1908 home – hot desert climate – west facing
We are going to have a lawn and traditional back yard flowers etc. but want to conserve water and have the front yard xeriscape.
We are thinking some large and medium pots for plants and a tree in the front yard. Then a light colored gravel. We will be popping out most of the walk way to redo it, removing existing tree and bushes, and putting up a fence to enclose the front yard. Refacing the porch with stack stone “tile”.
This will be next year so I could use any ideas on plants, layout, and anything else you can think of.
by SerenityPickles
2 Comments
See r/xeriscape, r/NoLawns and r/NativePlantGardens as well.
Find your state’s native plant society and look for the garden section in the website. Search for 1-2′ tall and wide small flowering shrubs and bunch grasses as the base. Use a small tree, many shrubs can have the skirt raised to turn into a tree. Think 4 seasons looking for fall color, late flowering and winter interest as each plant needs to pull its weight for more than a single season. Spring is easy, look out for the other seasons. Then add the spring annuals, bulbs and so on.
Could add an arch for a vine over the path leading to porch. Set the fence a bit off the sidewalk so plants can spill through a little without getting in the way. A bird bath is classic. I found a long lost sundial so my backyard has both. Front yard has an ornamental bee hotel plus a bubbling millstone fountain. Bird houses on posts would be excellent decor, maybe you could add properly designed and sited ones as well. I’ve got off the rails and have a dozen gnomes but you could easily find something more appropriate to your location. I guess I could pretend the half dozen turtles one gnome herds were tortoises for instance.
Don’t know how active your state’s native plant society is but here in California both the state and Theodore Payne Foundation host native plant garden home tours with gardens from the COVID years posted on YouTube. Not as severe a climate as yours but you can see how most folks completely cover the ground with drought tolerant plants.
Great advice above! Native plants are made to survive. A season (or less, really) of regular watering and theyre mostly set.
The best advice I received from a master gardener is do not be afraid of woody plants (trees/bushes) and its much easier to plan those out first and build around them. Trees do more for the environment than really any planting you could do. There are small understory trees that could fit in your space if you chose to do that.
I personally recommend going for mulch rather than rock as rock is messy and will super heat your plants, and doesn’t really do much for the plants in general.
Also, pots require a lot more water (potentially multiple waters a day) as a heads up.
Take this with a grain of salt OP! Just my opinions.