As a gardener and landscaper, I have built hundreds of irrigation systems over the years and have made a good income doing it, but recently I have had a revolution in the way I think about irrigation. 

The received wisdom in California (and in some other Mediterranean climate areas) is that to have a successful garden you have to put plastic pipes in the ground to deliver water. In the landscaping industry you hear people say things like "drip irrigation saves water." And “even California natives need a little water”. We are so deeply mired in irrigation that most of us in the industry don't know how we would go about building a garden - a good, beautiful garden - without it. Indeed, all plants need water to establish them when they are first planted but do they all need to have a system installed that provides continuing water on an ongoing basis after they are settled in? Could it be that we are over-watering our landscapes?

Irrigation is a huge convenience for landscapers and our clients alike because we can install gardens and irrigation together, set the timer and walk away, safe in the knowledge that our plants will establish well without the landscaper needing to go on being involved in caring for them. On to the next job!

However, I have always hated burying plastic in the ground. It’s convenient but it feels like an industrial approach, inorganic and artificial - far from the “natural” concept that gardens embody. 

Commercial property garden with visible irrigation in San Rafael - photo credit Robin White

Like most people in the gardening and landscaping industry, until recently, I wasn’t even aware that there was an alternative to pipe irrigation, except perhaps watering by hand. However, over the last few years I have been following on Instagram the work of two gardeners in parts of the world that are as dry or even dryer than our climate here in the Bay Area. Jo Wakelin (@jo.wakelin) in New Zealand and Kate Coulson (@katecoulson) in the south of France have beautiful gardens with plants that they don’t water after the first couple of years. They are kind enough to be open with their Instagram followers about how they do it and they were generous enough with me to share photographs of their work. 

Jo Wakelin's garden in Central Otago, New Zealand - photo credit Jo Wakelin

The key to these gardeners’ success is to select only plants that they know, or believe, will survive and, more importantly, thrive, without long term irrigation, in their gardens. Jo Wakelin, who gardens in the very dry south eastern part of the south island of New Zealand, with only 11"-16" of rain per year, points out that these are not just "drought resistant" plants but they are better described as "drought loving" ones. They prefer a dry climate, and will not thrive and often die if they are given too much water after they are established. 

We aren’t very aware of the hidden survival powers of these plants in our gardens in California because we are so tied to irrigation that few of us experiment with growing gardens without it. We might have plenty of "drought resistant" plants but we don’t seek out plants that do well with absolutely no additional water. Yet, plants exist that will grow well for us in these conditions and there are many fine specimens among them. It’s a case of deciding to head in this direction and then seeing what the options are.

Kate Coulson's garden in Luberon in the South of France - photo credit Kate Coulson

In Kate Coulson’s garden, in the South of France in an area that receives only around 27" of rain annually, once the plants are established with a couple of years’ of monthly watering by hand, Kate leaves them to fend for themselves. If the gardener has chosen well, the plants flourish. If they don’t, Kate is ruthless about removing them and looking for better choices. 

Jo Wakelin and Kate Coulson are private gardeners, so they have near total control over what goes on in their gardens. For us in the landscaping field, to switch to using this drought loving approach for clients brings a different set of challenges and opportunities because we are always working with clients and with other maintenance gardeners. 

• We have to help clients choose from a greatly reduced list of possible plants. Instead of thousands of options we are down to perhaps a couple of hundred plants that have been proven to work. 

• Instead of installing irrigation as a support for the gardens and walking away, we have to come up with other creative options to make sure the plants get the monthly water they need for the first couple of years to establish strong root systems. That could mean installing a temporary irrigation system that later gets removed, or working with homeowners themselves to hand water, or providing monthly watering visits along with maintenance. 

• We have to learn to design good gardens with this restricted palette of plants, learning about attributes they possess that we might not be aware of, and finding plants that could lend themselves to being used in new ways to fill certain garden design niches. 

• We have to learn ourselves, and we have to lead others, to see the beauty in a garden that might have a dormant season in the summer instead of in the winter. A dry garden is going to look different. See for example the dry beauty in the image below of a garden in Pleasanton CA created by a colleague and friend of Lanxape, Bill Milligan.

  
  

A truly summer dry garden in Pleasanton created by Bill Milligan - photo credit Robin White

For our clients there are clear advantages.

• Foremost the cost of installing gardens is cheaper without putting in the considerable infrastructure that goes with irrigation.

• Ongoing costs are also cheaper without the additional cost of irrigation water. 

• Clients also save money on repair and replacement. Irrigation pipes are made from a thicker version of the same plastic used in grocery bags. Like grocery bags, they are good at the beginning, but eventually break down, start to leak and have to be replaced.

• Plastic contributes air pollution in all phases of its production and use. Global warming is also one of the results of the production of plastic. Eliminating it in the garden gives homeowners the satisfaction of doing their part for the planet. 

• Reducing the input of water into our gardens increases resilience and water independence. If there is a drought you won’t have to worry about rationing. All along you save water which is a precious resource in short supply. You are doing your part.

• Finally, polyethylene irrigation piping is highly flammable, which makes our gardens more vulnerable to wildfires. It also gives off toxic pollution when it burns. Eliminating irrigation and using fire resistant plants (many of which are also drought loving) helps keep our homes safer. 

Not all types of garden can grow without any irrigation. Specialty gardens such as tropical gardens, intensive ornamental flower gardens and vegetable gardens are always going to rely on a fairly constant input of irrigation. However, most general purpose landscaping doesn’t need to be designed with irrigation, providing installers make arrangements to cover plants’ water needs during the two year establishment period. Much better to design a garden that will work without irrigation: for long-term resilience, water independence and reduced impact on the global climate.