Stop wasting water on your lawn

Your yard might be using more clean water than your showers and laundry combined, and the wild part is you may not even notice it. We sit down with Noelle Johnson, author of The Water Smart Garden, to get honest about outdoor water use, aquifer depletion, and the everyday habits that quietly waste water in both dry climates and “water-rich” regions like the upper Midwest.

We dig into the biggest misconception behind a water-smart garden: overwatering. Noelle explains why too much irrigation can weaken plant structure, invite pests like aphids, and even suffocate roots by pushing oxygen out of the soil. We also talk about how to observe your landscape during hot spells so you can identify which plants are constantly begging for water and which ones stay strong with minimal help. The goal is simple: resilient landscaping that handles heat waves and temperature swings without turning you into a full-time plant babysitter.

Then we climb onto the lawn soapbox. We separate functional lawns you actually use from decorative turf that exists only because it’s the default. You’ll hear practical lawn replacement ideas, from flowering perennials and shrubs to ground covers that deliver the same “green carpet” look with a fraction of the water and far fewer chemicals, plus better support for pollinators and birds.

To wrap up, Noelle shares two quick upgrades you can do right now: rethink what you plant in containers and switch from inefficient hose watering to a soaker hose, with an optional timer for easy scheduling. If you found value here, subscribe, share this with a friend who overwaters, and leave a review so more people can build beautiful, water-wise yards.

Learn more about getting your own Rebel Garden at ABetterYard.org.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Water Matters

Brad Tabke 0:05

Hello and welcome my friend to a Better Yard Podcast. It is my honor to have you here with us today. My name is Brad Tadke. I'm the founder of A Better Yard and just so happy to have you here with us where we have another great interview for you. It's been a while since we've had an interview episode of the A Better Yard Podcast, but we have the author of The Water Smart Garden, and Noelle Johnson just hits all of the right notes for me. She was amazing and she was wonderful to talk with, and it was just a wonderful, wonderful episode. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. We talk a lot about uh water, obviously, in our landscape and the importance of saving clean water. And so it's really a really great episode, and we knock on lawns quite a bit. So that is uh there's a trigger warning for all of you folks that really like lawns um we talk a lot about how we need to remove them in order to save water and to make the world a better place as we go forward. So here is my interview with Noelle Johnson, the author of The Water Smart Garden. All right, hello and welcome, my friends. I'm excited to have another great guest with us here today, the author of uh The Water Smart Garden. We have Noelle Johnson here with us today to talk about the importance of water and conservation in our landscapes. And so thank you so much, Noelle, for being with here with us.

Noelle Johnson 1:24

It's my pleasure. Thank you.

Meet Noelle Johnson And Her Work

Brad Tabke 1:26

So it's uh wonderful to have you here. I always love having guests. Those are my favorite podcasts to do, especially when uh someone has uh written a really smart book. So if you want to give everybody just a little background on yourself and what uh what how you got to this point.

Noelle Johnson 1:41

All right. Well, I um am a California native who now lives in the desert southwest. And I have a degree in uh botany with a specialty in urban horticulture. And what I do is I help people garden in dry climates. But more specifically, as I have gone along this journey, I have realized how much it's not just a regional issue with watering, because many areas throughout the country, including the upper Midwest, is overpumping their aquifers. So this the demand is a lot bigger than the supply. And so over time, it's it's it's a big issue. And over time, there's not going to be much left in the aquifers unless we really take a look at how much water are we using around our outdoor spaces. And oftentimes you would be surprised at the percentage of your household water use that goes to the outdoors. So it's an area where you can really make a big difference.

The Biggest Water-Smart Misconception

Brad Tabke 2:45

Yeah, that's so important for people to know as to how critical this is and just how much water we use, especially if you have an irrigation system and a lawn that uh is really, really needy and that kind of thing. And we'll get to those in just a moment here with everything. But I want to start with a uh question just to see what your thoughts are. Like, what kinds of things do people not understand? Like, what's a big misconception today with having a water smart garden? Like, what are people missing?

