My wife and I are xeriscaping our lawn - transforming it from a green sucker-of-water into a still-green landscape of native plants that require little or no water. Lawns consume a lot of water, and this is one way we can make a difference that both saves the environment and saves money.

But a xeriscaped lawn isn't always just dirt, or just brown, or even just green. Here you see the succulents we've planted in fantastic bloom, which require almost no watering during the course of the year. During the day their flowers open in a brilliant polychromatic display; at night they close up.



We've also used low-water plants and trees, either existing ones or new ones planted that will require little to no water. Unfortunately new trees require some water to get started, and so the grass that would not grow before has come back with a vengeance (as you can see in the upper left).



We've made the problem a little harder on ourselves by using reclaimed materials as much as possible, letting plants grow out to fill the space rather than buying more, planting from cuttings, using no artificial fertilizer, and using almost no artificial pesticides (other than slug pellets, which we could not avoid using as they love succulents). So it's taking some time ... we're in the start of the second year of our front yard landscaping.

But after that first year, it's starting to bear fruit. Already the result is a wonderful Seussical landscape that requires little to no watering. Who knows what it will look like after another year.

-the Centaur

Pictured: our front lawn, with closeups of the flowering succulents (grown into the space on their own), a medium shot of the path (made from reclaimed wood chips), and a long shot of the tree (saved from death with a little mulching), the path and the gardener.

Labels: We Call It Living, Your Money Is Your Voice

Aptera is the manufacturer of an innovative new aerodynamic electric car which has appeared in the press recently. Now I've had a chance to see one in real life when on Earth Day they brought a couple of their test models to the parking lot of the Search Engine That Starts With a G:



These cars will go on sale in November, starting at $25,000ish for the base electric model, something higher for a gas model, and up to $40,000 for a series gas-electric hybrid that runs entirely on its electric motors until the battery runs out, at which point a generator kicks in.



I wasn't one of the lucky few who got test drives, and the $1M prototype wasn't set up for people to sit in it, but from what I saw of the cockpit it looked comfortable. There wasn't a lot of space in the back, however:



Aptera's car is interesting in that it is a three wheeler. Part of the reason for this is aerodynamics: Aptera started with the most aerodynamic car it could and then has been adjusting it to make it more livable, rather than start with an old style car and bubblifying it.



What's fun is watching these cars drive. I saw one slicing past me on the road as I was driving up to the demonstration in my beloved but gas-guzzling Nissan Pathfinder, and it was going so fast it looked like a bat out of hell. But they're almost completely silent:



I'm not sure it's my next car - I plan to test drive a Tesla shortly. But I'm definitely thinking about it, even though it is definitely 1.0 technology that will have a few kinks to it.

The series hybrid is most intriguing to me: if you drive to and from work everyday and charge up at work or at night, the gas motor will never have to kick in. If you want to take a road trip, however, you don't have to worry about running out of power and looking for a place to charge: the generator kicks in and you can drive it like a normal car - that is, just like a super efficient normal car that gets an equivalent of a kajillion miles per gallon.

-Anthony

Labels: Electric Cars, Your Money Is Your Voice