Sustainability. Green design. LEED® (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certification. We now have dozens of buzz words in the design and development industry to remind us not only that environmentally friendly design is the going trend, but also that it’s here to stay.

“Xeriscaping” is another one of those words. It was coined by the Denver, Colorado, Water Department in the early 1980s to capture the concept of designing a landscape using native plants that conserve water. Since that time, the concept has taken off in the Western states of the U.S. where water is scarce and more cities and towns are enforcing water-saving practices.

“It really was a water issue that drove it here in the West,” says Galen Drake, a senior landscape architect in the Phoenix office of Stantec, a design and consulting firm. “But now it’s become the norm.”

According to Drake, early on, developers in the West fought landscape design restrictions, arguing that large green lawns and rows of palm trees are what sell properties. But as it became apparent over the next decade that landscape design could be colorful and attractive without traditional green lawns, developers and consumers in water-scarce regions have embraced the practice wholeheartedly. For instance, in North Scottsdale, Arizona, Drake says, “some developments are an entirely desert landscape. It’s become a real sales tool.”

East Meets West

But move toward the U.S. East Coast, and that acceptance fades, primarily thanks to misconceptions of what water-efficient landscape design means. “A lot of people think it just means a bunch of cactus,” Drake says. “But you can still have a lot of texture, color, and variation.”

The “cactus and crushed stone” misconception of water-efficient landscape design still permeates much of the East, where such a style of landscape design is obviously inappropriate, both in environmental and aesthetic contexts. And with the amount of rain the temperate eastern climate gets, landscape architects in this region haven’t had to take the idea especially serious. Large, green lawns have always been the hallmark of success and real estate beauty, and for many developers, it’s not worth gambling that market draw for a little-known “western” practice that has yet to prove itself in the East.

With the increasing popularity of the LEED system, however, that attitude is changing. The LEED program’s checklist for new construction includes several credits that relate to landscape and site design, such as habitat protection measures, the amount of open space, and the use of water-efficient plant materials. As more developers have begun seeking LEED certification for their projects, landscape architects have followed suit, investigating the design options for a landscape that isn’t dependent on irrigation. And that, essentially, is water-efficient landscape design.

“You wouldn’t start a building project now without giving serious consideration to looking at each checkpoint in the LEED standards,” says Jan Machnik, Senior Vice President at Davis Marcus Partners, a Boston-based development firm. “If you’re not thinking about energy-efficiency and how to make the building environment better for people, then you’re making a ­mistake.”

From Green Lawns to a “Green” Approach

According to Machnik, market demands in the Northeast are starting to include environmentally friendly practices and products, despite the long-standing reign of the lush green lawn. “The barrier to entry into development projects is stronger in the Northeast than in other areas of the country,” he says. “There’s a longer history of development in the Northeast, it’s more densely populated than many areas, and rules are more strict so you can’t just put up a new building in the snap of a finger.”

He says the tenants and clients of Davis Marcus Partners’ are now more educated and more interested in green design, so using LEED techniques and practices is becoming a must, and that includes landscape design.

“It’s a tough thing,” explains Machnik, “to get over the hurdle that maybe native plantings and arid-tolerant plantings can be appreciated by users. That’s a leap that hasn’t been tested much yet.”

But Machnik and his firm are making that leap in several commercial development ventures in New England, including one complex dubbed 850 Winter Street in Waltham, Massachusetts—an important commercial hub in Boston’s Metro-West area. This 180,000-square-foot commercial building, by architect Elkus-Manfredi, was designed with LEED certification in mind, making low-water landscape design an essential site component. The planners and landscape architects in Stantec’s Boston office have been helping the company not only to address the design aspects of the site, but also to fully understand the environmental benefits and what the resulting landscape will look like. In short, they’re helping the developer shift from a “green lawn” approach to an approach that embraces the varying colors that naturally result in that landscape in the given season.

At 850 Winter Street, the landscape development plan contains roughly three “zones” of landscape, each with differing water requirements: “traditional” irrigated lawn, low-irrigation shrub beds, and non-irrigated “natural” areas.

