Because there are endless options on the market, choosing the appropriate water hose for your garden can be a daunting task. Your personal landscape needs can help narrow down the choice.

Before you buy, consider how much distance you need to cover, how often you’ll use it, if it will be exposed to the elements, and how much water capacity you desire. A little research will help you choose the right one.

Length

Know the size of the area you want to cover to determine the length. Generally, hoses come in 25, 50, 75 and 100-foot lengths, as well as rolls that you can cut to a custom length. Also, be mindful that the length of the hose affects water pressure — the longer the hose, the lower the pressure at the end.

Material

Vinyl hoses are usually the cheapest, lightest and most practical. But they’re generally light duty, cannot be left too long in the sun and kink very easily. On the other hand, rubber hoses are stronger, heavier and usually cost more, and they’re more durable and don’t kink easily. There are also some made from a combination of vinyl and rubber.

Size

Diameters of hoses for home use are typically ¾ inch and 5/8 inches (this is the internal diameter of the hose). We recommend a 5/8-inch diameter hose to balance the concerns of strength, pressure and portability. If you plan to use the hose under high pressure (e.g., extensive number of sprinklers or length), choose one with a label that indicates a tolerance of 300 psi and above.

Maintenance

How you care for this essential tool will determine how long it lasts.

Don’t leave the hose exposed to the sun unnecessarily. Use a reel if you have it to stow it when not in use.

Use a cut-off valve — don’t kink the hose to stop the flow.

Replace the metal or plastic washer on the nozzle regularly.

If your hose doesn’t come with a coil spring protector, consider buying one.

By David Abrego,  a conservation consultant for SAWS. David, a native of Panama, likes to spend his time surrounded by plants and fruit trees. So if you can’t find him at home, he’s probably working in a greenhouse. David is also an arborist and an irrigation technician.

Flowering plant species rely on bees to transfer pollen for reproduction and to make seeds and fruit. According to Cornell entomologist Bryan Danforth, native bees are two to three times more effective at pollination than non-native honeybees. One reason for this is because honeybees are largely seeking nectar, while native bees generally seek pollen and spread it at a much higher rate. Furthermore, while honeybees tend to visit many flowers on the same plant, native bees are more wide ranging, carrying their pollen from plant to plant. This means that plants pollinated by native bees produce offspring that are far more genetically diverse, and therefore healthier. So, since our native bees are so important to our ecosystems, how do we best support them?

First, provide habitat for them to nest. While honeybees and bumblebees are hive builders, native bees either nest in the ground, in dead plant stems or dead wood. As you mulch your beds this summer, leave a portion uncovered for ground dwelling bees to nest. And if you have a few dead plants courtesy of the current drought, leaving dead stems can provide terrific habitat for bees and other beneficial insects.

Consider buying or making a bee house for dead wood nesters. Bee houses are like bird houses but filled with nesting material for native bees. This can consist of tubes of cardboard, lake reeds, pieces of untreated wood with holes drilled partly through, and more! The more types of material you use the better as different bees prefer different nesting materials. Also, make sure the bee house has an overhanging roof to protect it from harsh weather. A happy house makes for a happy bee.

The next important thing is to make sure your bees are well fed. Bees are such good pollinators because they broadly pollinate a large variety of plants while looking for nectar and pollen. And while this is true for bees on average, some native bees are also specialists, meaning they prefer the pollen of specific native plants. To support all our native bees (even our specialists), plant a large variety of native plants so bees have blooms (and food) year-round.

Some great plants for native bees that you might see in bloom this summer include plains coreopsis, Indian blanket, bush sunflower, cowpen daisy, gray goldenrod and compass plant. Check out this full list of native plants in our region that support pollinators (pdf).

This summer remember to “bee” responsible for the little ones in your life. Remember that using harsh chemicals like insecticides, pesticides or herbicides will hurt native bees as well as other beneficial insects.

saws at festival of flowersExhibitors include nurseries, landscapers, growers, artisans and nonprofits. In addition, the indoor mall features a dizzying array of gardening suppliers, a farmer’s market with local produce, eggs and honey, and plants, plants, plants!

The 24th citywide Plant Exchange is the largest in Texas with more than 1,000 plants traded over six hours. You’re welcome to bring carts and wagons to the event and there’s even plant check-room where you can store your selections. Be sure to prep your plants, seeds and corms for the event before arriving.

