The Native Garden, installed for $16,700, includes California shrubs, perennials and grasses on a site with drip irrigation and elements to capture and reuse rainwater. Jett installed roof gutters and a rain chain to direct rainwater to a catch basin, which then moves the water to a buried pit in the opposite corner of the yard. The infiltration pit, measuring four cubic feet, is filled with plastic cells but could contain four-inch stones. The water stored in it after a storm seeps into the soil to feed the deep-rooted, drought-tolerant plants in the garden, and none of the rainwater leaves the site.
The Traditional Garden, installed for $12,400, features such typical but inappropriate plants as azaleas and gardenias that like heavy soil on the acidic side, planted in sandy, alkaline soils, along with hydrangeas and fuchsias. It also has a lawn and sprinklers.
Jett calculated that the Traditional Garden consumes more than 280,000 gallons of water per year, generates 647 pounds of yard waste and costs $223 annually for the labor to maintain it, including mowing and edging the lawn.
The Native Garden is simply cut back by hand twice a year, consumes 64,000 gallons of water, generates 219 pounds of yard waste and costs $70.44 to maintain annuallY. Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020401255.html
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