The area of irrigated lawn is greatly reduced at 850 Winter Street compared to the typical commercial properties in the vicinity. In the past, landscape architects used lawn areas as the “field” in their artistic compositions and added shrubs, groundcovers, and ornamental trees as the “objects.” Since turf is the heaviest user of water, fertilizer, and maintenance dollars, it makes sense to reverse the amounts of lawn relative to other landscape treatments.

The irrigated shrub and groundcover areas of the site will rely on drip irrigation rather than the typical spray heads. Drip irrigation uses a network of tubing and emitters to supply water directly to the root zones of plants, which greatly reduces evaporation, runoff, and over-watering problems. Over time, the drip irrigation system can be eliminated or will stop working and not need to be replaced as the carefully selected plant species adapt to the existing soils, climate, and site hydrology.

The non-irrigated areas make up the largest percentage of the site and are composed of existing woodlands; grasses and wildflowers, of which many will naturally go dormant in the dry summer months; and mulched plant beds that contain drought-tolerant plants, both native and introduced.  A temporary source for hand watering is provided for the shrub beds so that the plants can establish healthy root systems during the first year or two. It’s anticipated that no additional irrigation will be required once these plants are acclimatized.  

How a Landscape Architect Can Help

A landscape architect is an important partner for developers looking to become more environmentally responsible, whether driven by LEED criteria, changing regulations, or simply a greener business model. The landscape architects working on the 850 Winter Street project considered a number of approaches for applying water-efficient landscape design principles, many of which can be used for any project, whether in the West, the East, or somewhere in between.

1. Reduce decorative turf. Trimming down the amount of grass turf on a site has the most impact of any water-saving technique. Large, green lawns require a tremendous amount of water and chemical treatments to maintain their color and health, so keeping them to a minimum cuts out both the environmental impacts and the financial expenses of such intensive, ongoing maintenance.
    
2. Get creative with ground cover. Think about the natural environments in your area—fields, forests, etc.—and the types of groundcover you find in them. Most likely, those plant materials naturally thrive in that climate with very little attention. Replace water-soaking turf with these types of materials, matching the look of the plants to the desired aesthetic of your site. These materials could include fields, meadows, grass in its natural color and condition, low-lying junipers and other shrubs, or even areas of stone mulch.
    
3. Reuse stored roof water. Clean water from roof runoff can be captured and stored for irrigation. While this isn’t a perfect solution—many climates experience little rain for months at a time—it at least helps conserve what water does fall on the site and reuses it, even if only in small amounts.
    
4. Educate. The easiest way to get clients’ or project partners’ endorsement of water-efficient landscape design principles is to inform them of the benefits. Demonstrate how making wise environmental choices isn’t only about conserving water; it can also yield attractive, appealing results. Developers often understand the pros and cons of water-efficient landscape design, but they’re worried potential buyers won’t accept the changing aesthetic of the “shrinking lawn.” That’s where education can help.

For the 850 Winter Street project, for instance, Stantec and Davis Marcus Partners worked together to develop an educational component to the development’s marketing package that informs perspective buyers of the unique landscape design, its purpose, expectations, and benefits. These materials are also being converted into interpretive signage panels for the site to help make the building’s tenants and visitors aware of the underlying workings of the “natural lawn” and the beds of shrubs.

“We liked the idea of putting together information for our tenants and prospective users so they understand what efforts we have made to conform to green standards and how they can participate,” says Machnik. “It helps them learn what it’s all about and what they can do.”

A New Kind of Aesthetic

By converting the principles of water-efficient landscape design into environmentally and aesthetically acceptable practices for sites such as 850 Winter Street, landscape architects like Stantec are helping developers and their customers slowly but surely accept water-conserving measures into the marketplace as sustainable design continues to build steam.

Will home owners in New England begin trading green lawns for yards full of cactus and rock formations? Probably not. But as more developers like Davis Marcus Partners embrace the concept of water-efficient landscape design and its aesthetic results at their highly visible properties, those home buyers may begin to trade some of their ultra-green lawns for areas of low-water plant materials, meadow grasses, efficient irrigation systems, and mulches. And that’s really the kind of green that counts. SLDT