Quote:
Originally Posted by delts145
Very much agree! Also, those who keep advocating some type of native tree need to realize that all of the native trees require regular watering. I'm sure there are some new hybrids out there that don't require quite as much water, but they're definitely not native. In fact, most if not all of the native valley trees here when the pioneers arrived are huge water pigs. If they're not located next to a stream or irrigation ditch they quickly dry up and die. Native mountain trees also are very particular about their elevation and sun exposure. Their water requirements can be completely different from their suburban valley relatives.
I would like to hear from some expert arborists on their opinions as to the type of trees which thrive along Salt Lake City streets. Trees that provide cooling shade, traditional beauty, resistant to winter weather, and require less water during the Summer months. Perhaps one of our forum members could give us some pointers.
Lawns are a much bigger issue, and there are a number of hybrid solutions or attractive xeriscaping.
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There are a few native or climate adapted alternatives that thrive in heat, dry, and poor soils, such as big-tooth maple, ponderosa pine, or chokecherry. These can correspondingly swap out the overwhelmingly more commonly planted and much thirstier Norway maple, Austrian pine, and flowering pear with a near identical growth habit and look. It’s mostly that the horticulture industry favors mass production, economy of scale, and species uniformity across the American Market (see Capitalism) and so it’s much more difficult and expensive to find native tree varieties. The garden center in Salt Lake sells trees from the same supplier providing trees to the garden center in Michigan.
However, trees comparatively consume a fraction of the amount of water that lawns do. We can still have large Sycamores, Ash, Maples, Lindens, and other non native but beautiful/large landscape trees that thrive off watering just once a week during peak summer heat. Utah’s spring and fall can typically accommodate most non native trees, it’s just the summer dryness where they really need supplemental watering, and even then it’s just a deep watering once a week in July. We just need to cut down on lawn grass... that requires frequent watering multiple times a week and sometimes (uneducated people) daily in peak summer.
Here is something that is shocking. Let’s talk park strips. JUST. Park strips. Most cities in Utah require homeowners to have grass in their park strip. The typical park strip is 5 feet wide, and about 50 feet of home frontage not including driveway. That is 250 sq feet of grass JUST in a park strip that no one is using, no kid is playing on, ends up dying, and the sprinklers just water the asphalt. Multiply that 250 sq foot by 4, the average amount of times a homeowner waters their lawn in a week for 1000sq feet watered a week. Typical watering is 1 inch per sq foot, which equals 1 gallon per sq foot. So that is 1,000 gallons a week JUST on the grass park strip. Multiply that by the 30 weeks a year people water their lawn, you get 30,000 gallons of water per house every YEAR. JUST on the park strip required by the city. Multiple that by the 1.5 million households in Utah, and you get 45,000,000,000 gallons of water EVERY YEAR. Just on grass park strips. Multiply that by 2 for schools, business, etc, and you get 90 BILLION gallons of water every year JUST ON GRASS PARKSTRIPS. That is a third of the volume of Utah lake. Every. Year.
Removing grass from parkstrips is such an easy low hanging fruit. Replacing it with Kinnickinick, Three Leaf Sumac, Native Bunchgrasses, or Desert 4 O’clock, gorgeous native plants that would fill in the whole space rapidly to keep down weeds/trash and require ZERO supplemental watering once established and are virtually indestructible (Please look some of these up and put them in your own park strip... Desert 4 o’clock is Incredible... blooms excessively from May through October, requires no watering, and will fill in the entire park strip) The problem resurfaces though... the horticulture industry just doesn’t provide these plants as they are currently extraordinarily niche.
Park strips are such an easy first step. But they are required to have grass in most cities in Utah, mostly from landscape ideals handed down from the East coast (and before that Europe) that in order for things to be “pretty” it has to be bright green and grassy.
Phew rant over.
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How is this troll not banned yet? 
This poser account is really Waimea who was banned, came back as Future _ _ Mayor, and was banned again. Please, everyone, report “New&Old” to the moderator. The account was created by Waimea, who was banned.
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