SANTA FE, N.M. — High Country Gardens, the industry leader in nationally distributed waterwise plants and grasses, has teamed up with SafeLawns.org to provide its subscribers with valuable resources for implementing the lawn-reform organization’s principles.

“An overall reduction of resource-taxing lawns has long been a goal of the SafeLawns Foundation,” says Paul Tukey, the national spokesperson for SafeLawns. “We’re delighted to be partnering with some of the nation’s leading experts — David Salman of High Country Gardens, among others —on plants for landscape sustainability. Their knowledge is especially important for any region, especially where water conservation issues are on the front burner.”

“We’re excited about the importance of the association’s work, particularly as it relates to making lawns organic and good for the environment,” says Salman, founder and chief horticulturist of High Country Gardens, who currently writes a four-part series, Rethinking the Traditional American Lawn, for SafeLawns’ blog. Salman has provided expert advice to gardeners through his own blog, The Xeric Gardener, for more than two years.

In step with SafeLawns’ drive to help gardeners and industry professionals consider grasses that use less water than traditional selections, like Kentucky blue grass, High Country Gardens has been introducing and breeding garden-worthy, drought-tolerant, disease-resistant plants that attract bees and other pollinators for 26 years. Pioneering waterwise, eco-friendly gardening through a popular seminar series and an award-winning catalogue, High Country Gardens recently gained more national attention for its new ornamental grass, ‘Blonde Ambition’ (Bouteloua gracilis), a blue grama grass that is “indestructible,” according to Salman.A large percentage of High Country Gardens’ plants are native, but many come from other parts of the world, like the Mediterranean, Turkey and South Africa, that have similar climates to those found in parts of North America.

The second installment of Rethinking the Traditional American Lawn, in which Salman discusses how to replace turf lawns with meadow and prairie plantings, is scheduled to go live on SafeLawns’ website today, Monday, Feb. 14. Each weekly edition, set for distribution on Mondays through the month of February, coincides with topics and promotions found in High Country Gardens’ regular e-zine.

High Country Gardens is an award-winning source for waterwise, native and adapted plants. The nationally recognized mail-order catalog is available online at http://www.highcountrygardens.com, or by calling 1-800-925-9387. In the Albuquerque area, visit the new location at 6921 Pan American Freeway NE, or call 505-867-8585.

This press release will be available on PRWeb on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011.