I don’t know what this wet stuff is that is falling from the past couple of days, but I understand we may need it for something.
That being said, given the astronomical amount I am now paying for my SLC water and sewage bill, I’m kind of stoked to not water this summer.
I was told that in '72-73 we had a similar winter. That’s before my time, does anyone recall what happened? Of course, we had about 3M less people in the state, so the water demands were very different. Now we’re building PGA Tour-worthy golf courses on ancient lava beds in the desert.
I’m in Denver but same concerns. Super glad I installed a low water lawn last year (hybrid bermudagrass - Tahoma 31) which I only need to water every 5-7 days if there isn’t anything from the skies. The west is going to burn this summer.
Is that a personal choice is the State, City, or County going to enforce water restrictions?
FWIW, I would hope that the entire State, well all of the West nix the lawn and xeriscape. There are plenty of areas of the world that live in deserts and have managed to thrive. Perhaps we Americans should observe and learn from them.
While we don’t live in Utah any more, our families do. We hear their concerns and watch the weather in the West. We hope and pray for rain for the West, but for it to not all arrive at once.
I’m speculating on no watering (nothing has been declared), but not only have we had an abysmal snow year, but we had a severe drought and a poor winter last year. Its a formula for disaster and in the area, and water managers would be smart to do big water restrictions this year, because who knows what next year will bring.
Unless we can miraculously turn this season around in the next 60 days, and then have a cool and relatively wet summer, things could get bad bad.
And yes, I think we need to start thinking like Arizona and less like Nauvoo Illinois when it comes to landscape. I’m guilty, I have a LOT of lawn. I also have an pioneer era irrigation system water share that very few people in this valley have, but I’ll glady forfeit it this year if the state needs it.
The problem I see in SLC is MOST xeriscaping looks horrible, or is higher maintenance than mowing and fertilizing a lawn and thus becomes horrible looking because it doesn’t get maintained. Lot’s of beautiful homes in St George with water-wise landscaping, but they also have red rocks and soil and a warmer climate that actually lends itself a little better than up north.
IIRC, is was 76-77. I don’t remember 72-73 being that dry, as I was the one who had to shovel my parents driveway.
I have xeriscaped most of my yard. I only have about one third of the lawn I used to have. I water the lawn about 30-45 minutes a week in the summer, much less in spring and fall. I have drip systems for the garden and beds. I do have a pond, but it uses much less water than if that area was in grass.
It is likely SLC will impose signficant water restricitons in the next month or two.
I remember 76-77. I was a reporter at the Desert News and it didnt snow until January. I worked the xmas morning shift, and I drove home past Bonneville golf course, and people were out there playing.
No kidding. People ask me all the time how I keep the weeds out of the rocks and gravel. I tell them I have to pull them a couple of times a week in the spring, and at least once a week in the summer.
The one small consolation is that all the rain we’ve had is soaking down into the aquifers, and we’re on well water. I’m sure our rates will still go up this summer.
https://www.yardcouture.com/ (the owner’s name is Karsten, a really good guy. He’s not the corten steel guy, but more of a landscape/solutions guy. He brought in Paxton Purser to do the fabrication of corten steel.) They did my yard back in 2019.
Much of my neighborhood has half-acre lots within the SLC boundaries, which is rare. My neighbors have a very productive vegetable garden that covers the back half of their lot. They live off of what is produces throughout the summer, and most of the winter. One time they were showing it to a new neighbor who was interested in gardening and he was amazed that their garden was free of weeds. “How do you keep your garden from getting weeds?” He asked. “We pull them,” they responded.
When I was growing up my parents lot was about 1.25 acres and at the height about 1/4 to 1/3 or so was planted as vegetable gardens. The kids were responsible to weed in the garden every day in the summer before we could do anything else. I grew to hate weeding.
I grew up in the Avenues in SLC, in the home my mother had grown up in. The house had a large lot, and a second lot next door which had never had a home on it. Her father was a hobby gardener, with rock gardens on all the sloping terrain and several large formal gardens, and her mother grew and bottled several kinds of fruit and had a very large vegetable garden.
As kids, we inherited all the trees and plantings from our grandparents and had to help in the garden every day in the summer before doing anything else. We all enjoyed planting and harvesting, but, like you, we all hated weeding.
