Water Efficient Landscaping — Water Harvesting Earthworks

Our Water Effi­cient Land­scape Design Ser­vice works with res­i­dents and land­scape pro­fes­sion­als to uti­lize the inher­ent qual­i­ties of your yard or out­door space. We use the basic prin­ci­ples of water har­vest­ing earth­works or pas­sive rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing, com­bined with native plant­ing and soil improve­ments, to cre­ate a land­scape that sus­tains itself with sea­sonal rain­fall. Unlike rain­wa­ter catch­ment (or active rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing), pas­sive rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing slows, spreads and sinks water in the soil rather than a con­tainer. Water is directed through path­ways to strate­gi­cally placed native plants and trees. Storm runoff from nearby imper­vi­ous sur­faces (like rooftops, side­walks and dri­ve­ways) can also be inte­grated into this sys­tem and a Cal­i­for­nia native habi­tat will flour­ish with very lit­tle main­te­nance, while reduc­ing or elim­i­nat­ing the need for sup­ple­men­tal water­ing. Because most house­holds use over half their water con­sump­tion for irri­ga­tion, you will see a sig­nif­i­cant drop in your water bill, if you prop­erly bud­get your water use. Every site is unique and we will work together with you to cre­ate a vision based on the site, your goals, and good eco­log­i­cal design. Work­ing with what already exists or start­ing from scratch, we start with a site analy­sis and give you sev­eral options based on bud­get, prac­ti­cal­ity and envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship. You choose the ones that best fit your needs. Com­bin­ing Water Effi­cient Land­scape Design with our other ser­vices, like grey water reuse or rain­wa­ter catch­ment, will cre­ate an inte­grated sys­tem that max­i­mizes the ben­e­fits when used together. To learn about drought-tolerant, native plants, the WUCOLS III Guide(Water Clas­si­fi­ca­tions Use of Land­scape Species) wucol­sIII is an excel­lent source of information.