Stella Martinez in the garden of dilemna and da limes

It's garden time in Pueblo. The juices are flowing, trees have budded, the perennials have let it be known if they survived the winter or not and it is time to replant, fertilize, turn earth and prepare for the summer blaze. Pueblo is considered a prairie environ... meaning that we get about 8" of rainfall a season and our summer temperatures hover around 105.... but, as we keep reminding ourselves like a broken record... it's a dry heat. As if this someway assuages the challange of digging molten tar deposits from your shoe before getting into the car.

I love my garden and have created an oasis in the midst of miles of urban heat islands. A place of sanctuary where the sun ripped soul can reconsititute itself and live to face another unrelenting daze of beating heat. The challange, though, is that my garden takes water... lots and lots of water. And in the midst of an extended drought this is considered by many as extreme sacrilege, up there with child abuse.

I read somewhere that in fifty years having clean water readily available is going to make the current oil crisis look like an afternoon in an air-conditioned movie theatre. Our local paper, The Pueblo Chieftain, runs daily articles on the plight of diminishing water reserves. Farmers are forced to dry up more acreage to satisfy a contract with Kansas that went awry shortly after it was enacted back in 1912. Diversions upstream redirect the liquid gold to the megacities north of us and our reservoir shrinks yearly, uncovering arroyos and canyons that were submerged thirty years ago.

So, how does a gardener satisfy the joy of lush landscape while taking into consdieration a shrinking resource? Everytime the sprinklers do their wet dream dance this question opens before me like the giant peony. Attempting to be somewhat sensitive to the water issue, over the years I have modified my plant selection, choosing varieties that can survive on minimal moisture while enjoying the comfort of an oven. Yet inevitably these plants die, because like some codependent mother, I tiptoe out in the middle of the night, secretly administering additional drinks of water.

But the real root of the problem is my garden design. Water loving flowers are snuggled next to drought tolerant succulants, tall spiked liatris overshadow the dwarf cosmos. Species that grow on opposite sides of the planet suddenly find themselves in the same bed creating, what I am certain must be, a botanical nightmare.

There is an impressive xeric movement throughout the region but when I peruse through the booklet that lists all the options, my mouth gets parched, I start envisioning my yard as a back drop for Lawrence of Arabia and then I ask myself if those 600 square feet of Kentucky Blue .... that makes me oh-so happy....are going to make or break the alfalfa yield in Kansas? Besides, the Pueblo Water Board reassures me that there is plenty of water, no need for restrictions and I'm simply taking them at their word. It's just that this little cut worm keeps gnawing at inner stalk and I have to wonder how much longer can I keep harvesting the justifications of my rationalization.