Of course, remember to stop by the SAWS Conservation Station for a free WaterSaver plant (one per adult), while supplies last. And for landscaping tips and tricks, don’t miss the how-to gardening seminars and speak to the experts in the organic world — perfect timing for the upcoming sizzling summer:

“Getting Your Lawn and Landscape Ready for the Summer Heat the Earth-Kind Way”

David Rodriguez, County Extension Agent, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.

10 a.m.

“Cultivating Flying Flowers: Simple Steps for Improving or Starting Your Butterfly Garden”

Vicki Blachman, Travis County Master Gardener.

11:30 a.m.

Organic Round Table.

Moderated by Bob Webster, KTSA “South Texas Gardening“ Show Host and co-owner, Shades of Green Nursery. Panelists include Bruce Deuley, host of Organic Matters podcast, and Stuart Franke, President of Medina Agriculture Products Co. Inc.

1 p.m.

“Bluebonnets, The Gateway to Native Plants”

Jay White – Owner and Publisher, Texas Gardener Magazine

2:30 p.m.

Festival of Flowers takes place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Shrine Auditorium, 901 N. Loop 1604 West (exit Stone Oak Parkway).

Admission is $8. Free admission for children 10 and younger. At center stage the Mens’ Garden Club will teach children the basics of working with plants, soil and gardening tools and provide them a potted plant to care for at home.

By Brad Wier,  a SAWS conservation planner. Years in South Texas landscaping and public horticulture gave him a lasting enthusiasm for native plants that don’t die when sprinklers — and gardeners — break down. He’d rather save time and water for kayaking and tubing. He is a former kilt model, and hears hummingbirds.

That’s because unless you’re trying to get rid of the grass, you never want to remove more than one third of a grass blade in a single mowing. Otherwise, you’ll scalp it and leave the lawn with nothing but yellow stalks showing.

If your grass is looking healthy right now, one way to keep it looking that way is to raise the blades and leave them that way throughout summer. Higher grass better retains moisture and nutrients (and helps prevent bald spots and weeds). Adjusting the mowing height helps keep turf dense without having to increase the mowing frequency.

How do you adjust mowing height, you ask? Many mowers have latches at each of the wheels, with notches in ½-inch increments. They may or may not be labeled, but most standard mowers accommodate from 2 inches to 4 inches of mowing height. Start by raising the latches at each wheel to the top and then lower each until they’re all at the same height.

The recommended height varies between grass species.

• Bermuda grass: Mow weekly at 2 inches.
• Zoysia: Mow weekly at 2 ½ inches depending on variety.
• St. Augustine: Mow weekly 3 inches to 3-½ inches; extra height supports its deeper roots.
• Buffalo grass: Mow infrequently, twice per year, 3 inches to 4 inches depending on variety.
• Turf sedge: Can be mowed 2-3 times per year at 4 inches.
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Again, if you’re not sure — or you have a healthy mix of grasses and mowable groundcovers —err on the side of caution and use a higher height.

Remember, it’s important not to cut off more than 30 percent of the grass length at any one time. If your Bermuda grass has grown to 5 inches and you cut it down to 2 inches, you may end up with yellow bases and weeds spreading in the newly exposed areas.

Should rainy weather ever occur in summer, most experts advise mowing warm season grasses more frequently. That can mean once a week or even more often. The ease of applying these recommendations depends on the size of the grass area.

As always, there’s a decision to be made about how much lawn you really need and how much can be easily maintained. If you’re looking to remove grass, scalping it is a great way to start.

SAWS WaterSaver programs can help you convert unnecessary grass areas to hardy landscaping or easy outdoor living spaces.

By David Abrego is a conservation consultant for SAWS. David, a native of Panama, likes to spend his time surrounded by plants and fruit trees. So if you can’t find him at home, he’s probably working in a greenhouse. David is also an arborist and an irrigation technician.

While plants don’t have to worry about doing taxes or meeting deadlines, they do have to deal with wind, sun and brutal Texas summer temperatures. There are steps you can take to put those plants through bootcamp and ensure their survival.

The first step is to “harden off” plants when you bring them home from the nursery. Similar to how plant growers introduce seedlings from the green house to an outdoor environment, you can set your pots outside in the shade for a few days.

After that stage them approximately where you intend to plant them to see how well they respond to the light levels. Water them routinely and if you notice they’re flagging or drooping (especially in the morning after a hot afternoon), put them back in the shade or more gradually ramp up the number of hours they’re in the sun.

If they seem acclimated after a week, go ahead and plant them. While drought tolerant plants can go a long time without water, they can use extra support when first planted into the ground. After all, their roots are still pot-sized and possibly accustomed to being watered regularly.

