San Antonio, TX is a zone 8 climate which typically is hot from March to November with an occasional freeze once or twice a year for 2-3 days; albeit we've had some unusual weather since 2021, it's actually rare we get colder than 32. Between the months of June & September it can be quite unbearably hot, reaching numerous consecutive days in the 100s. Being that we source our water from San Antonio Water Systems, they struggle with keeping us alive and hydrated, SAWS offers water saving program rebates and coupons.
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The first thing you really need to do is have a discussion with the key people in the household to see if everyone is on board. Believe it or not, it can be a controversial issue to pull out all your grass and water sucking plants to replace with water saving items, lowering your water bill and loving mother nature. I'm not new to home ownership but I am new to being a sole homeowner having 100% control over what I buy and how I maintain my home so this was not an issue for me at all.
Last July I bought a garden home with a 20ft front, an 8ft rear, and a 14ft side (my back) yard. I wanted a low maintenance home that wouldn't make a mess on my patio, yard, or driveway. San Antonio has tons of beautiful Oak trees and me living in an 80s community means massive trees. Every Spring these beautiful trees give off horrible levels of green pollen causing green dust and particles caked on our patios, driveways, and cars. Worse, it was landing in my eco-friendly hot tub and certainly that isn't good at all. When I bought this home I was super ecstatic it didn't have trees. The side yard came with an astroturf and a covered patio. But the front yard had traditional (ugly) water sucking pain-in-the-axx boxwoods and grass. The only things I loved about it was the existing trellis style bench and the mature Mountain Laurel tree; but I could see the potential.
In the hot month of August, just days after I closed, while the movers were moving, I was outside yanking Boxwoood and other ugly old fashioned somewhat dead shrubs. You see, every March to December we seem to have water restrictions so sprinkler systems are not allowed or are very limited and who really wants to stand outside watering with a hose or moving a sprinkler around? If you're retired maybe, but most of us would prefer to not do it. Review Stage 1 & Review Stage 2. By the time you hit Stage 3 your grass and plants will die unless you water frequently and at 7-11am. Stage 4 is zero tolerance for watering with fines. Using my own money (not waiting or not researching the rebate programs yet) I spent about $500.00 on updating with native plants, shrubs, fresh soil, mulch and soaker hoses to give my home a colorful, natural front.
Fast forward to January 2023, I took the time to research, making phone calls, reading articles, calling nurseries, and talking to SAWS people to find out how exactly these rebate programs work. After sharing some of this in my online gardening groups I decided to blog it. It's not one program so it made sense to break this down. Feel free to read one, all, or none. I just needed to break it down into bite size chunks.
Details About the Programs I Used
The Zen of Xeriscape - By SAWS
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