Tips to Save Water — and Money — All Year Long

The Daily Mail is reporting that aerial views of homes belonging to celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, Jennifer Aniston, Hugh Hefner and more, show green and lively yards compared to the dry, sparse and withered land around them. (A quick search of the hashtag “#DroughtShaming” on Twitter and you’ll find just what we’re talking about.)

Lucky for these celebs (and anyone else who wants to get a little more water-saving savvy for that matter), New Home Source has some tips on how to save water:

Use native plants or better yet, xeriscape your lawn.

Native plants are uniquely “designed” for their environment. Plants that naturally grow in your area will require less water and maintenance because they can thrive in your area’s conditions.

And while you may think xeriscaping means a rock garden with no personality or color, you’d be wrong. Xeriscaping simply means choosing water-efficient practices in your yard, so you can still have an attractive garden that doesn’t guzzle gallons of water.

Water your lawn in the morning, preferably from 4 to 10 in the morning.

Water in the heat of the afternoon and you can bet that it will evaporate quickly. So, water when it’s cooler and your yard has more time to absorb that precious H2O.

1. Use a drip irrigation system for more efficient watering.

A drip irrigation system puts water where plants need it most: the roots. There’s no worry about evaporation since these systems deliver water at the base of a plant. Another benefit is that water is delivered more slowly than if you used a sprinkler, allowing plants to get a good, deep soak.

Fix any leaks and make sure sprinklers are watering plants, not the sidewalk.

Consider any water leaked from a sprinkler system as money just going down the drain. That’s the same for any water that’s going to your sidewalk, rather than your plants. By fixing any leaks or adjusting sprinkler systems, you’ll be saving water and money.

Harvest rainwater using rain barrels or water catchment systems (and add permeable pavers on driveways).

What better way to save water than to, um, save water? If your municipality allows it, set up a water catchment system to capture rainwater from roofs and gutters. This system can as simple as buckets strategically placed in your yard to more sophisticated rain barrels attached to or placed under rain gutters.

If you want to go a step further, permeable pavers will allow rainwater to soak into the ground, rather than simply be washed away. Another benefit is that these pavers help filter out impurities before water soaks into the ground.