If you are responsible for the upkeep of a parking lot that is attached to a business, facility or apartment/condominium complex, you already know how important it is to keep that parking lot as clean and attractive as possible. These outside areas are reflections of the businesses they’re connected to, and the more appealing the parking area is, the more customers/clients/potential residents they attract. So it makes sense to pay close attention to the narrow strips of landscaping within and adjacent to parking lots. But there’s another reason why this landscaping is important: choosing the right plants for parking strips can help to protect your pavement.
Water is one of the worst enemies of pavement. And while we can’t do much about pavement’s exposure to rainfall, we can do plenty to protect our paved surfaces from irrigation water. The most effective way to do this is to choose drought-tolerant plants for your parking lot landscaping. These hardy plants not only require very little irrigation water; they’re generally low maintenance when compared to other plants.
Here are some helpful tips to create attractive, drought-tolerant, parking lot landscaping that will not only attract visitors but preserve your pavement at the same time:
- Avoid planting trees in parking strips. As nice as it is to enjoy the shade provided by trees, most require a significant amount of watering, and tree roots can easily damage surrounding pavement within a few short years.
- Consider hardscape. While gravel on its own may not be appealing, you can use gravel in combination with other drought-tolerant plants to create attractive parking strip landscaping. Decorative bunch grasses in combination with colored gravel, for example, can create a landscape that is not only beautiful, but also one that requires very little water and maintenance.
- Avoid grass. Although there are some types of drought-tolerant turf available, generally speaking it’s best to simply not consider grass as an option for parking strips.
- Ask your landscape professional and/or garden center for shrubs, grasses and ground covers that do well in your local area but require very little water and maintenance. When considering shrubs, look for those that are evergreen, water-wise, and remain relatively short throughout their lifecycle.
Depending on the climate, there are many drought-tolerant options that can be combined to create parking lot landscapes that are not only appealing, but easy to care for, and require very little irrigation. Remember that choosing drought-tolerant plants for your parking lot landscaping can save water and your pavement as well!