Despite our rainy winters, we get less rainfall than Tucson, AZ during the summer months. That’s when our reservoirs are lowest, and demand for irrigation water is highest. Choosing drought-tolerant plants, building rich soil, watering wisely, and following the other key steps below will help you…
Save money on water bills
Save time maintaining your garden
Protect your family’s health by reducing the need for chemicals
Protect our environment
Grow a healthy, beautiful yard and garden all year round!
Proper planning and preparation are necessary to achieve water efficiency. Regionally, the Saving Water Partnership, in conjunction with landscape professionals in our region developed The Naturals, a series of brochures designed to assist customers in the planning, preparation and maintenance of their landscapes. These brochures are available for free in our office, as well as in our brochure rack in our Waterwise Demonstration Garden. If you would like to download them yourself, they are available online. We’ve described each brochure below and provided a link to them for downloading ease. There are also rebates available to help customers with existing or new irrigation systems. Click on the link below to learn more about the rebates. For more information call the Natural Lawn and Garden Hotline professionals at 206-633-0224.
Smart
Watering Landscape professionals tell us that most people over-water their landscapes by as much as 200%. Learning correct watering techniques not only reduces your water bill, but it also conserves an important natural resource and improves the health of your plant material. Check out our Smart Watering brochure to make every drop count!
Did you know that by simply improving your soil, you can beautify your garden, cut your water bill, improve water quality in our streams, and even reduce your work? Growing healthy soil – and a healthy garden – is as easy as adding compost and other organic amendments to your soil. In fact, this is the single most important thing you can do for your garden. Check out our Growing Healthy Soil brochure to learn the steps you can take to improve your garden’s soil.
When you grow plants in the appropriate conditions, they thrive with minimal care. By choosing plants well adapted to each garden situation, you save time and money, reduce maintenance, help prevent pests and diseases, and leave more clean water for salmon and other wildlife. Plan now and enjoy the benefits for years to come. Our guide will take you through simple steps you can take for choosing plants that will flourish in your garden.
Your lawn can be a great place to hang out, but depending on how you care for it, your lawn can also be part of big environmental problems. Healthy lawns grow on healthy soil. Using proper soil preparation and lawn maintenance practices will help to build healthy soil and vigorous, deep-rooted lawns. These lawns are more resistant to disease, tolerate some insect and drought damage, and will out-compete many weeds. The practices recommended in our Natural Lawn Care brochure can help make lawns healthier for our families, protect beneficial soil organisms, and protect our environment too.
Our yards are our outdoor homes: fun, beautiful, great spaces for relaxing. But in taking care of them, we often use water inefficiently, produce a lot of yard waste, and overuse chemicals that are bad for the environment and our families’ health. The good news is, by making some simple changes in how we care for our yards we can save money, time and help the environment. Find out how in this introductory brochure on Natural Yard Care. This brochure briefly explains the five steps to Natural Yard Care and provides a seasonal task list to help you get started.
Natural
Pest, Weed & Disease Control
Why manage your garden naturally? Insects, spiders, and other crawling or flying creatures are a vital part of healthy gardens. Most perform important jobs like pollinating flowers, recycling nutrients and eating pests. In fact, less than 1% of garden insects actually damage plants. Unfortunately, the pesticides often used to control pests and weeds are also toxic to beneficial garden life – and may harm people, pets, salmon, and other wildlife as well. This brochure will walk you through the basic steps to create healthy plants and soil that will not only resist pests and diseases, but also encourage beneficial garden life.
Saving Water with Soaker Hoses
Soaker hoses are a great way to save water and keep plants healthy. They slowly leak water directly into the soil, instead of spraying it into the air and wasting water through evaporation. Plus, they put the water in the root zone – right where your plants need it – not on plant leaves where moisture can cause rust and other diseases. Check out this fact sheet for information on buying soaker hoses and installation tips.
Cash rebates are available for sprinkler system tune-ups and upgrades. Find out all the details of the rebate program and tips on finding an irrigation professional.
ET
helps save water! So what is ET?
ET is the abbreviation used for the word Evapotranspiration. Evapotranspiration is a term used to describe water that is lost from the soil surface by evaporation or through the leaves of plants by transpiration. ET is driven by weather factors that determine the drying power of the air. We can accurately predict ET losses in a given area from the measurements of four local weather variables: (wind, solar radiation, temperature and humidity)
In
1995, the District added an Evapo-Transpiration (ET)
Weather Station to our waterwise demonstration garden. The weather station came
with a Maxicom Jr. Computer Control System that is used to automatically adjust
our irrigation system to water only what is needed based on how much has
evaporated and transpired out of the soil and plant material.
According to landscape professionals, many consumers over-water their lawns by as much as 100 percent. This results in wasted dollars and is detrimental to the health of the lawn. Throughout the country many landscapers use ET data to enhance their ability to manage outdoor water use for maximum efficiency.
You Can Water Your Lawn Using ET too!
Many customers do not adjust their irrigation controllers during the lawn-watering season. However, watering needs can be significantly different in each month. By adjusting your irrigation controller weekly, you could see significant water and dollar savings. If you are ready to upgrade your controller, there are rebates available for controllers that automatically adjust according to the weather. Check out the rebates at http://www.savingwater.org/outside_sprinklers.htm.
You can also calculate how much water your landscape needs and how much to adjust watering schedules throughout the season by visiting the 'Seattle Area' pages of the Irrigation Water Management Society webpage. At their website you can:
In addition to estimating the amount of required irrigation water, it's important to also consider the type of soil and the amount of slope that is found in the landscape. Soil type and slope have a significant effect on the amount of water that can be stored in the soil and how quickly the water can be absorbed. In general, sandy soils quickly absorb water but hold the least amount of water; clay soils hold the most soil moisture but absorb water at a slow rate. If you need help in determining the soil texture of your landscape, contact your local Extension Office for information on performing a basic soil test. You can reach Washington State University King County Extension office by calling 206.205.3100. They will send you a packet of information that tells you how to take your soil sample, approximately how much it will cost and where to send the sample.
Our hotline is changed daily to inform callers how much water should be replaced in their lawns if they water daily, every third day or weekly based on their soil type.
Water early in the morning, between 4 and 10 a.m. Doing so allows the plant foliage to dry, making it less susceptible to foliar diseases. Early morning watering also ensures less distortion of sprinkler patterns and reduces evaporation due to lower winds and cooler temperatures.
Create water zones by putting plants together that have similar water needs. Doing so minimizes the potential of over watering and under watering neighboring plants. Where woody plants must be included in turf grass areas, consider using water-loving or water-tolerant plants, which can remain healthy under relatively high amounts of irrigation.
Irrigation for established woody landscape plants should be focused at and/or beyond the drip line to promote extensive rooting, and should be applied deeply into the soil (water delivered deeper than the 2- to 3-foot range, however, will not be accessible by most of the plant roots).
In new landscapes with automatic irrigation systems, newly installed plants may not receive the thorough watering required to promote early vigorous root establishment; supplemental hand watering, therefore, may be needed to provide the watering necessary (this is especially true for small plants which may dry out quickly or large plants with deep root balls).
Wash cars using a bucket, sponge and shut-off nozzle on the hose.
Sweep sidewalks, driveways and patios instead of hosing.
Consider a wading pool for children instead of letting them go through the sprinkler.
Clean gutters and downspouts manually, without using a hose.