Noelle Johnson 3:13

I think the biggest issue is people water their plants more than they need to. We can't help but baby our plants. We feed them fertilizer when they don't need it, we prune them when they don't necessarily need it, and we water them when they don't need it. And in fact, more plants die from overwatering than underwatering. It's a real thing. So we need to kind of relook at what do we have in our landscapes? Do we have plants that need water all the time? Like we're always having to water them on those hot days where they start to wilt, or instead have a landscape filled with plants that really do pretty well and maybe only need supplemental water now and then. It's interesting because what comes to mind when you talk to people about low-water plants or drought tolerant plants, you think of some pretty ugly plants. Let's just be clear. Right, exactly. Nothing could be further from the truth. Are drought tolerant plants there's so much beauty to them uh with their flowers and their sh natural shapes and foliage in all kinds of colors. And I will say at a uh visit to Minneapolis a few years ago, I was shocked at how many, how many succulents and cacti I saw people growing. Now, these are things that I grow in my bac backyard all the time. But you all are growing oven pots, and they're being sold in nurseries. And I was just I was just I was I was gobsmacked. I was like, I can't believe it was great. I said container plants, succulents look great. I was really surprised. It was it was it was a very welcome surprise.

Aquifers And The Cost Of Overwatering

Brad Tabke 4:58

Yeah, prickly pear cactus is actually uh native to southwest Minnesota and Nebraska and Iowa, and so it's uh we've got a lot of it. There's a state park in southwest Minnesota that I like to go to a lot called Blue Mound State Park, and uh it's on the prairie and it's got a punch of uh prickly pear cactus there. So it's uh people don't I think you're absolutely right, is it people don't understand exactly how beautiful and gorgeous like these drought tolerant things, because especially our prairie plants, they had to live through, they evolved and they grew through having dry spells, and so they need to be able to uh to be able to handle those. So what that kind of leads me to what do you think is one is a thing that people should care about with water? Like a lot of people think that this is, as we talked before, this started like a lot of people just assume that water problems are a southwest US problem and uh those kinds of things. But why should everyone in other regions, even like where we're at in uh the upper Midwest that has abundant clean water or had abundant clean water, we'll see what happens here in the near future. But why should they care about this type of landscaping?

Noelle Johnson 6:04

Well, let's talk about um a little bit of reality here. So 3% of the world's fresh water, 3% of our water supply is fresh water in the world, but less than 1% of that is available for our use. The rest of it's all frozen, at least now it might be melting.

Brad Tabke 6:23

Who knows? Yeah.

Noelle Johnson 6:25

And so that's a very, very small percentage of water. And if you're not super concerned about the availability of water, which as I mentioned, we're overpumping aquifers. This is happening in Minnesota as well. We are pumping out this water supply before it's natural, before um, we're out pumping before water can filter back down in there from rainfall and snow and things like that. So that's one reason to think about that and think about what we're leaving for future generations. But also, we have to talk about overwatering your plants. That's not healthy for your plants. What that does is it creates kind of some um floppy excess growth, which is more attractive to bugs, by the way. You're gonna have a lot more aphids and and things like that that are going to attack that nice brand new foliage, and your plants won't have as nice a structure or shape because they're just too much water forces them to grow too fast before they have the internal structures to kind of hold themselves up. And when it comes to water, it's kind of interesting to learn how it affects plants because we know plants have roots in the ground, but plants also need oxygen. And they get their oxygen from the soil. So oxygen, as you know, resides in those little spaces in between um the individual soil particles. So when we water our plants, it flushes out the oxygen and water floods those areas, which is fine. Um, and then ideally that area, those um areas around the roots dry up and the oxygen returns. When we are always watering, it the oxygen doesn't really have time to come back and build up. And so we see issues with plants slowly, slowly suffocating. And so a really great strategy, I think, for homeowners is this summer on I want you to observe your your your your garden areas around your home. Look at for those plants that show signs of wilting, like on those really hot, maybe high 90, low nine, excuse me, low 90 degree days, some part of the country. I've been in Minneapolis when it's 90 degrees and it's a little humid.

Brad Tabke 8:37

Yeah.

