Keep Your Landscape From Soaking You
Outdoor water usage can consume up to 70 percent of a household’s water. That’s why the easiest way to save water around your home is in your landscape. Mesa’s Water Conservation office offers a variety of guidelines that will save you water while keeping your landscape healthy and beautiful.
Our Water – Use It Wisely mascot, Wayne Drop, will guide you to a variety of resources that will help “drop” your water use:
Watering Guidelines
Give your plants enough water to stay healthy, but not too much. Recent local university studies have found that landscapes are watered two to five times more than needed, so this is an area where water saving potential is greatest. Make sure you water thoroughly at each watering but allow the soil to dry out in between irrigations (days in between waterings can reach up to 14 days or more for many desert plants). To help better determine how much water is needed for your plants, get a free copy of Landscape Watering by the Numbers: A Guide for the Arizona Desert. Call us for a copy at 480-644-3306, request a copy of the booklet from our publications page, or find the online version of the book.
Monthly Watering Reminder
You can reduce your landscape watering 30 to 50 percent by adjusting your irrigation each season. Follow the landscape watering guidelines from the booklet mentioned above to keep your watering efficient. For monthly updates on changing your watering schedule, sign up for our Landscape Watering Reminder or visit our online version in the News section of our water conservation page.
Control Your Controller/Irrigation Timer
If you don’t have an electrical engineer in the house, or a twelve year old, programming your timer can be very confusing. Get an idea of the basics of programming at our Water –Use It Wisely controller/timer page.
Free Booklets and Guides
Watering is just part of the picture. Saving water in the landscape may involve your landscape style (grass vs. desert), your plant selection, or other landscape features (swimming pools, etc.). Find all of our free water conservation publications, such as a desert plant selection booklet, landscaping guides, and water saving tips for pools by visiting our publications page.
Landscape Plants for the AZ Desert Online
Our newly-updated landscape plants book is also available online with beautiful photos of over 200 plants. What a great way to pick out beautiful and hardy replacement plants or new plants for your landscape that will help you save water every day.
No More Mowing
Remove your grass and you won’t have to mow any longer… and you’ll save lots of water. As a bonus, we will give you up to $1,100 to do so! Find out more about what it takes to convert your lawn and what incentives we offer by visiting our Residential Grass-to-Xeriscape Incentives page.
Online Advice
Are you looking for some online help? Stay in air-conditioned comfort while you do some landscape planning. Visit Water – Use It Wisely for great landscape information, like our Drab to Fab landscape video series, how to program your timer, what is Xeriscape, and more.
Free Water
We don’t get a lot of rain but collect what sheds off your roof and you could accumulate over 7,000 gallons a year. Find out more by visiting our rainwater harvesting resource page.