"I have many different kinds of watering cans," says Jim Ray, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. "Some are small and deliver a fine spray. Some are large."

A Habitat Hero featured in the original Colorado Wildscapes book, Jim lives in Beulah, at 6,500 feet elevation in the foothills of the Wet Mountains above Pueblo. He "irrigates" his extensive wildscape garden entirely by hand, using his collection of watering cans.

"I don't carry them around. I take the hose to the bed and fill the watering can right there."

"I never water with the hose," he continues. "Watering with a can allows me to look at each plant and see how it's doing, and if it really needs water."

Adopting No/Low Watering

Jim adopted his waterwise strategy for good reason. "My water for the garden and the house all comes from a well, so I realized right away that I needed to be very careful about how much I use."

And that meant learning a whole new way of gardening. "I came from Chicago and have almost no garden plants here that I had in my old moisture-laden Midwest garden."

But it didn't mean giving up having flowers for as long a season as possible, and providing year-round habitat for wildlife, especially songbirds, and hummingbirds and other pollinators.

Low-Water Plant Favorites

Jim started out growing as many flowers and shrubs as he could find that would thrive on his low-water regime, including penstemons, agastaches, salvias, catmint, and artemisias.

Lately he's been branching out to native bunch-grasses to fill in between the flowers and cover a berm built of construction material. "They look great in winter too," he notes.

One of his favorite plants is mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus) because it stays green all year. He also loves penstemons and agastaches (hyssop or hummingbird mint) because they attract hummingbirds.

Watering Tip

Jim works through his garden section by section, watering one whole area before he moves on to the next.

"I look at the plants before I water, and if they look all right, I don't water them. When I do water, I water deeply."

Biggest Challenge

Finding plants that will thrive without supplemental water and not provide fodder for the deer. Jim says that watering only minimally actually helps make his plants less desirable to the deer. He also relies on plants deer don't prefer, including blue flax, yarrow, drought-tolerant iris, and mint and other plants with strong-smelling foliage.

Overall though, Jim loves working in his wildscape. "I even enjoy weeding and deadheading, and am always looking for ways to keep my plants blooming longer."