Noelle Johnson 8:38

And we want to observe what plants are doing really well. Which ones do we constantly have to go out and water to keep them going? And that's an invitation to us to to consider pulling out maybe those plants that we're always having to water. And also that can really restrict you in terms of going on vacation because house sitters don't always water your plants the way you tell them to. I've heard exactly horror stories of people coming home to dead or plants or those that are barely surviving.

Brad Tabke 9:05

Especially when it's the neighbor kids that you ask to do it, which is not gonna work. So yeah, exactly.

Noelle Johnson 9:10

It's not gonna work. Uh so look at those plants that you're always having to provide supplemental water to. If it's not a favorite plant, look for some drought tolerant or low water types that will do well. Now, a great place to look are natives because they have evolved in that particular climate. Most botanical gardens have a low water or a drought tolerant section, and that's a really great way to great place to go and walk around, take pictures of the plants, those that you like, and you can replicate that in your own landscape. I think our goal is really to create more resilient landscapes because we know the weather's doing really crazy things. I mean, as you we talked about earlier, winter doesn't want to let go. And so a try, you know, you have some nice spring days there and huge temperature swings, and then it says, nope, not so fast, we're gonna go right back down. And we're seeing things in plants that we've never seen before because they're experiencing these huge swings in temperature that is very hard for them to navigate those changes. Where I live, I live in the southwest, we're seeing it where we had one week in spring where we had one week of summer temperatures and broke all the records. And so all the plants were kind of shocked, and then we went right back down to normal. But we're still seeing event problems with plants, seeing um citrus trees uh defoliating and um, you know, kind of leaf burn on some of those plants. It just pushed out their little spring foliage and then it got super hot. So with the with the wild weather swings and things like that, we need to look at what plants are handling those well.

Brad Tabke 10:52

Exactly.

Choosing Plants For Wild Weather

Noelle Johnson 10:54

And have that conversation with yourself or your partner or your spouse. Okay, maybe it's time to look at something different in our own landscape area. Or if you have a favorite plant that you have to baby a bit, that's okay. But let's not have a landscape like filled with lots of them, you know. Just oh my goodness, it will lower your stress level so much, and you will still enjoy beautiful plants.

Functional Lawns Versus Decorative Lawns

Brad Tabke 11:21

Exactly. And it like one of those things as we talk about plants that get stressed and plants that need a lot of babying and work. Especially, I hold up your book again. Uh, your book is wonderful, and uh I was really excited about reading it, and especially the check the section that talked all about lawns and how we should remove uh a lot of our a lot of our lawns. Everybody listening here is no surprise uh to them that I I just dislike lawns. I think that they are they they have a use and that is great, and so when people need to use them, it is good. But in general, I think we have uh way too many lawns. So, what what are your thoughts on what should be happening with our lawns uh and and how does that intersect with uh being smart about water use?

Noelle Johnson 12:06

So with lawns, oh boy, I'm getting on my little soapbox here along with you.

Brad Tabke 12:11

Yay!

Lawn Replacements That Save Water

Noelle Johnson 12:13

Let's talk about non-functional lawns. These are lawns that their only purpose is decorative only. You know, if you have kids, if you've got dogs, if you are out there playing and using your lawn all the time, that's great. Make sure you're maintaining it correctly. Make sure that you're allowing it to grow a little taller than normal so you're shading those root zones. Hey, I'm giving you permission not to mow quite as often. When you mow, don't bag up your clippings. Let them drop, let them fall. They break down easily, they're gonna add nitrogen to the soil. Those things are going to be very helpful. But non-functional lawns are those that we plant just for looks. And we are putting so many chemicals on them every year to keep the grubs away, to uh prevent any fungal diseases, to kill the weeds. That's a never-ending battle. And do you want to be out there really mowing your lawn on a hot August day? No. There's other things that we would probably like to be doing. So, with a non-functional lawn area, yes, consider removing that. But there's so much invitation as to what you can do. Now, if you love plants and you like color and sh and textures and beauty, you can add beautiful flowering trubs and perennials and maybe some of those native prickly pear if you like cactus. It's okay if you don't like cactus, because not a lot of people don't. But it's the invitation to really create this beautiful area. If that does not float your boat, and you want something a little more low-key, then that's where ground covers come in. And we can introduce beautiful ground covers, and the way we plant them matters. So we want to plant them so that they lightly touch each other once they've grown out, and we can create this beautiful swath of green throughout the growing season. Bonus points if you select a flowering ground cover, um, those are lovely and supply food for pollinators, and that's always something fun for us to see. And so those kinds of ground covers planted together, they fulfill the exact same design element as a lawn does, but at a fraction of the water of the maintenance, and really need no chemical pesticides or anything like that.

