Receiving one to three inches of rain during afternoon lunch is all to common the last few years. We seem to roll from drought to flood on a weekly basis with temps pushing upper 90’s and boiling humidity. Everyone is getting the urge to install drainage pipes and synthetic turf so they don’t have to look at the puddles when it’s wet or see the dead grass when it’s dry. We need to run from those two options as fast as possible!
What are you supposed to do with all of this water? For starters, water is the gift of all life. Water is the one thing that should bever be shamelessly discarded into culverts and drain pipes to be whisked somewhere far away. The 2070 water report gives firm data confirming the trend that Florida is on delivers us into water shortages using current procurement methods in our lifetime. Does your yard seem to be as bad as your concrete driveway at absorbing water? It just stagnates until it evaporates away, creating a sauna where the waters stood in your yard. If you don’t melt in the sauna, the mosquitoes and Miakka warriors will carry you
away. Fear not, there is hope! It just doesn’t look like anything we are currently doing. The USDA and NRSC posted a very important bit of data which tells us that every 1% increase of organic matter in our soils can hold an additional 25,000 Gal of soil water per acre! An extremely reasonable 1% increase in organic matter will give the sand that is in your yard the ability to actually absorb the water that typically stands on top of it.
This can be compounded by introducing more than one species in your landscape, yes that’s right, you need more than grass. Building diverse landscapes in your yard allow for all different types of roots to reach into the ground and break apart you hard soils. This nurtures life into the soil so it can retain water and connect with the natural water table. Step one, if your yard is all grass, you need to add a diverse range of plants. Check out our YouTube channel if you need help
with this.
Adding shrubs doesn’t have to be a hedge against the fence, another monoculture that will do little to enhance your soil health. Look for diversity, in particular look for that spot that is low and always collects all of the rain water that puddles up. Another great place to install shrubs is the space where water is rushing off your property and creating erosion. You can create either a Bioswale or Rain Garden in these spaces, both serve the same purpose and that is to retain water in your soil. This is healthy for our water ways and tributaries, this is how you reduce flooding in your own yard, this is how you naturally cool your yard down and make it look amazing while costing you less money.
The number one take away is to keep water on your land, reduce impervious surfaces
and never install synthetic turf! Synthetic turf kills the soil, reduces its ability to hold water, and gets dangerously hot! This heat can be dangerous for your pets, you and definitely any surrounding plants. Natural solutions will always be the best, they might be slower, they might be more work, but they are worth it. Nature has given us the solutions to all of our problems, are you going to be part of the solution?
The Veranda View 