Nature's Gardening Tips
Saving Water with Hydrozoning
By Lindsay Foreman
As gardeners, we often strive to mimic the ease and rhythm of the natural world. It turns out we don't have to go far to discover nature's beauty tricks. We can learn one of nature's best management practices by strolling along the creek banks, coastal hills, and grassy meadows that grace the Bay Area. Looking closely, we see recurring patterns of the same thriving plants clustered together. Why is this? California natives and Mediterranean-type plants grow naturally in communities based on their shared specific habitat needs such as water, soil, light, and microclimate.
We can use nature's plant community organization trick for inspiration when designing our home gardens to be better adapted to California's climate and water droughts. This concept is called hydrozoning. Hydrozoning is simply grouping plants with similar water needs. This technique is one of the most important tools for conserving water in the garden, which helps save money too.
Not only does hydrozoning assure that water is used efficiently and not wasted, it is also essential to plant health. Hydrozoning successfully gives individual attention to each plant to ensure that the larger plant community thrives. It promotes healthy growth so pesticides, fertilizers and extensive labor become unnecessary.
Arranging the garden into water zones such as high, moderate and low water users helps to allocate your watering system to meet garden needs. A design tip for organizing the spatial layout of your garden is to place high water users closer to the house or water source. Place low water users further away because they require little involvement beyond what the natural area provides. Create a watering schedule for each hydrozone by using a multi-station timer irrigation system.
Paying close attention to watering needs is very important, but remember to incorporate other abiotic factors into your gardening practices as well. Shade and slope aspect have large influences on plant habitats as well as soil composition. Learning all the necessary growing conditions for your plants will influence in which community they will thrive. For example, ferns have evolved to be shade tolerant plants, so placing those in direct sunlight even with the appropriate amount of water could lead to their downfall. The most effective hydrozoning is that which incorporates all habitat and microclimate requirements, from soil type to sun exposure.
If we adopt nature's trick, our California home gardens will flourish. As the planting season approaches, prepare a plan for your garden that will use hydrozoning techniques. The patterns and combinations of these communities are endless and will help you make good decisions in your garden planning. If we respond to the needs of the plants we grow, they will reward our efforts by thriving, blooming, and offering inspiration.
A great resource for further information is from University of California Cooperative Extension. It's called "Water Use Classification of Landscape Species". This document compares water needs of common landscape plants in different regions of the state.
Click here to download The Watershed Project's printable Hydrozoning Cheat Sheet.
