Those nasty rabbits!

Rabbits have a way of spreading not only lawn diseases but nasty little bugs that can eat the roots of the grass in your lawn. This is a house I came across in Centennial Colorado recently. The brown area in the center is actually dead grass. Grubs can destroy an entire lawn in a matter of months by eating the roots of stressed out lawns.
The photo below is a computer generated photo of what we could do to remove that section of the lawn out of the irrigation equation saving the home owner $20.00 per month in watering.


Note that in using two different types of decorative rocks it breaks up the monotony of just one style or color of ground covering rock.

Ground cover or rock.

There is a new style of covering ground with decorative rock.
I remember a number of years ago I saw two neighboring yards that were cover with lava rock and nothing but lava rock. One yard was in a terra cotta color and the other in black lava. The yards were completely flat and naked except for the two colors of lava rock.
Recently the concept of covering ground with decorative rock has changed from using one type of rock to a couple sizes of rock to create a pleasing design.
By using a serpentine fashion one can give the most mundane landscape situation and interesting and pleasing thing to see.
I took this photo of the medium on 104th Ave in Adams County, Colorado. The grass in the photo is called Blue Fescue and is a Colorado native grass.

What is Xeriscape

Rocky Mountain Xeriscape was created in 2004 and since that time we have transformed many yards to be drought resistant and yet still green.
You do not have to remove all your lawn to save water.
If your yard is on an automatic irrigation system with several zones you can eliminate part of a zone and for each irrigation head you remove from the grid you will save 5 gallons of water every hour the system is in operation. In other words if you have eight irrigation heads in an irrigation zone and eliminate all eight heads you will save 40 gallons of water for each hour of operation. This estimate is on the low side and some yards actually use more water than even that.
During the coming months we will be discussing ways you can save water and simple ways you can eliminate your landscaping going down hill.