Rocks and more rocks?? (landscaping, costs, gardening)

[orngkat]

Seems like more and more people here are replacing their lawn with rocks. And more rocks. I get that it takes much less water but also seems like it makes everything hotter with radiant heat. And then out come the big containers of Roundup to spray the weeds away that pop up in the rocks. Just another thing I don't get about how some things are done here...

[otowi]

I thought that was going out of fashion a bit. It was huge during the recession and when we had water restrictions several years back.

[Vision67]

During the recession, they raised the water rates.

And they Forgot to reduce them after the recession was over.

Also, bluegrass makes no sense in this arid environment. But you can do landscaping with both rocks and low water sucking plants, Xeriscaping.

Look here: https://www.csu.org/pages/demonstration-garden.aspx

[DrDog]

Originally Posted by orngkat

Seems like more and more people here are replacing their lawn with rocks. And more rocks. I get that it takes much less water but also seems like it makes everything hotter with radiant heat. And then out come the big containers of Roundup to spray the weeds away that pop up in the rocks. Just another thing I don't get about how some things are done here...

You’re worried about radiant heat here in Colorado? Arizona maybe, but not here.

[otowi]

Originally Posted by DrDog

You’re worried about radiant heat here in Colorado? Arizona maybe, but not here.

Here too. Hardscape of any kind aggregately raises the temperature of urban/suburban areas anywhere from a couple to nearly half a dozen degrees during day time and as much as 22 degrees at night compared to areas with green scape i.e. rural.

[dr.frog]

Originally Posted by Vision67

Also, bluegrass makes no sense in this arid environment. But you can do landscaping with both rocks and low water sucking plants, Xeriscaping.

Look here: https://www.csu.org/pages/demonstration-garden.aspx

CSU also runs free xeriscaping classes in the spring, and has a whole website devoted to gardening and plants:

https://waterwiseplants.org/

BTW, besides being something to put in your yard when it's too dry to grow grass, rock beds and hardscape walkways also serve a "firescaping" purpose to keep beds of flammable plant material separated from each other and from your house.

[Phil P]

The reason they do it is because to have a lawn that actually looks good during a drought costs a lot of $$$$ and you have to water nearly every day. And a dead or half dead lawn is about as ugly of a landscape as you can get. You have to wait till we get another dry year (we haven't had one in a while) to see what I mean. It's because of those years that people switched from a greenscape to hardscape or xeriscape.

I don't think radiant heat is too big of an issue because there's still plenty of open space between developments. If things were stacked in tighter, the effect would be bigger.

Xeriscape looks better than hardscape, but it takes a green thumb and someone who spends time out taking care of it.

[Mike from back east]

Here in the Phoenix area we have massive amounts of rock landscaping. I have mostly rocks and some astroturf. The golf courses here mostly use reclaimed runoff water.

[TCHP]

Originally Posted by orngkat

Seems like more and more people here are replacing their lawn with rocks. And more rocks. I get that it takes much less water but also seems like it makes everything hotter with radiant heat. And then out come the big containers of Roundup to spray the weeds away that pop up in the rocks. Just another thing I don't get about how some things are done here...

Half the people here are from somewhere else, so I guess we attract cheapskates with no landscaping imagination that blend in well with locally raise tightwads with no vision.

I see more and more people reducing their green space. Some do great jobs of creating varied textures, terrain, and plants. Some spread rocks. Some just let their grass die. Certainly taking the time, effort, and money to create a really attractive xeriscape is something some folks don't care to expend.

[DrDog]

You need something to control dust and I would consider dust a bigger problem than heat here. And with drought a constant threat, rocks make sense. You could do wild grasses, but HOA’s often frown on that.