This Eco-Friendly Lawn in Arizona Mimics a Natural Stream Overflow

In Tucson, like many other desert cities, severe drought has led to tight restrictions on lawn irrigation (and rebates for installing rainwater harvesting and gray-water systems). But the region is not entirely without water; long periods of arid heat are punctuated by monsoon rains. Creating systems to take advantage of those sudden, fast, intense storms is key, says Andrew D’Arezzo, a landscape designer and eco-hydrology specialist at EcoSense, a local landscape design firm that focuses on water-wise solutions.

For Hadley Castaneda, the owner of a traditional adobe residence built in the 1930s in central Tucson, the challenge was to address those water issues in an attractive but low-maintenance sustainable garden that would suit its use as a vacation rental.

EcoSense devised a passive rainwater harvesting design using bio-gravel, "a proprietary mix that mimics a natural stream overflow," explains D’Arezzo. Water is able to infiltrate the soil rather than pooling or flooding, "so the yard can hold every inch of rainfall on the property safely." D’Arezzo and his team also used traditional clay vessels called ollas, placed underground with their lids just peeking out, which allow water to percolate slowly through the terra-cotta and directly into the root zone with almost no evaporative loss.

Combined with native drought-tolerant, low-maintenance plantings, the naturalistic desert landscaping acts as a sponge, holding onto water underground. In turn, the yard has been seeded to explode in staggered blooms to deliver flashes of color across the year. Once-small trees now provide shade canopies frequented by pollinators.

"The yard now hosts a community that should outlive us all," says D’Arezzo.

Dwell: What was the property like before?

Hadley Castaneda: Essentially there was nothing but concrete borders with dirt. When I was little, I do remember 8 of 10 houses on a block having grass out front. Today, none have lawns. Everybody cringes when you drive by a house that has a grass lawn in the desert.

Did you have a garden vision in mind when you started?

We really wanted to do something that would not only contribute to our historic neighborhood of Jefferson Park, but also mirror the Tucson landscape. EcoSense was able to take us a bit further than just planting a few native plants or a few Saguaro cactuses. That would have been beautiful, but now we have a sustainable habitat that didn’t require a lot of invasive work to the site and doesn’t require too much upkeep. A lot of what we did can actually be done DIY.

How has the garden fared since being installed?

The ollas have helped our trees grow faster than we ever anticipated! There is a sweet acacia that has grown to about 20 to 25 feet tall, providing valuable shade for not only our smaller plants, but also for the birds and insects that we commonly find underneath in our sagebrushes. And every spring, birds and butterflies are common visitors. We do have an irrigation system, but we only have to turn it on during the wickedest of 118-degrees days during the summer.

How have your neighbors reacted?

There have been conversations with many of the neighbors. Not everyone can afford hiring someone to do this, but much of it can be done DIY. There has been this great movement over the past 10 years or so to regenerate our habits. And the moment one house does some sort of landscape design thing, it inspires seven other houses down the road to do the same. We definitely were inspired by our neighbors.

Return to the lawn alternatives landing page

—

Head back to the November/December 2022 issue homepage