Brad Tabke 14:25

Right. Absolutely. No, I I couldn't possibly agree with you more. That uh there are so many other great ways. And so we're working uh in the upper Midwest here really hard to uh educate people and help people transition lawn areas to more beelon mixes, and they're not all native plants that go in those mixes, but they're super helpful to a lot of pollinators and birds, and um just do a much better job than just like a standard Kentucky bluegrass and those kinds of things. So it's uh it's uh really, really important. And they don't by doing all those tactics, you don't have to use nearly as much water and it's uh and it saves a lot of clean water, which we need to make sure that we're doing here because we have a ton of polluted water, and it's just really important that we that we do that and um go forward there.

Noelle Johnson 15:10

Think about that when it rains and when it really rains, you know, our homes are sloped usually so that the water flows down to the street. So all those chemicals and everything you're putting on your lawn is flowing down the street and you know, getting into our water supply and our watershed. And also when you think of all those chemicals you have to put on your lawn, then you think of your kids playing on that. And um, if you know, if you love dogs like I do, and and your dogs are out there, they're they're in and among all of that. And it's it's you gotta start thinking of those safety issues as well.

Two Fast Upgrades You Can Do

Brad Tabke 15:44

Yeah, no, absolutely. Uh just the rise of uh uh cancer diagnoses is just skyrocketing, and uh it is very clear that chemicals are extremely linked to this, and we have to do we have to do things about it. So um, all right, so we're running up against the end time here, and I want to cover a couple more things uh with you today. So just uh mention to folks that uh the Water Smart Garden is your book, and it has uh really good uh tactical ways that you can make good solid changes in your yard, and as well as a lot of really great charts and tables as to what plants can be used and those kinds of things. And and so it's really great. So I encourage everyone to get it. We'll have the the link in the show notes as well from there. But I want to talk like really like one or two things that people can do starting out uh quickly here, if they really want to focus on water use, like what are a couple things we can do? And I'm gonna preface this just a little bit by saying a lot of the water use guidance that people get right now are really like major big things, like uh renovation of lawn and install a giant rain garden and put rain barrels out and all those kinds of things. Um and I those are obviously helpful and those are good. I don't necessarily know if those are the the best, most efficient use of people's time, but they can absolutely be helpful when they're needed. So, what are a couple things that you would suggest that just any normal person who wants to start being smarter about their water use and their landscapes, what are a couple things they can do?

Noelle Johnson 17:10

All right, I'm gonna have two things for you. First one, reconsider what you add in your pots. So flowering annuals are beautiful, they take a lot of water, and they also chain you to your house in the summer if they need water and you don't have them on an irrigation system. Instead, plant flowering perennials in your containers or even flowering shrubs. They are beautiful, they add actually a little more height and structure, and they use a fraction of the amount of water. So that's number one. The second one, instead of going out there with your hose and just watering your plants, that's very inefficient way to water. Because first of all, we don't have a we have no idea how much water is being applied. And Brad, what kind of soils do you have there? Sandy, clay, mixture?

Brad Tabke 17:57

Both. Yeah, it's a mix. Like in like suburban areas where where I'm at, uh they stole all the topsoil and we're just like a little bit of soil where the sod was, and then it's just pure clay for a lot of folks. And then uh you'll go. We also have veins of super sandy areas as well. So it's uh where the glaciers were, so it's uh it's a very wide-ranging, yeah.

