It has become an urban trend to put grass (Lawn) everywhere to cover the soil. Apart from that, almost all the apartment complexes in metropolitan cities have switched to ornamental vegetation. This switch is actually leading us towards WATER ILLITERACY. It is estimated that over 30% of domestic water usage contributes to landscape management. Things become even worse when fresh water is used for landscaping, rather than treated water or grey water. In this article we will focus on a few steps which we can follow to reduce usage of water in landscaping.

1. Plan the vegetations based on seasons: The plants that need more watering should be for monsoons and with lesser water requirement should be for drier seasons.

2. Go Native: Native vegetation is set to local climatic conditions and needs very less monitoring. There are cases where there is absolutely no requirement of watering.
3. Mulching: Mulching is the process of covering the soil with organic matter to keep the soil moist. This minimizes evaporation and also creates a nutrient pool
4. Replace Lawn with Native Grass and Stones: Replace the water hungry lawn with natively grown grass and design the landscape to include stones and pebbles. This also eliminates the need for periodic moving.
5. Use drip irrigation rather than sprinklers: Sprinklers are great, but they cause a good amount of evaporative loss of water, drip irrigation is best or as called in Kannada, ‘Gutuku Neeravari’.
   6. Switch to treated water/ grey water: Vegetation doesn’t demand fresh water at all. In fact, this is true with agriculture as well. Treated water is abundant in metropolitan cities, its wise to switch for landscape requirements.
6. Strict NO to invasive species of vegetation.
7. Eliminate chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This will help protect the aquifers.

9. Create a small constructed wetland to help further protect the ecosystem.

It’s now or never. Water crisis is already at its peak, it’s time to optimize landscapes for a better future.