To ensure success, follow the easy 3-2-1 plant establishment routine.

By gradually increasing the time between waterings, you can help them build endurance, encouraging them to grow longer roots for better access to moisture and nutrients underground.

By Sarah Gorton,  a Planner with the SAWS Conservation department. She is passionate about bats and native plants, with a particular fondness for horseherb! Sarah has completed certifications through Texas Master Naturalist and Native Plant Society. When she isn’t working on her research on the use of native grasses for uptaking pollutants at UTSA, she can be found making stained glass or hanging out with her two Chihuahuas.

This perennial shrub (or small tree) is one of the most drought-tolerant trees around, and it’s an excellent ornamental choice for decorating a sunny water-saver landscape. Its peeling bark is a smooth, steely gray, and the leaves are small, thick and semi-evergreen. It can be slow growing, but the wait pays off: Texas persimmon eventually reaches 20-30 feet tall with a striking silvery-black silhouette.

In spring, Texas persimmon boasts branches covered in small white flowers that develop into hundreds of one-inch fruits that cover the tree in late summer. The very sweet black fruit (similar to figs or prunes in taste) can be consumed fresh or used to make jelly. Many species of birds and mammals love the fruit, which is also used in many places around Mexico to dye leather. (The dark purple fruit can also stain driveways and decks.)

Texas persimmon reproduces mainly by seed and enjoys mostly sunny spots with good drainage, but it’s not very demanding since it will resist onslaughts of both heat and poor nutrient soils.

If you have a nice open space in the sun where other plants have said no, give this tough Texan a chance to put the sun and drought in their place.

By David Abrego, SAWS Conservation Consultant is a native of Panama, likes to spend his time surrounded by plants and fruit trees. So if you can’t find him at home, he’s probably working in a greenhouse. David is also an arborist and an irrigation technician.

When choosing plants for containers, the age-old advice is to choose plants that “thrill, spill or fill.”

Thrillers provide a visual focal point, the biggest and tallest plants in the pot and the stars of the show. Ideally, they offer height and color, like the extravagant hats at NIOSA. It’s hard to beat red yucca — it blooms just in time for Fiesta — but other options could include agave, mealy blue sage, cut-leaf daisy, manfreda, Gregg’s mistflower, firewheel, lanceleaf coreopsis, bee balm and scarlet sage.

Turf sedge with seedheads.Fillers, as the name suggests, compliment the thrillers with texture and/or color like Fiesta medals to help cover your sash. This is a good place to use groundcovers. Some fillers that can withstand the Texas heat include sedge, snake herb, zexmenia, inland seaoats, blue grama, soft hair marbleseed and artemisia ludoviciana.

Frogfruit leaves and flowers.Finally, spillers cascade over the sides of the container, adding dimension, drama and movement like Folklorico dancers in a parade. Some natural suggestions would be frogfruit, silver leaf ponyfoot, woolly stemodia, heartleaf skullcap, prairie verbena, pink evening primrose, snapdragon vine and heartleaf skullcap.

The beauty of potted plants is they can be placed anywhere. Whether you have a backyard oasis or live in an apartment with limited space, there’s no area too big or too small — as always, the main consideration is whether your pots are in sun or shade. Pots tend to dry out more quickly than plants in the ground, but they’re easy enough to reposition as needed or plant right out into the landscape.

As always, check GardenStyleSanAntonio.com for more possibilities and growing details. Rest assured any combination you decide to go with will guarantee a fiesta, not a siesta. Now you’re ready to party with your plants!

Happy potting and viva Fiesta!

Keeping your lawn resilient in times of drought doesn’t have to be difficult or costly. It’s as simple as parting ways with growing water-intensive landscape plants. For me, that was St. Augustine grass.

I recently went on a mission to reduce my own water use and remove a portion of grass to install a drought-tolerant garden bed. It’s important to note that 1) I was not born with a green thumb and 2) this was my first attempt in removing grass and making a drought tolerant bed.

With time I plan to expand this garden bed, but I wanted to test the procedure and learn what might be involved. Here’s what I learned along the way.

To remove established grass there are four recommended options:

Manual removal: This method involves using a garden spade, a square-point shovel with a flat blade that allows you to cut a straight edge right through turf and allowing you to remove it without damaging surrounding grass or plants.

Chemical removal: A foliar application of Glyphosate kills turf by disrupting its metabolic processing of essential enzymes. However, it can take two weeks or more for the grass to die and there is a risk to nearby plants if it’s windy. Also, it shouldn’t be touched or watered for the first seven days after the chemical is applied.