Noelle Johnson 18:17

So where I live, we have clay soil, which is weird. You think all deserts have sand, they do not. We have a lot of clay where I live. I live in the Phoenix area. So when you are watering with a hose, oftentimes, especially if you have clay soil, that water runs off before it can really sink in and water the roots. And again, if it's a hot day or you've got a huge list of things to do, the last thing you want to do is out there and watering your plants. So consider using if you don't want to install a whole big drip system, which is a one of those bigger things, which is very useful, but there's a simpler way to do it, at least at the beginning, is just get a soaker hose. A soaker hose is made out of um permeable black rubber. It's a hose that you attach to your regular hose or your spigot outdoors, and it slowly weeps water among your plants. So it's a very slow watering, and it allows that water to permeate deeply into your plants. You can keep it in place for the whole season. You don't have to, or you know, if if you don't want to buy more than one, you can just move it around as needed to water your plants. But it's that slow trickle of water that is the absolute most efficient way we can water our plants. And you don't have to sit out there and stand there with your hose or your watering can. You can just do a soaker hose.

Brad Tabke 19:30

Beautiful. Do you uh is your recommendation for that if someone gets a timer for those kinds of things, or what's the best way to do that?

Noelle Johnson 19:36

You can get a timer, absolutely. Or if you want to be more focused on watering just when your plants are showing a little water stress, you can just turn that on when you think of it. But it's very easy, yes, it's very easy to get a timer that's gonna screw on to the outdoor faucet and it runs on double-A batteries or a nine-volt battery, and you just program how often you want it to go off, which leaves you free in the summer to go on vacation.

A Future With Fewer Lawns

Brad Tabke 20:02

Exactly. No, that's beautiful. So perfect. Well, I really appreciate all of those uh suggestions and just the the ethos around everything that you're doing. So thank you so much for being here. I'm gonna ask like one last question. Let's think about future. Like, what what do you hope for everyone that as they learn more about using water in their landscapes and in their yards? Like, what what do you hope will be our our future and what are we gonna try and get to?

Noelle Johnson 20:25

With the future, I hope that we have less lawns. The ones that we have should just be functional, ones that we are using. It shouldn't be the default. Got a house, putting in a new house. Okay, let's plant a lawn. That should not be the default. Lawns haven't really been a big part of of our planting ethos since the early 1900s. People here in the States. People are surprised at that. So that would be my my first goal is rethink that. Um, because the lawns are the biggest, thirstiest thing that we plant, and a huge percentage of all of our urban water, and that includes drinking water, goes to lawns.

The Better Yard Framework And Membership

Brad Tabke 21:06

Right. Yeah, absolutely. So it's the largest irrigated crop in the nation. So uh it's a goofy thing that we do to ourselves. So Noel, thank you so much for being here. It's just been lovely, and I appreciate your time, and I appreciate you sharing uh all of your knowledge with folks. And I hope that next time I'm in uh Arizona we can say hi, or next time you're in Minnesota, just make sure to reach out.

Noelle Johnson 21:26

That would be awesome. Thank you, Brad.

Brad Tabke 21:28

Perfect, thank you. See what I mean? That was just so much fun chatting with Noelle about how important it is to save clean water in our yards. And so, saving clean water is of course one of the four pillars of what we do here at a better yard. So we have the F's framework, which is eliminate chemicals, feed birds and pollinators, save clean water, and store carbon. So those are the four things we work everything around here at A Better Yard. And you can learn a lot more of that. Go to abetteryard.com and you can also become a Member at a better yard. So if you can get a first month for just seven dollars, use the promo code podcast, and from there it's $37 a month after that. But we work really hard, it's just a wonderful, wonderful community of folks who are working to eliminate chemicals, save and feed birds and pollinators, save clean water, and to store carbon. So it's a really great group, and I hope you uh are in that transition where you really want to learn how to do this better in your landscapes. And we are here to help you anywhere in the upper Midwest. Make sure to join us. You can join from anywhere, actually, but we're focused on upper Midwest uh homeowners. So thank you so much for being here, and we'll see you again next week.