Are you one of those home owners who spends all winter long looking forward to the spring when you can get back to grooming your expansive lawn into its trademark velvety green state of being? Well, if you live in certain areas across the country there is getting to be more and more incentive to rethink your landscaping choices.

In some areas of drier states like Texas and Nevada, there has been the introduction of water reduction incentives for home owners and developers to use alternative landscaping to large expanses of lawn. The Environmental Protection Agency now offers a low water consumption title to new homes built that use around 20% less water than standard homes of the same size, both inside and out.

This isn't to say that the green lush lawns are dying out as a landscaping choice, the idea is that areas which are more likely to be affected by drought use landscaping in their yards with a smaller area of turf and more of the area with regional plants or other low-water options like rock gardens. It is estimated that American households use 30-70% of their household water on their yard, so it is understandable that with 36 states expecting drought conditions in the next three or four years, that the time is ripe to change landscaping trends to a less water-intensive style.

While big lawns may appeal to the nostalgia many of us feel for the grassy landscapes of our youth, it is a fact that many types of lawn grass are very water intensive, particularly when planted in dry environments that require homeowners to supplement natural moisture with regular watering. In many of these kinds of environments, a much more logical option is xeriscaping.

Xeriscaping is a method of landscaping which uses types of plants which either do not require much watering or occur naturally in that particular environment. In areas like Nevada, xeriscaping is ideal because of the desert environment, but it can also be used with great success in non-desert environments as well.

Instead of looking at the environmental trend to less grass as some kind of deprivation, try looking at it as an opportunity to plan out a truly unique landscaped yard. The less water that you're using to water your yard won't just conserve drinkable water, over the long run it can save you a lot of money as well.