Golden Meadows HOA

Lemay Avenue Berms - Xeriscape - No Panacea

By: Perry Scott

I live next to Lemay and take care of the berms for GM HOA.  Occasionally, someone suggests xeriscape for some socially-beneficial reason, usually to save water or money.  That's a good motivation, but there are many other factors to consider.  I have lived along Lemay for 26 years, and cared for the GM HOA Berms and Parkways for 18 years.  Here are my observations and conversations with others.

Lemay Right-of-Way

The Lemay Right-of-Way is actually City property.  It ends at the individual homeowner's property line, roughly at the top of the hill (berm).  Since the Lemay Right-of-Way belongs to the City, GM HOA would need permission to convert it to xeriscape.  This is doubtful because the City's plan for Lemay and most major right-of-ways is to maintain a "Parks" environment.  Indeed, the City Parks Department (not Street Department) is responsible for mowing the grass.  Through some quirk of development which nobody in GMHOA or the City fully understands, GM is responsible for watering the City's grass and includes maintaining the irrigation system. 

Xeriscape and Micro-Climate

The micro-climate along Lemay causes some unique problems for xeriscape, especially during the winter months.  The fence line acts as a windbreak, slowing down the wind and causing it to dump its load of dust, snow, and weed seeds into the xeriscape along the fence.  The Lemay xeriscape rocks were installed in 1980 and silted-in by 1995.  (The Reader is forgiven for not knowing GM already has xeriscape, albeit subterranean.)  The 30-year cumulative effect is that the dust, snowmelt, and weed seeds explode into life during Spring and Summer.  The City now routinely sprays the weeds along the fence line because the xeriscape has failed to do its job.

Given the unique micro-climate along Lemay, any savings that xeriscape may provide are quickly lost to its shortened service life.  Any maintenance plan must include the amortized cost of periodic removal and replacement.  Additionally, we would need to pay to have the xeriscape weeded or sprayed every summer.  If anyone needs an appreciation of the human cost of this maintenance issue, GMHOA offers an "Adopt a Berm" program.  We are literally fighting Mother Nature on this one.

Other Maintenance Issues

There are frequent traffic accidents along the Lemay S-curves, and the car parts would have to be painstakingly removed from xeriscape.  No stone left unturned, as it were.  The grass is literally covering a host of evils.  It is not unusual for cars to end up on the parkway or berm.  There are long stretches of the parkway that have no trees because cars have killed them.  If the grass were xeriscape, it would need to be repaired frequently.

Every winter, the sidewalk snowplows manage to lose their way and "shave" off the sod.  To appreciate the effect on xeriscape, drive along the north side of the golf course along Horsetooth Road.  Xeriscape must be immediately repaired or the weeds find a place to grow.  Grass, being a living thing, rapidly expands into the "clear-cut" habitat.

Fire Prevention

Finally, Western states are prone to wildfire.  The City Plan for "parks" of green grass are natural fire breaks. It isn't just grass.  It's fire-retardant.

Conclusion

Enjoy the green along the Lemay.  It's alive and green, beautiful, and functional.  Rock is plentiful but non-renewable - strip-mined from a gravel pit and ultimately sent to a land fill.  Compared to the cost of xeriscape maintenance, water has never looked so cheap.