Bamberger Ranch

Need another reason to let your St. Augustine parch this summer? Check out Bamberger Ranch Preserve, a land reclamation project/working ranch in Johnson City.

Ever eat Church's fried chicken? David Bamberger got rich selling it to you, and then bought the scrubbiest, most over-grazed tract of land he could find in Texas and began to turn back the clock. He replaced thirsty cedar with native grasses and watched as water pooled in dry gullies and dead springs bubbled back to life. And as the water came back, so did birds and other animals, and the deer got fatter (and tastier!), and now people who thought Mr. Bamberger was crazy (he had a hard time convincing his realtor that he really did want the worst possible acreage) are coming to him for advice.

You can see the ranch yourself if you call and ask for a tour. And after you've read this post, re-read APL's other recent water-conservation blog entries, Dig Holes and Dry Gardening with the City.

Here are links to David Bamberger's book about his ranch, Water from Stone: The Story of Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve, and other books on water conservation on the shelves of your Austin Public Library:

Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought, James G. Workman

Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What to Do About It,
Robert Jerome Glennon

Rain Gardens: Managing Water Sustainably in the Garden and Designed Landscape, Nigel Dunnett

Dry Gardening with the City

Is this beautiful spring weather luring you outside into your garden? Don't let the recent rains wash your memory clean of those painful watering bills of the summer of 2009! The drought may have been declared over officially, but summer in Texas is still, well, summer in Texas.

The City of Austin is eager to help you splash less of Lake Travis on your yard this year. If you have an underground sprinkler system and use more than 25,000 gallons of water a month, you qualify for a free irrigation audit, which would otherwise cost you anywhere from $60-$100. After your audit, if you're inspired to become water stingy, you'll want to install some of the plants featured in the City of Austin's beautiful booklet Native and Adapted Landscape Plants: an Earthwise Guide for Central Texas. Boxes of the guide were delivered to all Austin Public Libraries, but call your branch before you go pick up your free copy; they go fast. (You can see the plant list from the guide online.)

Let the city help you replace some of the water you won’t be sucking from the lake by catching rainwater in city-subsidized barrels, and use the city’s list of wet-and-dry-tolerant plants to create a rain garden so that the water that falls on your land trickles into the aquifer instead of racing down the street into the sewer. (The library also has these city-published booklets: Green Neighbor: Clean Creek Challenge and Green Neighbor: Green City Challenge, with more advice for living lightly on our watershed.)

Take a look at the city’s environmental portal; it aggregates all of Austin’s programs, rebates, publications, demonstrations, lists, and tips. It'll keep you surfing for hours. And be sure to re-read this excellent blog on water conservation from another of your Austin Public librarians: Dig Holes.

Have a drier and a cheaper summer.