Machine removal: Renting a sod cutter to precisely cut and lift the sod is a relatively easy process without any chemicals. This method also allows for a flare surface and takes away any extra digging or movement of the soil due to the accuracy of the machine. This may be good if you’re thinking about creating a walkway or extra-large garden bed.

Solarization: This method uses clear plastic to cover growing grass for at least six weeks in summer sun, causing the grass to overheat.

Identify your needs when choosing which method to use. Personally, I was creating a mini garden bed to test my own capability, so I opted for a garden spade. This was appropriate for the site since mine was a small area, and because there was a slight chance of rain during the period when I was working. In addition, the grass was St. Augustine, which is one of the easiest to remove manually — the grass and roots can be scooped up fairly cleanly.

After removing the grass, I needed to make sure my garden bed was level to prevent soil erosion from heavy winds and rain. I used bricks for the border, measuring ahead of time to determine how many bricks I needed.

And then came the fun part — I got to pick plants! Because this was a mini garden bed I didn’t need to purchase a whole lot. When you’re purchasing plants it’s important to consider three factors:

• How big the plant will grow.
• How much sunlight it needs.
• How much water it needs. It’s sensible to group plants with matching water needs.

Note where your landscape bed is and go from there. In my case, the fence directly behind the garden bed would provide a half-day of shade during the growing season. So, I chose these plants:

2 Berkeley sedge

2 autumn sage

1 meadow sage

1 pink skullcap

1 Texas betony

1 verbena ‘homestead purple’

2 chocolate daisy

After I planted them based on their heights, I applied some mulch and hand-watered them in.

Saying a partial goodbye to my St. Augustine grass was a good start and I’m excited to continue my gardening journey!

Are you ready to break-up with your St. Augustine grass? If so, apply today for SAWS Watersaver Landscape Coupons and build your dream drought tolerant garden bed.

By Sarah Thissen, an intern with SAWS Conservation.

While superficially similar to some grasses, sedges are actually in their own plant family — and some of their differences make them useful lawn alternatives.

The most common native sedge species found in the nursery trade is Carex perdentata, sometimes sold as Webberville sedge. Also called meadow sedge or turf sedge, it’s a low-growing and mostly evergreen clump-forming plant, superficially similar to mondo grass. Over time the clumps can spread to form a groundcover of dark green leaves. They don’t fill in the way a traditional turfgrass would. Rather their long thin leaves flop over, creating a distinctive meadowlike texture. More at home in partial shade (especially afternoon shade) meadow sedge can even grow under live oak trees where other ground covers, like turf grasses, tend to struggle.

Like many native grasses, sedges are best for areas without heavy foot traffic. Think in terms of small lawns or lilypads among your WaterSaver landscape beds. Sedge is slower growing than traditional grasses in summer, but once established, it reseeds to fill in and doesn’t require much, if any additional water from you. It does most of its growing and flowering in spring and early summer. It can grow bigger and faster in sun, but in full sun it may look tired or go dormant (brown) in summer scorch.

Establishing a sedge meadow is a bit different than establishing a grass sod. Plants will typically be planted on a 12-inch grid or staggered 12-inch lines about 10 inches apart. To find meadow sedge, your best bet is to check nurseries specializing in native plants and look for them in 4-inch pots. (The smaller size is more economical and smaller plants will be easier to get established.) Over time they’ll fill in the gaps by growing large and reproducing by seed.

Shearing or lightly mowing on the highest setting once or twice a year can encourage plants to spread out horizontally, but mowing is not necessary. In fact, one of the bonuses of a sedge groundcover is less maintenance requirements all around.

Let it grow naturally and it will take on a soft “mounded” look. The flowering stalks in spring are typically the tallest part of the plant, but they aren’t dense and often grow out horizontally instead of up.

Other notable native sedges include Carex texensis, Carex blanda, Carex cherokeensis and Carex planostachys. Many of these beneficial sedges may already be present as wild plants in or around your landscape.

So, if you’re looking for a groundcover for a dry shady spot, or you’re tired of watering, mowing and maintaining a large lawn area (or you’re just interested in using native plants wherever you can) consider making a switch to sedge. With its low water needs, irrigation is not needed and could be discontinued or removed altogether!

By Cleveland Powell, a Conservation Planner for SAWS. He is enthusiastic about grass taxonomy and milkweed propagation. In his free time, Powell enjoys hiking around area parks in search of intriguing bugs, birds and plants.