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Water conservation as a concept is almost
universally supported. In practice, however, water conservation
programs can be difficult to implement and even harder to evaluate.
Yet, the potential of water conservation to enhance the value of
Arizona's scarce water resources cannot be ignored. That potential
is high for municipal water uses, the fastest-growing demand sector.
It is particularly compelling for outdoor water uses such as landscape
irrigation, in part because indoor demand becomes effluent, which
can be used or recharged, while outdoor demand is lost through evaporation
and evapotranspiration.
Still, significant barriers to water-efficient landscaping remain. These
include the difficulty of eradicating existing turf, the growing aversion
to landscapes that take water conservation to extremes (so-called zero-scapes
or hardscapes), and difficulties in selecting drought-tolerant plants
that will create an inviting outdoor area.
The need for a more comprehensive, easy-to-use information source on drought-tolerant
landscaping was recognized by the Groundwater Users Advisory Committee
of the Arizona Department of Water Resources' Tucson Active Management
Area. In 1995, they funded a conservation assistance project submitted
by the University of Arizona's Water Resources Research Center to develop
a multi-media CD-ROM on landscaping with drought-tolerant plants. A year
of development produced Desert Landscaping: Plants for A Water-Scarce
Environment.
The heart of the CD-ROM is a multi-media data base on some 600 drought-tolerant
landscape plants. There are nearly 100 items of information for each plant,
including common and botanical name, size and growth characteristics,
water, sun, soil and temperature needs, xeriscape zone, flower color and
season, growth rate, habitat value, area of origin, and dozens of others.
In addition, there are multiple pictures of each plant, including a whole-plant
shot, a close-up of its flower or seed pod, and the plant within a landscape.
Pronunciations of the common and botanical names also are included.
Gathering all the necessary information and pictures for such a massive
data base was greatly assisted by a 22-member project advisory panel consisting
of many of the foremost experts on desert plants in the Tucson and Phoenix
metropolitan areas. The group included nursery owners, professors, master
gardeners, and landscape architects. Individual panel members made available
their photo and slide collections, provided data for particular plant
categories, verified data base entries, and pronounced botanical names.
As a group, the panel discussed issues of how people seek information
on plants, how to warn of plant shortcomings such as poisonous seeds or
invasiveness, and served as a sounding board for prototype user interfaces.
Towards the end of the project, several panelists served as beta testers.
The programming challenge was to provide users with multiple ways to seek
information on low water-use plants through an intuitive and attractive
program interface. The final design provides analogs to three common ways
of obtaining information on desert plants -- looking them up in a reference
book, visiting a botanical garden, and questioning a plant expert. The
reference book analog is an alphabetized list of plant names, which the
user can switch between common names and botanical names. A name is selected
either by typing it or clicking on it with a mouse.
The botanical garden analog is a series of award-winning landscapes, including
front and back yards, patio areas, and poolsides. After selecting a landscape,
the user explores it with the mouse. As the mouse cursor passes over particular
plants, their names pop on screen. Clicking on a plant selects it.
The plant expert analog is the CD's Plant Selector. This is perhaps the
most useful approach for selecting plants. From a screen of plant attribute
categories, the user first selects one or more broad plant categories,
such as trees or groundcovers (see screen shots, bottom of previous page).
At this point, the user can search for all plants in that category, or
can narrow the search by selecting plant characteristics. For example,
one can search for deciduous vines with blue flowers that can withstand
full sun and is native of Africa. The search displays matching plants
as small "thumbnail" pictures. Clicking on one of these pictures
selects that plant. If the search produces too many or too few matches,
the search criteria can be tightened or relaxed.
The plant selector can be used as a research tool to answer questions
and discover patterns among desert plants. How do the colors of flowers
vary with the time of year in which they bloom? Why are so many trees
native to Australia relatively short-lived? What percent of drought-tolerant
shrubs are native to Africa? What color flowers attract hummingbirds?
Regardless of the approach used to select a plant, or which plant is selected,
the program displays the same basic plant information screen (see screen
shots). Common and botanical names and their pronunciations, pictures,
basic information and a quote from a plant book or authority all are displayed.
More detailed botanical data, such as leaf description and area of origin,
are revealed by clicking the "additional information" button.
Every picture on the CD can be enlarged to full screen size by clicking
on it, and all screens can be printed out.
While the heart of the program is the searchable plant data base, other
useful information is included. The Landscape Tips section covers 24 topics
including selecting plants, what is a desert, how to kill bermuda grass,
a primer on native plant laws, how to attract wildlife to your garden,
and the fundamentals of insect and disease control. Over 200 screens of
information address the most common questions and problems facing the
desert landscaper.
Other features include a plant trivia game and bibliography. The trivia
game tests your knowledge of drought-tolerant plants and deserts with
hundreds of questions organized into six categories and three levels of
difficulty. An illustrated bibliography reviews 24 of the most valuable
desert plant reference works, describing the particular strengths of each.
A follow-up grant from the Tucson AMA is being used to develop touch-screen
electronic kiosk versions of Desert Landscaping. The goal is
to make the information available in public places to all persons, even
those completely unfamiliar with computers, mice and keyboards. Eventually,
some kiosks will be permanently located in public places such as botanical
gardens, while others are temporarily placed at water conservation events
and plant shows.
Desert Landscaping is the product of much of the staff of the
Water Resources Research Center, some extension personnel, a dedicated
expert advisory panel, and dozens of others. Their combined talent and
expertise, as well as their deep interest in water-efficient landscapes,
is reflected in this CD-ROM.
The CD-ROM represents the Water Center's ongoing efforts to use "new
media" to more widely and effectively disseminate water resource
information. Clearly, traditional print media still is highly useful means
of communication, and will constitute the bulk of the Water Center's publications
for the foreseeable future. But new media has unique strengths as well,
and additional publications in the form of CD-ROMs and Web sites are being
planned.
Desert Landscaping is available for either Windows or Macintosh
computers with double-speed or faster CD-ROM drives. Hardware requirements
for PCs are a 486 or Pentium-class CPU, Windows 3.x, NT, or Win95, and
4mb RAM (8mb highly recommended). A sound card is optional. Requirements
for Macintosh systems are a Centris 650 (68040, 25 mHz) or better, System
7.1 or later, and 8mb RAM (12mb highly recommended).
VISIT THE
DESERT LANDSCAPING CD-ROM WALKTHROUGH
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