At this time of year, when summer sun is doing its annual roasting of central Texas, I am often thinking of the best ways to keep all of my lovely plants alive.

As gardeners we must try our hardest to conserve as much of our precious water for our landscapes as possible. Drip irrigation, without question, is the best way to accomplish this. 

The traditional approach has been to use hoses and sprinklers. Then along came the high-tech underground systems with their automatic timers, pop-up sprinkl...