Yard long on color, short on water

A typical Utah residential landscape likely has most of its area planted in bluegrass lawn and maybe a few trees and shrubs. For something a little more imaginative, a lot more water wise, that uses more interesting plants, we make this week's stop at the Utah House in Kaysville.

The house itself is an interesting study in building materials, green technology and energy efficiency that is a different story for a different writer. The landscape is an ingenious blend of water harvesting, water-wise design and water-wise plants. Anne Spranger, landscape planner for the Utah Botanical Center at the Utah House, is the force behind the design.

Spranger spent her early years in Colorado and obtained a bachelor's degree in fine arts. For most of her life, she worked in the nursery industry — in greenhouses, on planting crews, doing sprinkler installations and many other jobs. Her love of fine arts and of plants led her to her long-term employment.

She got her master's degree in landscape architecture from Utah State University and started working at USU when she graduated. She teaches residential landscape design and helps with campus projects, but her major focus is the Utah Botanical Center.

The Utah House presented Spranger with interesting challenges. "We had a landscape-design committee that came up with the design criteria. We wanted a colorful landscape that conserved water that did not stand out so much that people were turned off by the looks of the landscape," she said.

According to the team directives, "The goal of the Utah House landscape is to raise awareness and educate the public about the value of home landscapes and their ability to conserve water and save energy.

"The Utah House landscape promotes the use of appropriate plants for Utah's home landscapes, demonstrates practical methods of water and energy conservation, and showcases a functional and aesthetically pleasing landscape that is in context with Utah's desert climate. The term being used to describe this is water-wise landscaping."

With that directive, Spranger and other members of her staff went to work. They had many different factors to consider. Some of them were traditional, while others were unique to their site.

One non-traditional design aspect that caught my interest is the water collection cistern.

Rain and melting snow are collected from the roof and stored in a 6,500-gallon, underground water-storage cistern.