Gardening/Landscape

Watching your water usage is important and essential to having a healthy landscape.

Use MyWaterAdvisor2 to monitor your real-time water usage. You can also set budget alerts and monitor unexpected or unauthorized usage of your water.

 Use WaterMyYard to utilize local weather data to provide free weekly watering advice. This data is collected from an extensive network of weather stations and rain gauges, and, along with the research-based understanding of plant water needs and allows experts to send customized weekly water advice for your specific lawn and irrigation system.

Choosing Practical Spaces:

Keeping our lawns pretty and green takes a lot of water and generally greater maintenance than other vegetation. Limiting turf to areas used for recreation and other functional purposes will reduce your landscape water needs. Avoid using turf grass in areas that are hard to water, such as steep slopes or odd-shaped and narrow spaces. Consider replacing little-used turf areas with other types of landscaping and water-stingy plants.

Here are some great resources we recommend for different areas of your yard:

• The City of Princeton recommends planting drought-tolerant and native plants in order to reduce water usage and conserve water. Water Is Awesome provides some advice through Landscaping Fundamentals for turf grasses, mulching, and irrigation.
• We recommend using native plants in your garden spaces! Texas Smart Scape is chock-full of helpful resources to get your garden beds attractive, not only to the eye but to pollinators too.
• Utilize Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and The University of Texas at Austin Plant Database to choose plants for your garden which are native and drought tolerant. Choosing the right plants will help you save time and money in the long run, as well as conserve water!
• To save on water, buy or make a roof-water collection rain barrel to water your plants, AgriLife Extension has resources on roof-water collection and rain barrels here.
• North Texas Municipal Water District Plant Smart encourages native plants in your yard and to take the #PledgeToPlantSmart
• The Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health and Texas Invasives Organization both have information regarding plants that should NOT be planted in any capacity in the area. These plants are highly invasive and can dominate your garden. They also end up in neighboring landscapes, including greenways, and sometimes nearby Sanctuaries and National parks (through waterways!). Texas Parks and Wildlife Department also has information regarding Aquatic Invasive Species. 
• Check out NTMWD Guide to Composting 101 so you can Know Before You Throw.
• Appropriate landscaping of your home will assist you in multiple ways. Not only can it lower your water usage, and ergo your water bill, but it can improve your yard by decreasing the degradation of your soil and reducing the amount of time you spend maintaining your yard, and increasing the amount of time you spend enjoying it instead.

Composting:

Composting is utilizing organic compounds to improve soil quality. Composting also reduces the impacts of otherwise wasted food. 

Many common items can be composted.

Some items cannot be composted.

Check out this article by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to learn about the impacts of choosing to compost organic waste. Here's another helpful resource about composting at home.