Downsides To Consider Before Xeriscaping Your Front Lawn

If you've heard about the xeriscaping trend and how it can help your garden become more drought-tolerant, you might be ready to hop on the bandwagon. It's a landscaping concept based on the idea of conserving water without sacrificing aesthetics in your yard. When designed well, it's a great way to reduce or even eliminate irrigation. Xeriscaped landscapes can also be low maintenance and great for the environment while boosting your curb appeal all at the same time.

But before xeriscaping your front lawn, it's important to understand the downsides and risks of this landscaping practice. Namely, without proper planning and design, xeriscaping can end up worsening erosion, polluting waterways, eliminating wildlife habitats, and creating heat islands. Considering many gardeners are interested in xeriscaping as a form of climate-conscious gardening, making mistakes that fail to improve (or even worsen) your lawn's environmental impact can be disappointing.

So, if your goal is to transform your lawn into a low-maintenance, environmentally friendly landscape, adapting xeriscaping techniques to your local climate and the unique conditions in your yard is key. That starts with understanding the key disadvantages of xeriscaping and the principles of designing a water-wise landscape that makes sense for your climate.

Xeriscaping offers many benefits when done right, but many gardeners make the mistake of modeling their water-wise landscaping on the rock and cactus gardens that thrive in the dry western states where xeriscaping originated. A desert garden is the right choice only if that's what your local ecosystem already looks like. In wetter climates, especially if your yard has drainage issues, the most water-wise landscape might look more like a lush meadow than a desert.

Even if you live in a place where the dry-climate version of xeriscaping is more relevant, depending on the techniques you use, you might do more harm than good. One of the biggest design issues that causes problems is relying too much on hardscaping like rock beds, gravel, and patios. Sure, ripping out vegetation simply to limit the amount of water your garden needs may result in less irrigation. However, the environmental harms can easily outweigh the benefits of any reduction in water usage. 

With less vegetative area, bare soil is prone to erosion. Meanwhile, less water is absorbed into the soil when it rains, intensifying runoff, which can end up carrying away nitrates and other pollutants from your yard. Moreover, reducing vegetation can create a heat island effect, producing a hotter climate around your home and forcing you to use more air conditioning to keep the home cool. So, you might see a lower water bill by replacing turf with rocks, but your energy bill could end up spiking.

Xeriscaping is all about water-wise landscaping. But "water wise" doesn't just mean growing drought-tolerant plants or ripping out turf and replacing it with rocks that don't need irrigation. Depending on the conditions in your yard, a water-wise design might include a group of moisture-loving plants that can sop up the extra water that pools in that one patch of your lawn with poor drainage. It might also mean adding mulch to improve moisture retention and regulate soil temperature around your plants, reducing the need for irrigation.

The key to xeriscaping the right way is looking at where water flows and how it's used in your yard, then customizing a landscape design around these patterns. As much as possible, prioritize adding well-adapted plants over dumping rocks on a challenging spot. While adding hardscaping like rock beds, pathways, or patios makes your yard more functional and reduces the need for irrigation, you don't want to end up with excessive runoff or heat building around the house. 

Divide your yard into zones that share similar light exposure, soil types, and drainage characteristics. Then choose native plants that already like the environment in each of those zones. Once established in conditions they already like, native plants rarely need any supplemental irrigation, fertilizer, or other ongoing care. They can also provide an excellent habitat for local wildlife, including birds, pollinators, and other beneficial critters.