Water conservation is an extremely important consideration when it comes to gardening in the high mountain desert. I find myself considering water consumption with every plant I start, or buy. I have done my best to install, and maintain, a drip line to efficiently water my gardens. But I'm always looking for new, low maintenance ways of watering.
I have a neighborhood friend who's house is on a high point in the center of her 3 acre property. She is the one who taught me the unique use for directing, and collecting, the water we are rarely graced with in the summer months. With the house at the top, her gardens are terraced to completely surround her home. But instead of using rocks, or building walls, she instead dug the indespensible ditch depressions we call swales. Watching her garden grow, lush with very little supplemental water, taught me the value of this technique.
My property has an odd shape. The front terrain flows down hill, away from the house, in a natural way. The back is completely different. Out my back door, the land has a strong slope from the right to the left. This would leave the path of least resistance for water to flow directly towards my house.
I used my friend's technique to build a swale through the center of my back garden, following the downhill slope to serve many purposes. In the desert, when it rains, we tend to get 'gully washers'. The clay ground is so very dry, that the water doesn't absorb. Then the rain can be so powerful, that is carries away everything in its path, recreating the land every time it comes through. The swale does a lot of work by it's very existence.
The swale is filled with large (2+ inch rock) to make a walking path while being heavy enough to not wash away. It directs water along a controlled path to the bottom of my garden, where it becomes slightly deeper, to collect water for deep soaking the more water hungry part of my garden. I've intentionally planted the bottom section of my garden with the plants needing more water so they can take advantage of any extra water collected naturally. But the path of the swale also curves off away from my house, so that in a most extreme case, the water is redirected safely away from causing any more damage than necessary to my home.
This is a simple way to conserve water, as well as add appeal to any garden.
Thanks for all your help Linda!
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Do you have pictures of the swale? I don't think it would work in my small backyard, but maybe I could modify it.
ReplyDeleteI will upload a pic of my swale this afternoon to give you a visual. My backyard is very strange but it worked.
ReplyDeleteIf you have a small yard you may consider making a depression, since water goes downhill, and put in a french drain (also called a drainage tile)
I used this method in my sister's tiny back yard. Dig a trench at the low spot of your yard and fill with rock. If the low spot in your yard isn't near your plants, channel the water in that direction. I made a 'dry creek' in my sister's channel so it wasn't an eye sore. The water has a way to disperse slowly to the roots of plants and prevent flooding or standing water.
I will get back with pictures soon!