3 ms·

How do you get overgrown lawn in sun-scorched Phoenix without using absurd quantities of water in a desert that's running out of water?

kadoban 4y ago
Depends on the time of year. For maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the year, most of winter and anywhere near monsoon season, your grass will grow regardless of if you water it or not.
- 1letterunixname 4y ago
  Phoenix gets 1.50" or 38 mm of rain per year. Kuwait City gets double that. It's Phoenix: it's hot as hell and the insolation is crazy such that it's optimal for solar deployments. If you don't water your grass daily when it's over 90 F / 32 C, then it will die. That's a shit ton of water for a decoration. https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/104331~2460~8004~2228~1705/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Kuwait-City-Phoenix-Austin-Las-Vegas-and-Los-Angeles https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/104331~2460~8004~2228~170...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kadoban 4y ago
    > If you don't water your grass daily when it's over 90 F / 32 C, then it will die. This is just completely untrue. Many places water ~biweekly in the summer and the grass is green as hell. Also, in monsoon season it rains enough on its own that you don't have to bother. I also made sure to specify that it's mostly the winter and monsoon season where it'll grow on its own. Winter it does _not_ get over 90.
kortilla 4y ago
If op is in Phoenix proper (which is implied by the historic district), the water comes from the salt river, which now has all 3 reservoirs full upstream of the city. Additionally, the Sonoran desert is a monsoonal one, so it receives a deluge of water during particular times of the year. There is a massive amount of water waste in Arizona, but it’s in agriculture, not lawns.
- 1letterunixname 4y ago
  One crime doesn't justify another. It's a lot of water for nonproductive purposes in an area that is destined for permanent, intense desertification. The southwest, like most of the south Iberian peninsula, is going the way of desert and will not be able to sustain open-air agriculture much longer. Climate change. https://crt-climate-explorer.nemac.org/climate_maps/?county=Maricopa+County&city=Phoenix%2C+AZ&fips=04013&lat=33.4483771&lon=-112.07403729999999&id=pcpn https://crt-climate-explorer.nemac.org/climate_maps/?county=...
  - kortilla 4y ago
    It’s not a crime. Residents pay a real market rate for water and if they want to spray it on their lawn, go for it. What’s a crime is people with water rights for agriculture that pay effectively nothing and flood a field to grow alfalfa. This behavior is completely unsustainable and uses orders of magnitude more water than the residents who pay for it. If they paid the same rate, these dumb crops would be cut off immediately and the water crisis would be over in a month. Anything calling attention to residential water use is agriculture propaganda to keep the focus on neighbors chastising each other rather than considering meaningful legislation that would end the gravy train for them.
andrewmcwatters 4y ago
I don't water my lawn. It still grows. We get rain and it's more than enough for the grasses that grow here to prevent lawns from turning into dirt yards. It's not like a cartoon out here where everyone lives on sand dunes. They won't be healthy, but they absolutely will grow, and very tall. I'm actively trying to kill it. It's difficult and takes weeks to turn it into a dirt yard. You still have to dethatch and do everything anyone else has to do across the country. You're also encouraged to participate in water conservation as a Phoenician, or an Arizonan in general.

kadoban 4y ago

Depends on the time of year. For maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the year, most of winter and anywhere near monsoon season, your grass will grow regardless of if you water it or not.

1letterunixname 4y ago
Phoenix gets 1.50" or 38 mm of rain per year. Kuwait City gets double that. It's Phoenix: it's hot as hell and the insolation is crazy such that it's optimal for solar deployments. If you don't water your grass daily when it's over 90 F / 32 C, then it will die. That's a shit ton of water for a decoration. https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/104331~2460~8004~2228~1705/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Kuwait-City-Phoenix-Austin-Las-Vegas-and-Los-Angeles https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/104331~2460~8004~2228~170...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kadoban 4y ago
  > If you don't water your grass daily when it's over 90 F / 32 C, then it will die. This is just completely untrue. Many places water ~biweekly in the summer and the grass is green as hell. Also, in monsoon season it rains enough on its own that you don't have to bother. I also made sure to specify that it's mostly the winter and monsoon season where it'll grow on its own. Winter it does _not_ get over 90.

kortilla 4y ago

If op is in Phoenix proper (which is implied by the historic district), the water comes from the salt river, which now has all 3 reservoirs full upstream of the city. Additionally, the Sonoran desert is a monsoonal one, so it receives a deluge of water during particular times of the year. There is a massive amount of water waste in Arizona, but it’s in agriculture, not lawns.

1letterunixname 4y ago
One crime doesn't justify another. It's a lot of water for nonproductive purposes in an area that is destined for permanent, intense desertification. The southwest, like most of the south Iberian peninsula, is going the way of desert and will not be able to sustain open-air agriculture much longer. Climate change. https://crt-climate-explorer.nemac.org/climate_maps/?county=Maricopa+County&city=Phoenix%2C+AZ&fips=04013&lat=33.4483771&lon=-112.07403729999999&id=pcpn https://crt-climate-explorer.nemac.org/climate_maps/?county=...
- kortilla 4y ago
  It’s not a crime. Residents pay a real market rate for water and if they want to spray it on their lawn, go for it. What’s a crime is people with water rights for agriculture that pay effectively nothing and flood a field to grow alfalfa. This behavior is completely unsustainable and uses orders of magnitude more water than the residents who pay for it. If they paid the same rate, these dumb crops would be cut off immediately and the water crisis would be over in a month. Anything calling attention to residential water use is agriculture propaganda to keep the focus on neighbors chastising each other rather than considering meaningful legislation that would end the gravy train for them.

andrewmcwatters 4y ago

I don't water my lawn. It still grows. We get rain and it's more than enough for the grasses that grow here to prevent lawns from turning into dirt yards. It's not like a cartoon out here where everyone lives on sand dunes. They won't be healthy, but they absolutely will grow, and very tall. I'm actively trying to kill it. It's difficult and takes weeks to turn it into a dirt yard. You still have to dethatch and do everything anyone else has to do across the country. You're also encouraged to participate in water conservation as a Phoenician, or an Arizonan in general.