5 Tips for Designing a Drought-Resistant Landscape

Drought can be a killer, especially if you’re planning out a landscape that might be prone to getting less water than any of the surrounding areas. If you want to protect an environment against drought, it’s all about some careful steps in the planning phase – and it doesn’t cost effort or money to prepare your landscape. In this article, we discuss five tips to help you design the perfect drought-resistant landscape.

Understanding Colorado’s Climate

Colorado’s climate is semi-arid to arid, characterized by low annual precipitation and high evaporation rates. With diverse topography contributing to various microclimates, water scarcity is a persistent challenge. Precipitation levels vary across the state, with the eastern plains receiving around 12-16 inches annually and mountainous areas experiencing more due to orographic lifting. However, much precipitation falls as snow in winter, gradually melting to contribute to water sources.

Summers are warm to hot, often accompanied by thunderstorms, while winters can be cold, especially in higher elevations. Droughts are recurrent, exacerbating water scarcity. Understanding these climate dynamics is crucial for designing landscapes resilient to drought, requiring efficient water management practices tailored to Colorado’s unique conditions.

How to Design a Drought-Resistant Landscape in Colorado

1. Plan with the help of technology

Landscaping and architectural planning aren’t just done with pen and paper anymore. These days, the largest landscaping companies in the world all use a combination of artists and technology solutions to complete their projects – and so should you to create your landscape design.

Open-source landscaping software makes planning a drought-tolerant landscape a breeze and allows you to view real-time changes that would impact the environment.

It saves time, and it can spare you a lot of effort. Consider the space at a glance, and it becomes much easier to see what you can achieve with it.

2. Use the power of elevation in landscaping

Elevation is one of the most useful techniques for landscaping a dry environment. Water runs down, and this simple fact can save you a lot of time and water. When the rain comes to the landscape, note where it will land – and make sure that water always has somewhere useful to go.

Any pooling, stagnant water is a waste for a dry landscape. Water that knows where to go to the most essential parts, is far more useful for preserving what you’ve got.

3. Plant hardy companions

Landscaping can’t be done without plants, and an arid environment doesn’t limit your choices by any means. There are many great drought-tolerant plants that are known to flourish within a desert or dry environment, from the simple cactus to flowers that have learned to stand the test of time.

Plant hardy companions, and prefer them over any plants that might overuse water in an environment that is already lacking this precious resource.

Even without much water, you’ll notice that drought-resistant plants tend to flourish under these circumstances. Often they have the additional benefit of bringing the wonder of natural life into your landscape, too.

4. Consider the natural rainfall

If you’re trying to landscape a dry environment, one of the most important things you can do is to employ the most natural resources in the best way.

Use natural resources like rainfall, and gather it when possible- or make sure that the water is going to the right places, by using elevation and channels to move the water around.

Remember that any natural resources you aren’t using, you’re technically wasting! Using rain barrels and tanks to conserve rainwater is never a waste when you have a potential drought to landscape around.

5. Use every existing resource to your advantage

Dry landscapes can often benefit from changes in the soil. A mixture of sand and mulch is more likely to trap water for the benefit of the environment than pure sand or rock.

Rock formations in the right places, on the other hand, can catch morning dew and lead them to the useful parts of the garden. Even if it doesn’t seem like much, it makes a huge difference in a dry environment that you’re trying to get the most out of.

Always take a proper look at the environment at hand, and use the existing resources before you start to add things that might not be as necessary.

Drought-tolerant landscaping isn’t just about making changes, but also about using the best of what you already have.

Additional Information: U.S. Drought Monitor – Colorado

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