping out where the next trees and shrubs will be planted when pleasant temperatures return — hopefully by October.
