Passport to Texas

Cottage Garden, WaterSavers Lane. Photo: Pam Penick, from her blog: Digging — Cool Gardens in a Hot Climate.

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This is Passport to Texas

It’s possible to conserve water and have a lush landscape. And they prove that point every day in San Antonio.

The San Antonio Botanical Gardens is home to six miniature houses on Water Savers Lane, which showcase unique landscapes that feature water-saving designs. Sir Oliver Smith, a master naturalist, describes the typical landscape, complete with a water thirsty lawn.

This is what most people have. They have the traditional hedges at the door and all that manicuring you have to do every week. So this is probably what we don’t want if you want to save on money and save on grass and save on water.

For comparison, he points out an attractive landscape that replaces turf with groundcover.

People like this look; it’s a little less maintenance. And you’re replacing some of the lawn with Asiatic jasmine, which takes no water.

While the jasmine isn’t native, the others are. Native plants generally require less water to survive.

Everyone thinks native plants are just a sticky agarita and the yuccas and the sotals. But all the other things in this garden are native. Vitex and desert willow and redbud and there are a lot of other things that do very well with almost no water.

Check out the Wildscapes plant guide on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website and discover which plants thrive in your area.

That’s our show for today… Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.