?Summerize' your landscape before nature does it for you

By G. Owen Yost

Even with spring rains, this area has received just a few drops more than even our normally scant rainfall. Most weather experts predict that our wetter-than-usual spring will turn into our customary bone-bleaching summer. (It has for the past couple of hundred years!)

Unless the numbers on your utility bills mean nothing to you, there are methods you can use to yield a colorful, maintainable landscape, even during our 100-degree days. After years of actually seeing what makes it through a superheated Texas summer, I've settled on six "musts" to summerize your north Texas landscape.

Minimize your lawn area
A lush green, manicured lawn is a real ego-builder. It also takes a huge amount of work. You know, sweating profusely while you push the mower, trimming, fertilizing, pulling dandelions, trying to kill bugs and so on. Then there's the expense! Entire industries have sprung up just to take care of your lawn and exhaust your checkbook. The cost of a manicured lawn will eat you alive. Yet, on any given weekend, you can spot scores of exhausted, sweaty homeowners out working on their lawns. Makes no sense, does it?

I'd advise people to simply let part of the lawn grow naturally until late September's cooler weather. Choose about half of your current lawn for the usual mowing, watering, etc., and let the remainder become taller.

If you can't resist the urge to cut a lawn, let the clippings stay on the grass, acting as mulch and providing a tiny bit of shade for the grass' roots. Doing so saves about one fertilization per year. And whatever you do, stay away from artificial chemicals and soil additives ? they make plants thirstier.

Mulch just about everything
Simply put, a top-layer of mulch cools the soil and holds in moisture, so you need to water less. It also keeps out all but the most determined weeds. Mulch can be just ground-up bark chips, shredded leaves or composted grass clippings or other yard waste.

Use native plants
Native plants grew up in this type of summer (their ancestors did, anyway) and with our poor soil. So they're used it. Once a native Texas plant is established, it needs little or no extra water. Summerize your yard with these, not the water-guzzling, high-maintenance stuff.

Many native plants aren't hard to find. In fact, nine of the 12 trees recommended for Denton by Keep Denton Beautiful are native trees that are available in most nurseries. On the other hand, things like hybrid roses, French lilacs, gardenias and azaleas are from elsewhere in the world (where water isn't a problem) and will have a tough time here.

Use ?hardscape'
This is "landscape-speak," meaning anything in the landscape that's relatively immobile and that's not supposed to be alive. Examples: a driveway, a deck, a fence, a wall or a patio.

Divide the yard into zones There's the active zone with a few potted plants and maybe some outdoor chairs on a patio. Probably there's a garden zone with flowerbeds and other tender areas. And there's the ubiquitous lawn zone. (You get the idea!). So you can do any yard maintenance in short, targeted spurts, maybe even letting some chores slide for a week or two.

Avoid over-maintaining
Leave your yard alone during the heat! During 18 years as a landscape architect (and more as a homeowner) I've seen, countless times, that plants do much better if they're just left to grow how they want. Plants rarely need your help.

Look on a North Texas summer not as a bad thing, but as an experiment. Use it to see what makes it to mid-September and what doesn't. Remember what you learn from your experiments and you'll be better prepared for the following summer, and all the Texas summers after that.

Owen Yost is an area landscape architect specializing in designing low-maintenance landscapes while incorporating native plants with hardscape. He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Keep Denton Beautiful and the Native Plant Society of Texas. His Denton office is at 4516 Coyote Point; call 940-382-2099 or 940-383-9655 or e-mail him at Yost87@charter.net