PLAN WELL TO CUT WATER BILLS HEAT-TOLERANT PLANTS, ROCKS CAN HELP MAKE COOL YARDS.

Byline: Peggy Hager Staff Writer

PALMDALE - With water rates likely to jump one-third or more next summer for tens of thousands of Antelope Valley households, homeowners will be looking for ways to cut their water use - especially outdoors.

The buzz word is xeriscaping - pronounced ``zir-i-scaping,'' from the Greek word for ``dry,'' a water-conserving method of landscaping in arid or semiarid climates.

``The thing that you want to avoid is big lawn areas because lawns take up to three times the amount of water that areas with plants and ground cover would take,'' said Brad Hays, owner of Greenbee Nursery in Palmdale.

Over 50 percent of the water used by a typical household goes on the lawn and outdoor plants, experts say. Using plants acclimated to dry climates and replacing parts of lawns with decorative rock or other landscaping can cut outdoor water use 70 percent or more, they said.

Both Los Angeles County Waterworks, which has proposed the water rate hike, and the Palmdale Water District, which is already charging heavy users higher rates, have Web sites available that offer information on xeriscaping.

The sites feature lists of water-greedy plants, trees and shrubs and their water use. The sites also offer ideas for designing new yard landscaping and outdoor entertaining areas.

Antelope Valley nurseries also have information and plants for drought- tolerant yards.

Hays' Greenbee Nursery, which he runs with his wife, Cindy, at 2505 E. Ave. Q, specializes in xeriscaping.

Hays advises homeowners to draw up an overall landscape design and then install low-water-use drip irrigation systems, which are available at local nurseries and home improvement stores and are relatively inexpensive and easy to install.

``You need to have an overall design and an overall idea of where you're going with your landscape to really save water,'' said Hays.

If a lawn is regarded as a necessity, one of the best grasses in the Antelope Valley at using less water is fescue, Hays said.

Alternatives to lawns include a compacted stone covering called permarock, or synthetic turf.

``You could take part of your landscaping, put a putting green in there and use it. It'll stay green, absolutely no water at all and you can landscape around it,'' Hays said.

Although xeriscaping is low water use, it's not necessarily low maintenance. While a large area covered with rock or bark is fairly maintenance free, any landscaping plants will require watering and grooming.

``It's more maintenance, I think,'' said Hays, ``because you have the weeding, you have to pull the dead flower heads off and maintain it but you get the color.''

California Quarry Products co-owner Richard Jay advises homeowners to limit grass to one-third of their yard space and to plant the grass close to the house to keep the house cool.

To improve moisture retention and increase the amount of water that gets to plants, Jay recommends mixing compost into the Antelope Valley's clay and sandy soil.

Adding bark or decorative rock around plants will help prevent weeds and retain moisture as well, said Jay, who with his wife, Sally, runs the business at 42057 3rd St. E. in Lancaster.

One problem with shredded bark is its tendency to blow away in strong winds, he said.

Installing decorative rock costs money, but pays for itself because maintenance is minor compared with regularly mowing, watering, fertilizing and weeding lawns, Jay said.

Rocks need to be hosed off once a year and refreshed with additional rock every three years. His company offers 27 different colors of rock, decomposed granite, bark, playground chips and river rock.

``If you have plants near rock, put the landscape fabric down and put a drip system in, cover with rock so the water going to your plants can get watered without watering your rock, so you preserve the color of your rock,'' said Jay. ``The best thing to plant into is rock, because rock protects the soil from the sun and the sun is what destroys the soil so that plants can't live in it.''

Peggy Hager, [phone]

peggy.grimm-hager(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Greenbee Nursery owner Brad Hays displays an olive tree - hardy for the dry desert climate - at his Palmdale store.

(2) Orange gazanias are part of a xeriscaped Antelope Valley yard done by Greenbee Nursery.

Peggy Hager/Staff Photographer